Gerrit had his newborn photos taken by FootSteps Photography a few days after he turned two weeks old. They usually get taken earlier than this, but I was concerned that Gerrit would look really yellow because of his jaundice and pushed them back a bit. As usual, I had no reason to worry. 🙂
We started out with some family photos. They turned out really sweet, despite how tired we were!
I love all the photos of little Gerrit! Amanda was so patient with him when he got fussy and has such a way with babies. I love that she is also a mom, so I trusted her with Gerrit while getting a much-needed break. This next one makes me laugh every time…
Our little man!
I really wanted some photos with Andrew’s military uniform, since that’s a big part of our lives right now.
The next photo is one of my favorites! I love that his hands are over his heart. We also took some holiday photos for our Christmas card. I crocheted the ornament hat Gerrit is wearing. 🙂
Here are a few more photos with hats that I crocheted when I was pregnant:
This next one is Andrew’s favorite. We got a canvas made of this one that will be going somewhere in our next house!
I love this next one and hope to put it in Gerrit’s nautical nursery.
I know I shared a lot of photos, but I think they all are just so cute! I know Gerrit is going to grow and change so quickly, and I will love looking back at these moments when he was just a tiny newborn.
True to form, I could fall asleep the night before Christmas. I told you, I get really excited about this holiday! I was exhausted from baking Christmas Eve, but that didn’t seem to help me fall asleep any faster. Christmas seems to make me 8 years old again, every single year!
My mom always made some sort of Christmas breakfast for us. Obviously, my mom wasn’t around to do that this year, so I had picked out a yummy frittata to try. I had already torn up bread for the soft bread crumbs, and I had chopped the vegetables the night before, so this was pretty quick and easy to throw together. We opened presents while it was baking.
A present from my parents
While I was getting the frittata out of the oven and on plates, Andrew made mimosas!
Frittata & mimosa... that hits the spot!
I told Andrew that this is what I wanted for one of our traditions: Christmas morning brunch with mimosas (orange juice for future kids!) and coffee and…
He's a mean one... Mr. Grinch!
…watching one of my favorite Christmas movies! It was such a great Christmas morning, I really couldn’t complain about being away from home. After we relaxed together for awhile, I went to finish that gingerbread cheesecake, and Andrew did some cleaning for me.
Another tradition I hope we continue? Always having a full table for Christmas dinner. Being in a different country, we weren’t going to have our family with us for the holiday. But neither were a lot of our friends here. So we had two other couples over for dinner. Andrew did most of the meal: he grilled prime rib and roasted vegetables for a side dish. So I decided I was making an appetizer:
These are called Caprese Skewers, and I found the recipe on Pinterest. Appetizers are often kind of tedious to make, but these came together fairly quickly! I thought they were absolutely delicious, and we only had a few left over. Plus they’re in Christmas colors — what more could you want? 🙂
Andrew’s dinner was fantastic! Everything tasted wonderful, and I’m pretty sure no one left hungry!
If you would like the recipe for the grilled ratatouille that we had, let me know, but here is a very similar one from Bobby Flay. The only big difference in ours was some sherry vinegar. See all of those rolls in the picture? Yeah, they ALL got eaten! Who knew 6 people could eat so much bread?! 🙂
After dinner, I almost forgot about my most anticipated tradition: the pickle ornament! I don’t remember when I heard about the custom of finding the pickle ornament on the tree, but I wanted a pickle ornament since then! Andrew’s mom sent us one this year, and I was thrilled to be able to start the tradition! Since we don’t have kids yet, I made our unsuspecting dinner guests play the game.
Our pickle ornament-finders got a special gift: a gingerbread cookie making set. I’m excited to keep that tradition going as well as the others we started this year!
Our guests left fairly early so they could do what we did: call home! We spent several hours on the phone calling our parents and grandparents. A perfect Christmas? No, but it was a great Christmas, and it was our first Christmas as a married couple!
I adore Christmas. It is, by far, my favorite holiday, and it is definitely the most wonderful time of the year! I remember going through a phase when I was younger (probably 12 or 13) when I felt really depressed by Christmas. It had really lost that “magic” it had had when I was younger. I’m sure I didn’t fully enjoy Christmas for a few years there, and I’m pretty sure I thought Christmas would always be a let-down.
Not true! Why? Because my mother is amazing. You know when people say, “I have the best mom in the world.”? No, sorry, you don’t. I know you all think I’m exaggerating, but I have the best mom in the world. You would understand if you met her. 🙂 And I will argue with you on this point to my grave. And no, of course I’m not biased: I have 3 sisters to back me up.
May 2010 - One of my very favorite photos!
Anyways, I’m getting off track here. How dd my mom save Christmas for me? By changing our names. I don’t even remember when she started this. Probably when I was in middle or high school. It was her way of guaranteeing that we didn’t know what we were getting. We could shake the boxes, eye up the size and shape of those presents, but it didn’t matter much if your name wasn’t on it. So whose names were on these gifts? It changed every year. One year she used Disney princesses. One year we were animals. Another year we were gemstones. We were 4 of the Seven Dwarfs one year. She has used so many different themes, I probably don’t remember them all!
She began putting a clue in our stockings so we would know who we were Christmas morning. Don’t worry, we know the rest of the gifts were from Santa; just that clue was from Mom. 🙂 This small extra thing that my mom did made Christmas a little more exciting for me. I was up at 5:30 to go open that stocking. No, this didn’t stop at age 16 or 21 or 25. In fact, this was the first year in a long time that I wasn’t up before the sun on Christmas Day! I think that as I got older, I continued to get up super early just to keep up the excitement. You can ask my sisters and Andrew, but how can you not be excited when Nicole comes running into your room to whisper, “It’s Christmas!! Let’s open stockings!!” 🙂 The hardest thing I see in my future, pertaining to this, is continuing the tradition for my own kids and waiting for them to come excitedly wake me up. I know I will have to fake being asleep, because to this day, I cannot sleep on Christmas Eve. I knew it wouldn’t be the same this year, but I was still so excited. I made sure Andrew and I bought each other secret stocking gifts, so it was almost as exciting as usual.
Oh, I love Christmas music. I put it on immediately after Thanksgiving, and I will be singing carols all the time. How can you not hum “O Come All Ye Faithful” when you’re making dinner after hearing it 3 times earlier that day?! And I love decorating the house. I love putting up the Christmas tree. I love watching “How the Grinch Stole Christmas.” But my favorite part of the holiday is definitely the tradition my mom started. She saved Christmas for me when I was a teenager, and she inspired me to keep the holiday exciting no matter how old I get.
I love all the photos of little Gerrit! Amanda was so patient with him when he got fussy and has such a way with babies. I love that she is also a mom, so I trusted her with Gerrit while getting a much-needed break. 
This next one makes me laugh every time…
Our little man!
The next photo is one of my favorites! I love that his hands are over his heart. 
We also took some holiday photos for our Christmas card. I crocheted the ornament hat Gerrit is wearing. 🙂
Here are a few more photos with hats that I crocheted when I was pregnant:
This next one is Andrew’s favorite. We got a canvas made of this one that will be going somewhere in our next house!
I love this next one and hope to put it in Gerrit’s nautical nursery.
I know I shared a lot of photos, but I think they all are just so cute! I know Gerrit is going to grow and change so quickly, and I will love looking back at these moments when he was just a tiny newborn.
On An Even Kiel 