Merry Christmas and Happy 1st Birthday Gideon!

The holiday season always fills my heart with gratitude. We have so much to be grateful for!  It's a season to remember Jesus Christ, his birth, and his life. His selflessness and compassion for others. His generous heart and sacrifices for others. After Christmas we celebrated the gift of another life, as Gideon had his first birthday on the 28th. What a blessing it is to have him in our lives!  How fortunate we are that the Lord trusts us with the care of his little one. How glad we are that he is in good health and spirits. And then to round off the season with the New Year, the opportunity to look back on the year and see all the blessings we've been given and to reflect on the future and make goals. For me, the New Year is also a religious holiday, because it is only with the Atonement that we are given the opportunity to repent, change, and become better. It is one of the gifts we give our Lord to be the best we can be and the New Year encourages us to take advantage of that. May we all be a little better this next year than we were the last!

Gideon had a lot of fun with his birthday cupcake, although he wasn't sure about the candle. He has gotten very good at opening presents over the past week and was excited to rip open his presents. Even the card envelopes got opened like they were gift wrapped!

Happy Thanksgiving!

 We had some fun times this Thanksgiving Holiday. It was nice to have a break for Trevor since he's been working so hard. On the left there, they're spending some time reading together one morning. On the left you can see that it started to get chilly. We've wrapped Gideon up with layer upon layer to keep him warm.

 We had a lovely Thanksgiving at my mother's parents house. This particular picture is of Trevor helping Gideon sample the pumpkin pie, which is one of Trevor's favorite foods, especially during the holidays.

At the end of the night, we dabbled in the Black Friday (Black Thursday? Black Thanksgiving?) shopping and were able to get some much needed things for the house to put under our Christmas tree (which we probably won't put up until a week or two before Christmas since our little fellow is so curious about everything he shouldn't touch).
 We have so much to be grateful for. The Lord has been very generous with us in giving us lots of loving family and friends and each other. I hope you all had a great holiday season!