Christmas #1

One of the fun parts about being married is that you get to celebrate Christmas twice. Our first Christmas celebration was from my side of the family, and we will have Christmas #2 with Troy's side on Christmas day. We opened presents from my family a little early to spread out the festivities and not completely overwhelm Blake on Christmas day.

My mom got Blake the same B'Jolly outfit that he had last year, only in a 12 mos. size instead of a newborn size. Here he is on his first Christmas, only a few weeks old, and on his second Christmas, one year later.

Our tree and our little elf.

Blake is fascinated with the ornaments. In fact, he likes to take them off the tree and put them in his ball popper. Luckily, they are light enough to not get stuck in the ball popper.

He also is mesmerized with our Santa countdown calendar. He whines all day long to be picked up so he can ring Santa's bell and feel his beard.

Blake is checking out those elf feet. He is not happy that he cannot pull them off.

One of Blake's favorite presents is a little electronic keyboard. In this picture, he is pressing the yellow button. This is not surprising because it is the only button he ever pushes. The buttons play different clips of pop music, so, we hear "Wide Open Spaces" by the Dixie Chicks about one hundred times a day.

It is a tradition in our family to give some prank gifts. I have always wrapped the presents that my dad gave to my mom, and one year, my dad told me that all of her presents were in the trunk of his car. Not only did I wrap the presents I found in the trunk, but I wrapped the "junk from the trunk" as well. Empty talk tape cases, paper towel rolls, jumper cables, half-empty nut containers, etc. So now, it is a tradition to give "junk from the trunk" presents.

I felt bad this week as all of our neighbors were snow blowing their driveways and Troy was shoveling with the shovel we bought at a neighbor's garage sale for one dollar. So, I made him a "power shovel," my own rendtion of "junk from the trunk." He came home from work and immediately changed to go out and shovel, and I said, "You're not going to be able to do that right now." He eventually noticed the very "discreetly" wrapped shovel under the tree. I had duct taped an extension cord on to the shovel to make it a "power shovel."

And, just in case the electricity went out, I included this back-up generator. I'm not sure if Troy was too amused, but I sure had fun wrapping up the prank gift!

This was actually a birthday gift but Blake loves his truck!

He pushes it around the house, but often gets stuck when he runs into things. He hasn't figured out how to turn it around yet.

Merry Christmas #1, and thank you to my family for the wonderful gifts!