Baby's first Christmas.

Christmas was so much fun this year! It's always fun, but having a baby around makes it a hundred times better. Elliott wasn't too into opening gifts, or even playing with them, but having him there with us for all of the festivities added so much joy. We got up early, in true Elliott fashion, and took him to see what Santa had left for him. After he had dumped out his stocking and turned the living room upside down, we opened gifts from each other as a family, before heading to my parent's house to open gifts with them and my siblings.

It started raining early Christmas morning, and it turned to snow by dinner time. This is the first snow in Little Rock on Christmas day in 80 years, so you can imagine how excited we were, until... the electricity went out. We lost power around 4:00, right as we were getting ready for Christmas dinner at my grandparent's. We quickly grabbed as much as we could before we lost daylight and headed to my parent's, who thankfully had power, to get ready.  We enjoyed a very quick dinner with my Dad's side of the family before heading back to Mom and Dad's in about 5 inches of snow! When we arrived they were without power too, but we lit the fireplace and put E to bed, and enjoyed a glass of wine by candle light before the power came back on around 10:30.

Our neighborhood wasn't so lucky, our house was without power for 48 hours, spoiling everything in our refrigerator and freezer. So, we spent 2 days at Mom and Dad's, and were forced to miss Christmas in Arkadelphia with Gary's family due to icy roads. But that didn't stop Grandma, Grandpa, Aunt Gina and Uncle Zach from seeing Elliott. They loaded up and headed to Little Rock, booking a room at the Peabody since we were still without power. Right about the time they made it here, our power came back on and we were able to spend 2 days with them before they headed home to Texas.

It's been a whirlwind week, but it's one we'll never forget... baby's first Christmas and first snow in one day! I had to wait 27 years for a white Christmas and he gets one on his first year! What a lucky little boy. Stay tuned for some super cute pictures of our little snow bunny.

Life lately, according to my iPhone:

Motley's Tree Farm

I'm behind on blogging. We've been so busy lately, I just haven't been able to keep up.  I did, however, want to share a few pictures from our trip to Motley's Tree Farm a week ago. 

We started going with the Gunnels to get our trees three years ago, and this year we got to bring Elliott. He loved taking it all in from the Baby Bjorn. I'm already looking forward to next year when baby Gunnels will be with us! 

We got the perfect tree which is now happily residing in our living room covered in our favorite ornaments and filling our home with Holiday cheer.

Life lately, according to my iPhone.

(1.) Operation Christmas Child.  (2.) Thanksgiving dinner.

(3.) Gary and Murphy. (4.) Grant family siblings.

(5.) Our fun tree. (6.) Peace. (7.) Big Santa.

(8.) Christmas tree shopping. (9.) Our real tree.

O'Christmas Tree, O'Christmas Tree.

Sunday afternoon a new tradition was born for the Grant family.  We drove to Motley's Tree Farm with Laura and Caleb and cut down our first real Christmas tree!  It was a unique experience walking the rows of beautiful trees until, bam, you see the tree you know was meant for your home.  Gary cut our tree down like a pro.  A tractor pulling a trailer with hay pulled up beside us, the boys threw our trees on, and  we headed back to the truck. 

When we got home we assembled the tree stand, filled her with water, and went to work.  I loved the time spent with Gary, listening to Christmas music (by the way the new Phil Wickham Christmas album is excellent, buy it on his website!), drinking apple cider, and trimming the tree we picked out.  It really is "the most wonderful time of the year."

Our house is ready for Christmas.  I'm looking forward to time with family, Christmas parties, Advent church services, traditions, holiday food, and everything Christmas!