Christmas Continues: Christmas Morning

Daddy brings Clara down on Christmas morning...

And shows her what Santa brought!

It's a musical table!  Perfect for this baby who is only interested in standing these days.

She checks it out and decides it's pretty fun!

 Looks like Santa stuffed the stockings, too....

Big Daddy helps Rufus open his stocking...

And Sweet Mama helps Clara open hers...

 Santa always puts toothbrushes in our stockings, even if you don't have any teeth yet.  Clara loved hers.

What?  A second stocking from Mama K and Daddy Bob?!  How fun!!!

Now it's time to dig in to unwrapping some presents...

 It's another fun standing toy!

 Thanks, Big Daddy and Sweet Mama!

The best part of Christmas morning was having all four grandparents here to celebrate Clara's first Christmas. How we will treasure this!!

Big Daddy helps Rufus with a few more puppy presents...

 And Daddy helps Clara open another few presents...

It's a bear hat!  So cute!

She loves books!  Thanks, Mama K!!

Mama gave Clara a "junk box" filled with stuff from the dollar store (she doesn't know the difference, right?).  The silicone basting brush was the biggest hit.

Sweetest puppy in the world...

Despite getting more presents than any nine month old really needs, Clara really just wants Rufus' toys.  Poor puppy...

After a fun day of being together in our own home for Christmas, at bedtime we headed up to Beech Mountain to do it all again with Sweet Mama, Big Daddy, Uncle Trey, Aunt Jennifer and Cousin Caroline.  Next post: Christmas at Beech Mountain!

 Stay tuned!

Christmas Continues: Christmas Eve

While most people have packed up their Christmas decorations and taken down the tree, ready to ring in the new year with diets and other new year's resolutions, Christmas will continue here at The Hardy Life for a few more days.  I haven't posted in awhile, but don't worry, I've been busy snapping photos of baby's first Christmas and I am ready to share.

It was a blessed Christmas for us, from start to finish.  Not only were we incredibly grateful to be celebrating the miracle of Clara's life, but we got to spend lots of wonderful time with family and had some time to stop and reflect on the blessing of Jesus' birth.

So, first things first.... Christmas Eve!!

This was the first year in I don't know how long (ever?) that I didn't go to a Christmas Eve service.  Our family has traditionally done the candlelight service at our church and Robert and I have made it a tradition to go to a Moravian Lovefeast together (if you're not from Winston-Salem and don't know about the Moravian Lovefeast, you should look it up.  It's one of the most simple, powerful, beautiful services ever - rich with tradition and love and fellowship.  It makes my Christmas every year.).  But between feeding and napping and pumping schedules, we just couldn't quite figure out how to make it work this year.  So, there was no church service, but that doesn't mean we didn't have fellowship.

First of all, Robert's parents came up to spend Clara's first Christmas with us.  All day Christmas Eve Clara got to play with Mama K and Daddy Bob and she was in heaven (I think they might have been, too.)  We're so grateful to them for being willing to come up and spend some time with us here.

Our other Christmas Eve tradition for as long as I can remember is to have dinner with our friends the Jacksons.  Since we've all become "grown-ups" and are coordinating more complex Christmas schedules, the meal the past few years has been moved to another night in December when we could all be home.  But this year it worked out for us to gather again on Christmas Eve and Aunt Trina hosted us for a wonderful meal.  It was great to have Clara experience her first Davis-Jackson Christmas, and made even sweeter by the fact that her Hardy grandparents got to join in, too.

We didn't get a good group shot, but here are a few photos of our evening together.

Clara opens a gift from Aunt Trina, with the help of Big Daddy and Daddy Bob

She's been making this face a lot lately.  Not sure what that's about, but it's adorable.

Yay!!  It's a book!

Oh, what a spread.  Trina does it right.

Clara and Sweet Mama

 It's always our tradition to have a Happy Birthday Baby Jesus cake for dessert...

This one was from Dewey's.  Yum, yum.

And Clara got to blow out the candles this year! (With a little help, of course...)

Clara opened her first present of Christmas.  (Spoiler: it was her Christmas jammies.  Evidence of them coming in the next post... Christmas Morning)

Mommy's Favorite Gift

Last year this time I was having a really hard time getting excited about Christmas.  It was strange.  I've always loved everything about Christmas.  I love the decorations and the music and the candles.  I love the stories and the cookies and the gatherings with friends and family.  I love the worship of Baby Jesus' birthday.   I know it's superficial and commercial and not the real "reason for the season" or whatever, but here's my confession: I love presents.  Even as an adult, I love making lists of things I might ask Santa for, and I've always really loved thinking of, shopping for, and making gifts for people I love. But last year all I could think about was Clara.  Any time someone asked me what I wanted for Christmas, all I could think was, "I want my baby to live."

Of course, nobody could promise me that last year.  At that time, we just didn't know.  But here we are, a year later, and that Christmas wish did come true.  Oh boy, did it come true.

 Christmas this year is really better than we could even let ourselves imagine last year this time.

No package could match this package

And no bow could be cuter than these:

Whether she's coming or going...

(And these days it's one or the other!)

Or just hanging out...

No other gift could remind us more of God's mercies and grace come miraculously to earth in the form of a little baby.

Amen.



bonus feature - more Clara chasing Rufus....

She sees you, Rufus!  Watch out!

down for the crawl!

"Uhh, uhhh, uhhhhh.... scoot scoot" 

One more scoot!

And he escapes again.