Christmas time recap

Wow, hard to believe the holiday season has come and gone! We had a lovely time, much of it spent as just our little family of three. But also a little time with the Bubar side (those photos to come later) although Lucy didn't sleep at their house in the pack n play, long story, so we left after one night :( So great to see my brother and his family and have a little time with them in Michigan. We were able to relax a lot as well and just enjoy these special moments together, especially as everything was a first for the little Lucy girl! We celebrate with the Jones family on New Years day and we also are attending a wedding tonight, so that will be a lot of fun! Hope you all had a very merry Christmas and a wonderful New Year celebration as well. So much to be thankful for this year, especially the birth, life and death of our Savior, Jesus and His gift of salvation to all who believe <3 Here is a sampling of what we have been up to: Snowy walk

Wearing fun outfits from a special friend

Cartoons:

Cookies:

After church pictures

Opening presents:

Playing with xmas gifts:

Loving our ornaments:

Family Photoshoot

These photos were taken by Mike Herbert (a former youth group student of ours who now attends Columbia College in Chicago) in October and we are SO happy with them! A junior high kiddo came with Mike and he helped A LOT with getting smiles out of the Lucy girl. I will post a bunch, just to warn you :) And Lucy is 8 months in these photos! Enjoy!

Firsts.....

Well as of 11/26, Lucy has her very first tooth!

As of 12/8, Lucy now stands up in her crib...


And as of 12/9 she has played in her first snow fall!!





This just in:
She now claps and does other funny things with her hands, which I try to convince Joe that they mean something...but not really :)
Also she is getting really good at mimicking sounds - sniffles, sighs, etc...
very cute :)

Christmas Decorating!

I just LOVE getting the tree up, stringing the lights, putting up the ornaments while drinking cocoa and listening to Christmas music. THE.BEST.
It was extra special this year because the little lady was there - and she makes everything merry & bright... :)

We also had to rearrange the furniture this year to get our HUGE tree up...why does it look average size out in the big field and gigantic in our home?? Even in the coach house, we would put up a huge tree. I just love Christmas, so I guess big trees are necessary? :) I love our tree this year. It smells wonderful, is healthy and fresh and looks verry beautiful - 100,000 times better than our dead tree from the lot last year...Never.again.

Here are some photos of the girl decorating the tree and the new set up in the living room & dining room.
MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

Thanksgiving

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving this year - our first with the girl! :) We started out in Glen Ellyn and had our big meal with the Jones family - all the sibs & little cousins (nieces) and aunt/uncle/cousins. It was a lot of fun & we had some great evenings all together before thanksgiving day too. It was SO fun having all the little girl cousins together and loved seeing them all in matching PJ's and of course the highlight of the week was learning that we have 2 new nephews - Don and Sara's twin boys!! Ahhh, what a great week it was!!
Then Lucy and I got to see my Grandma Bubar who was in town and then we all headed over to Michigan later on Friday and stayed until Saturday evening. We had a great time there - Lucy went on her first carousel ride, we walked on the pier, cut down our Christmas tree and had a great meal together as well.
So thankful for family and for our wonderful times together!
Here are some photos: