Journey: Christmas Part 2

"The Stockings were hung by the chimney with care."

Christmas Eve has always been one of my favorite nights of the year! Spending time with my family and enjoying our traditions was something I was looking forward to sharing with David! We enjoyed a very busy few days leading up to Christmas and David really enjoyed being at home!
Christmas Eve we packed up all our goodies and headed to my parents house. One of my favorite things about Christmas Eve is that we all spend the night at my parents house. This year it was a squeeze with 11 of us spending the night. We were so happy to have Yilin with us! Yilin is a former international student from Baylor who my parents were "Welcome Family" for several years ago. Yilin is working on her phd right now at Columbia and this is the second time she has spent Christmas with us.

The Tree!

One of our traditions is a dinner of spaghetti and oyster stew. I'm not sure how this started but it's what we've done since I can remember. Maybe it's a North Carolina thing since that's where I spent every Christmas growing up. I've never tried the stew but the spaghetti is always delish! We also enjoy treats before bedtime including yummy green punch!
After dinner we take pictures (no shock there) and we open a few gifts. This year we enjoyed some music provided by Drew on guitar and Hannah on piano. David loves to sing and dance so it was perfect for him. A newer tradition is making reindeer dust with oatmeal and glitter. The night ended with story time and David was ready for bed though he was a little confused and excited about staying at Papa and GiGi's house.
It was a perfect night and David had a wonderful time!!

Yilin and David

LOVE!! David getting his first lessons on guitar from Drew.

Incredible grandparents and 4 lucky grandkids!

Our family!

The Segura/Cates/Gochis clan!

Reindeer dust

Journey: Christmas part 1

What a wonderful Christmas this has been!! We have had so much fun introducing David to all our special traditions. I have lots of pictures to share so I'll start with some before Christmas pictures.
Last week I took a day off from school to get some things done, sometime you just need a day off! We took advantage and picked David up early and took him to see Santa. We had talked to him about Santa and had read some books so I think he was prepared. Lucky for us we were the only ones there at the time! David wasn't scared but he wasn't really interested in him. The Santa was really nice and we got a good picture which is really the reason we went :)
After seeing Santa we took David to see his first movie! I love Disney movies so I was excited that a new one was out at this time. Frozen was great!!! I loved it, especially the music. David thought it was pretty fun to be in the theater. He loved the popcorn, really loved it! He did great through the movie until the last 15 minutes then he declared that it was "bye-bye" time. He curled up with Daddy and we made it through. What an awesome, awesome day!!!

Journey: 8 Months

Today marks our 8 month anniversary with David. The past 8 months have flown by and it's so hard to believe that last year at this time all we had was a picture of our precious boy. I tried to imagine what it would be like to have a son at Christmas, the wonder and excitement! We've had a fabulous time so far and David is loving the season!
David is finally gaining some weight and has grown taller as well. He's now fitting into his 24 months clothes which makes this momma happy. He is still a good eater and isn't too picky though he isn't a lover of veggies unless it's tomatoes. His language is coming along and it seems like each day he's using new words. He is now stringing words together and using lots of inflection.
He continues to love school and is learning a lot there. David loves to dance and sing and he enjoys dancing with Hannah when they're together. He loves time with his cousins and enjoyed our time in Lubbock for Thanksgiving. David is still a good sleeper and for that we are thankful :) His favorite toys are cars and trucks, he's all boy! When we're out and about he is very good at pointing out big trucks and buses. He enjoys riding his tricycle and being outside. He loves to help out and bring things in from the car or go out and help bring in the mail. I could go on and on but instead here are some pictures :) Enjoy!!!