Baby's first Christmas: Part 1

Christmas was wonderful this year! Having our son made it even more exciting. He's still too young to fully understand what was going on, but I think he knew something important was happening.

I'm going to write about Christmas in two posts. Part one will be Christmas with my family. Part two will be Christmas with my husband's family. We started off the celebrations with Christmas Eve dinner at home with my grandparents and some extended family. After that we went to my family's house for a Christmas sleepover.

Christmas pjs in front of the tree.

Christmas has always been one of my favorite holidays to spend with my family because of our fun traditions. We have a sleepover and then make up a song which we sing at the top our lungs to get our parents up. (This year my husband, son and I slept in the basement, so we woke up to a phone call from my siblings singing the song they wrote.) We also line up youngest to oldest at the top of the stairs and take a picture while my dad goes to see if the Grinch came. :) 

Our son wasn't awake when we took the picture the first time, so we recreated it after. :)

Another one of my favorite traditions is the spiritual gift that we open before we open the other presents. This gift is to help us focus on the Savior and His birth, which is what we truly celebrate. This year we didn't open an actual gift, but we watched the new nativity video from the LDS Church. The video is below for your enjoyment. I really like this new video because it captures more of Mary's experience as she took on the role of being the mother of Jesus Christ. With this as my first Christmas as a mom, I felt more connected to her and what she must have felt.

After the video we opened presents. 

We always do stockings first. Kiddo got a fun lion puppet washcloth. 

We made our son a kerplunk toy for Christmas.
There are jar lids inside that he can drop into the hole at the top.

He loved the bright colors of the wrapping paper.

Having fun in his exersaucer from Grandma and Grandpa.

We got and gave a lot of fun presents. Mom scored on some new sweaters for me, and my parents got my husband a subscription to "Foreign Affairs." After presents we went to my in-laws to Skype with his sister who is on a mission in Honduras. (I'll write more about this in part two.)

After a wonderful Christmas day, we had dinner with my family and then spent one more night there. We spend the day after Christmas doing puzzles, playing games and racing Mario Karts (one of my favorite holiday activities). We also took our son sledding for the first time!

He didn't react much, but it was a lot of fun!

Welcome to our blog!

So I've taken the plunge and become a blogger. Watch out world! :)

I'm excited to be able to continue writing and use this blog to share our life adventures. Right now, this blog will be to share fun stories and thoughts with family and friends. As I get it going I want to post fun craft ideas, recipes and book recommendations. I hope you'll enjoy it!

My husband and I have been wanting to start a family blog for a while, and we came up with the name "The Spirit of Adventure" based off of one of our favorite movies: Disney/Pixar's "UP!" We love this movie because it shows that even in hardships we can find happiness and love. Adventure will be the loose theme of this blog, so I thought I'd share a little more about my philosophy on adventures. :)

Life is an adventure. Aka, it's not going to be easy, but we'll learn a lot, make memories, laugh and cry, and become all-around better people. In my experience so far, life is boring without adventures. If you think about most popular movies and books, they all include an adventure, whether it's a quest to find a hidden treasure or a journey of self-discovery. The suspense and excitement lies in wondering if the hero of the story will succeed.

My own story to this point has included many adventures: going to college, getting married, buying a car, handling job loss, starting our family, discovering the type of woman I want to be, and the list continues. Through all my adventures (and they have not been easy), the main thing that keeps me going is my relationship with God.

God is my anchor in life when the ocean gets rough, and I get to the point in my adventure when I'm ready to give up. He helps me in so many ways whether it's something small like a beautiful sunset or something bigger like providing guidance in a huge life decision. I know He is with all of us on our adventures during the times when we're on top of the world, winning our battles and feeling great. But He's also there during the times when we've been beaten, lost someone we love, and want to give up.

Finding God in your life is part of the adventure.

As my husband and I often say when we have a new challenge, "It will be an adventure." :) We look forward to the challenge and the growth. We do the best we can always working with each other and with God. We're writing our family's life story (figuratively and literally) and hope that in sharing it with you, we can help you to find joy and happiness on your own adventure.