............So many of my smiles begin with you.: Christmas

This year we spent Christmas up in Idaho with Clark’s family. Due to work schedules we had to drive through the night to make it out there. The best part about that was Lily slept most of the way. When we arrived outside their house we checked our phones and were informed that it was a balmy 3 degrees outside. Lovely. Though that’s not too much different from the 60 degree highs we were experiencing at home, right? Anyway, I was only there for 2 1/2 days due to the fact that I had to be back home to manage the apartments. Even so, we had a nice little trip and got to enjoy Lillian’s second Christmas with lots of family around.

Last Christmas was fun with just the three of us but Lily was still a little unaware of what exactly was going on. This year was such a blast! About a week before Christmas we made the mistake of letting Lil open our gifts from my aunt and uncle and she quickly figured out that the presents under our tree also needed to be opened. With enough distraction, however, we kept our gifts safe. Christmas morning we woke up early to talk via Skype to my brother-in-law Van who is on his mission in Germany. We then went to church for a little bit and came home to commence with opening the presents. I am lucky enough to have a husband who always gets me wonderful gifts, but the best gift I got this year was being able to see my sweet little girl open her presents. She’s not quite to the stage yet where she wants to open every gift she sees or is unhappy that there’s not more. She’s at the perfect spot that she is simply tickled pink that she gets to discover and play with something new.

I was able to catch a few of these precious moments with my camera, the first of which being my favorite. Lily had just watched her cousin open a set with a baby doll and lots of accessories, the most important part being a little stroller, over which the two of them immediately began a tug of war. I let grandpa know that it was absolutely necessary to now open the baby stroller we had gotten for Lily before things got any worse. I grabbed my camera a little too late, so the picture is blurry, but I managed to capture the look of pure joy on Lily’s face as she realized that she too had her own little stroller. I don’t think I have ever seen her open her mouth so wide or for so long :)