Twas the Night Before the Night Before Christmas

After two failed attempts to have Graham's picture taken with Santa (the lines were too long), tonight it happened! We found out that there is home in Apex where Santa welcomes families into his decorated garage for pictures. It was actually a nice setup, and more cozy than the mall. Santa's strategy was for us to back Graham into his lap to prevent a panic. Good idea. Graham was more interested in the mobile circling around the garage ceiling than anything else!

I think we're finally all set for Christmas. All the gifts are wrapped (mostly purchased online...Graham doesn't love shopping), cooking is in progress, and we've watched parts of our favorite Christmas movies (Elf and Christmas Vacation). It's especially tough preparing for the holidays when I have a little shadow who cries when I walk away from him. The picture above shows him finding me in the kitchen. So, now it's finally time to stop and enjoy Christmas because it will be over too soon!

Daddy, Take Me!

Our lives have been chaotic lately. We've been making little upgrades to our townhouse and cleaning it from top to bottom to put it on the market. Just after the realtor took pictures for the listing, we drug down a thousand boxes from the attic to decorate for Christmas. Every night, Drew and I tell ourselves we're almost through with the craziness. I'm afraid we'll never completely reach a calm point though. I think that's parenthood. Now Drew's headed out of town for a work trip, so Graham and I are going to have to manage without him.

Graham has been doing really well lately. He's been laughing, baby-talking, crawling at record speed, and pulling himself up with no problem. He's also learning to lower himself from standing to sitting. One of our favorite new things he does is dance. I first noticed it in Target, when he bopped up and down while I pushed him in the cart. Now he does it lots, especially if we bop with him and sing "Go Graham, Go Graham." He's going to be a natural in the center of a dance circle! We're getting excited about our first Christmas as a family of three. This week we had a decorating "party," and invited Aunt Susan and Uncle Ryan to hangout and babysit while we decorated the tree. Graham loves to look at the lights. I'm sure he also would love to eat the tree branches, but we put up a baby gate to prevent that. People keep asking what we're getting him for Christmas, and I have to admit that it's not something I'm really thinking about. We're saving up for a carseat and jogging stroller, but maybe I need to give him at least one new thing to play with Christmas morning. Wonder what that should be?