Christmas Traditions

With the purchase of our first home this year and the anticipated arrival of our baby girl in just a few short months, we're feeling like true blue adults! Isn't it strange when that happens? All of the sudden you look around and think, when did this become my life? One minute your only real concern is dragging yourself to your 8am lecture on time, and the next minute you're discussing life insurance policies and crib safety with your husband. 

Recently I've been feeling the strong urge to nest and prepare our space for our growing family, so this year it was important to me that we start some Christmas traditions of our own. We hosted Christmas eve with Keane's family and made holiday memories at our house. We cooked together, drank hot chocolate, opened presents, and went on a frigid walk around our neighborhood.

The next two pictures require a little back story so here it goes. When I was 19, I made one of my many treks down to southern Colorado to visit Keane at school. When I arrived, I realized I had forgotten my running shoes and we were planning to play tennis. Being the poor college kids that we were, we drove to Walmart and bought the cheapest shoes we could find, knowing they would only be worn once. It just so happened they were also the ugliest shoes we could find, and strongly resembled geriatric orthopedics.

Anyway, each Christmas since then Keane or his family have been wrapping up the heinous shoes and surprising me with them under the tree. Every year I fall for the trick yet again and open the box to find the black, velcro shoes in all their glory.

This year as I opened the infamous box, I discovered an extra little surprise. Matching baby geriatric orthopedics! 

I feel a mother-daughter photo shoot is in my future. 

This is the first year that Keane and I have had a mellow, relaxing Christmas morning by ourselves. We slept in, taking full advantage of the calm before the storm while this little chickie is still in my tummy. We woke up to a blanket of snow on the ground which is always my wish for Christmas morning. Opening presents in our pajamas while listening to holiday music and sipping hot coffee was so perfect I could have cried.

In the spirit of the season, Keane shaved his face for the first time in over a year, leaving only a "holiday mustache." His words, not mine. 

I appropriately called him Ron Jeremy for the remainder of the day. 

Later that afternoon, we went to my brother and sister-in-law's house and spent time with these munchkins. It's so much fun to see the excitement of the holidays through their eyes! My poor sister and her family weren't able to make it because they were stuck at home with the stomach flu :(

I hope everyone enjoyed their holiday celebrations and had some relaxing time away from work. We are spending this weekend painting the baby's room and getting things organized. It's all becoming so real!