Bekah's First Christmas

And so, Bekah's first Christmas had finally arrived. Looking back, I feel like this Christmas was the perfect display of God's love for all of us and the amazing family and friends that He has surrounded us with. A baby just brings out the best in everything and having Bekah this Christmas helped me to even more so, see the true meaning of this time of year, where I focused so much more on all the things that truely matter. After this Christmas Zack and I also happily agreed that because we love our families so much and love being around them, SA just might have to be the place for him to set up practice, how could we stay away from so much goodness??? : )

Being the "clothes horse" that she is, Bekah had to make sure she had her 3 favorite Christmas outfits ready to go:

Her Rudolph onesie that I loved making for her, thanks Amy for the tip!

I especially love the bow that she wore Bam Bam style, on the top of her head:

(teehee, I love her expression here, like "what you looking at willis???)

Her special Christmas Eve outfit that Pops got her from Germany:

And my personal favorite, her smocked Christmas dress that I am hoping we can let the hem down to wear again, next Christmas! She wore this on Christmas Day.

To kick off our holiday, we went to the ranch for a few days. Here Bekah recovered from her illness, what a great place to heal up!

Thanks Cloud Nine for making me feel better, I'm off to San Antonio!

( isn't her hair funny?? it doesn't stick up anymore, guess she left that in SA!)

First stop, Miss Paige's very own dance studio, Trilogy! Bekah and I are sooo proud of Miss Paige and what she has done with her new business! If we lived in SA we would be regulars at the Mommy and Me class! Since they didn't have classes the day we came, we got a private tour! And as you see, she had to wear her toulle and ballet slipper leggings!

Bekah loved it! She decided she needed to show off her crawling to Miss Paige, hopefully convincing her that her gracefull movements could one day lead to lovely dancing.

She was especially interested in the pretty baby in the mirror!

This may sound silly, but there is a place in her nursery, begging for a low mirror and a ballet bar! After seeing her that day, I am thinking that is in her future somewhere, I just think she would have so much fun looking in the mirror and pulling up on the bar! And it wouldbe perfect in her nursery, decoration wise!

Thanks Miss Paige, when we come back to SA, we will hope to be one of your star pupils!

This Chrismas was so fun for so many reasons, one, being we thought alot about traditions we wanted to start, such as reading the Christmas Story from the bible and reading the Night Before Christmas on Christmas Eve.

Just as I was telling Zack how I forgot to pack our Night Before Christmas to start our tradition of reading it to Bekah on Christmas Eve, May May asked us if Bekah wanted to open up an early Christmas Eve gift, and what do you know, the Jan Brett version!

Since we didn't have room to pack too many of her toys, we often found her playing with her carseat, it was great! What a practical toy!

Christmas Eve was here and we took our family pic in front of my parents tree:

There is a pic of me and my mom in front of the tree, on my first Christmas that I have always looked forward to duplicating with my baby girl, so here we are:

Looking at these pics really make me want to cry, I love her so much! What a full circle!

We went to the Christmas Eve service at the church we were married at with both of our families. Here are the Burkharts:

Bekah was wonderfull the entire service as long as she had a warm lap and a good book to look at!

After church, Bekah was grateful to spend Christmas Eve with her great grandpa and my side of the family at my Aunt Robin's house. She really liked those glasses of his!

And look at her cute cousins ( 2nd : ) ) Mackenzie and Teagan! They are having their Christmas Eve dinner the way kids should, shirtless so as not to get our pretty church outfits dirty!

Now, since Bekah's dress took about 10 minutes to put on ( apron, buttons, tights, vest . .), we decided to cross our fingers and hope for the best:
Gotta love that chair!

After church and dinner, we came back to May May and Grandpa's house to read the Christmas story from the bibleand then, the Night Before Christmas:

We even opened up another present, her winter coat! Now, this is not the most flattering picture of her, but I had to post it because this is how she feels about her coat, she HATES putting it on! Even now, after doing it for awhile it really irks her!

And then, Christmas morning had finally arrived . . .

Bekah woke up and wanted to put her Christmas hat on ASAP, to look like Grandpa:

Thanks for my very own stocking May May!

Crawling her way to the tree, hmm . . which one should we open first?

Can I open this one mom?

Santa was very concerned about her "dollie supply" and gave her a Christmas Dollie as back up

(d0n't worry, we now have a total of 4 Dollies in case we loose one, thanks to May May!)

And a pink fluffy bear suit to wear in Colorado!

The best of all, her very own red wagon!

Thanks Grandpa! There is even a sippy cup holder in it!

Even Charlie wanted to take a spin:
(not really, his tail was between his legs the whole time!)

For Christmas Lunch, the Frolows and Jeff and Rani drove in. Aunt Rani loves to help Bekah eat her meals, here she is eating her Christmas Day meal of, what I am sure is fruit of some sort:

Congrats to Ryan and Allegra, they got engaged over the winter break! So happy to have you in our family Allegra!

Pam, Kath and Igor: wouldn't be a Christmas without them!

Rani and the owner of Charlie's new favorite lap, Jeff

Aunt Rani was excited to have her name added to the May Family Christmas Tree. We are so lucky to have you in our family Rani! (We haven't added Bekah's name yet, next year!)

Then we headed to Gramommy's and Pops. First we opened stockings and surprise balls:

( surprise balls for those of you who don't know are one of my favorite things Zack's family does at Christmas, it is where "Nora the Elf" wraps up little stocking stuffers and trinkets in a tightly wound ball of a whole package of crepe paper, and then, as you unwind it, they all fall out slowly, so fun!)
Bekah kept busy playing with one of Zack's old toys while we unwound surprise balls:

Wearing our stocking goodies:

( which included comb tiarras, a sock thingy that you put on your arm giving you a tough guy tatoo look . . .

. . . . tiny bibles you can only ATTEMPT to read with a magnifying glass, finger puppets, shot glasses and lots of chocolate! )

Bekah made it through the stockings, but was out by the time we headed over to the tree, she found the perfect shoulder to sleep on:

The Burkhart Family at the table full of presents, as you can see, Zack was still feeling cool in his doo rag Santa gave him:

Even though this has not been "charlie's year", Santa still remembered him with some good reading and a nice decorative pillow:

Soon after all of our eating/christmas present opening, we had to get crackin on our packing : ) for our ski trip that we left for the very next day! More on Bekah's first plane flight and what she thought of the snow next post, I'll give you a breather after this already much too long post!