Christmas!

Well, it's here! Christmas is upon us! This is a year of changes and firsts for us, and this will be my first Christmas away from home in 27 years! Yes, that makes me sad... But, as I've done with this entire move, I've tried to be positive and make the best of it. I hear often from my friends that they can't believe how busy I am here or how I'm always talking about someone new or something new. I tell them the same thing every time...I keep so busy because I have to! It is what has made this whole move doable. When we first learned about the move, I decided I can do one of two things. I can be miserable and constantly think about how much I miss home; or I can "bloom where I am planted," as Heidi told me. So, knowing we wouldn't be able to make it home for the holidays, I went on a mission to make the most of this time of the year and started asking everyone I knew about traditions they grew up with so that we could start our own family traditions. Here are the plans for us today and tomorrow:

Jarrod is working today, but will be home around 3 hopefully. We're making a roast for dinner, one of the firsts for us. We're going to make green beans, mashed potatoes, salad, and cornbread. To make it simple, we just bought an apple pie for dessert, but we're going to take it up a notch and top it with Dulce de Leche ice cream! Then, Gavin will get to open one gift tonight (which happens to be the PJs Aunt Sandy bought for him so he can sleep in new jammies for Christmas) and we'll do stockings.

Tomorrow, we're going to begin another tradition, or so I hope. We're going to make homemade cinnamon rolls. I've never claimed to be Betty Crocker, so let's just say I hope these turn out. It was quite an adventure in the grocery store trying to find yeast! I had no idea what it even looked like. We'll open gifts from Santa, and we're just going to relax, play with new toys, and eat snacks all day. I'm going to make a pizzeria cheeseball, my rainbow salsa, some pinwheels, beer bread and dip.

So, now on to the pictures. I thought we'd celebrate Christmas with a look at our tree and some of my favorite ornaments. The thing I love most about decorating our tree is that it really tells a story. We get an ornament for all the places we visit; we have personalized ornaments for all the places we've lived; ornaments are on the tree for all the big moments in our life together. And now, we'll have an ornament added every year for Gavin and any future children we have. Here are some of my favorites! One of many wedding ornaments we have. I love this one because I love that picture of the two of us!
An ornament from one of our stops on our Alaskan cruise honeymoon. Our first house! I love this ornament because it was our first Christmas in our home, and we had just found out that we were expecting our little boy! No one knew the name, so we had it personalized with 'Baby Pate.' And of course, Shirley's name is on there, too!

Just like our wedding, we have quite a few "Baby's 1st Christmas" ornaments. This is my favorite, though, because it's from Gigi. We celebrated Christmas a few weeks early with her last year, and this ornament was in the stocking she gave to Gavin. It brought back a lot of memories this year when we unwrapped it. Miss you, Grandma.
Of course, for Gavin!

Can't forget our first "child," Shirley!

And no matter where we end up, we'll always be Buckeyes at heart! :)

Ooops...not an ornament, but he sure is a cutie!

This year's ornament for Gavin is of Handy Manny. He really likes the show on Disney. When I put it on the tree, he immediately tried to take it off.

Merry Christmas, everyone. We love and miss you all and can't wait until we can be together again and celebrate together.