Merry Christmas!

We have had a great holiday season this year.  Everything is better when you have someone new with whom to enjoy it.  We've had a few fun events we participated in at the end of 2010... One was our church Christmas party in which Sean played Santa for the kids.  He did a great job - all the parents thought he was a very good Santa, and how often do you get a Santa that can talk to the kids in English, Spanish, and Albanian.  Asher didn't even know it was his dad!! :) We also went to the Festival of Lights at the temple and saw the Hand Bell Choir perform.  They did pretty well!

Asher’s first Christmas was great!  After making the 7 hour trip to Albany, NY, we joined Sean’s family for Christmas.  I was dreading the drive with Asher, but surprisingly enough, he did rather well.  He slept most of the way with only a couple episodes of crying, easily remedied by a bottle, and the trip was otherwise uneventful. Thank goodness!!

Asher’s aunties, Shannon, Mei Lin, and Kaia, were able to meet him for the first time, as was Sean’s dad, Papa T :)  Unfortunately, due to the disruption of his routine by the car ride, Asher wasn’t at his best for the visit.  We thought he just wanted his Grammy to remember him, so he resorted to the way he was the last time she came to visit us within those first 6 weeks of his life :)  haha.  After a couple of days, he seemed to calm down, and his smiling, happy personality came back for all to see. 



I believe Shannon's words as we took this picture were: "Mine, He's All Mine!!!"



Happy picture with Aunties Kaia & Mei Lin, and then...



"Ewww gross!  Take him away!!"



While he didn’t quite get the whole Christmas concept, we all had fun opening his fun presents and enjoying the day of relaxing, football, and eating lots of good food. 

One little kink in our trip was the impending blizzard that was moving up the east coast.  We had to postpone our departure date.  Though, it was really nice to have one more day with Sean’s family before we leave the country! 

*Side note* We enjoyed Christmas afternoon with a family who had recently moved to NY from Texas.  This was their first time seeing snow, and it was so much fun to see their excitement!  By the way, I have decided I love Texans.  While I’ve had my doubts with all the Texan pride I encountered in college, I have definitely changed my mind and would even consider living there one day if we had to!  So friendly, so nice :)  Thank you Texas for producing such good people!

We had our first Christmas in NY, but the day we drove home, we celebrated a second Christmas in Maryland.  It was another fun day filled with food, family, presents and good times.  Asher slept through the opening of most of his presents, but we got some good pictures while he was awake :)

"What is it? What is it?  I'm so excited!  I just can't wait to see what's inside!"

 



Christmas just wore him out :)



 Merry Christmas Everyone!!