Our 12 days of Christmas :)

On the twelfth day of Christmas with the Yeadon family........

We were with 12 happy families
Living 30 minutes away from family is truly a blessing! We were able to get together with both families a number of times in December. Over Christmas we saw both sets of parents, Matt's grandparents, four sets of Aunts and Uncles, and our five brothers and sisters along with their families. Ashley had a great time seeing everyone, but by the end of the day- she was tired and ready to be home again!

There were 11 gifts for Ashley
Ok, no, we didn't get her all of those gifts, but after getting together with both of our families, let's just say she did well:)
As a family, we have decided to continue a tradition from Matt's family which entails giving Ashley 3 gifts each year to represent the three gifts given to Christ. She received two from Mom and Dad, and of course, one from Santa! She had so many new toys we had to get this shelving unit from Target. It makes our living room look SO much more organized and put together-Erin LOVES it! :)


Here is little Mozart herself with a light up music center from Grandma! When you push the keys you can play different instruments, hear songs, and of course- Ashley's favorite, look at yourself in thr mirror!
We think she looks hilarious when she sits in her Bumbo chair!




We took 10 trips to the Springs
Of course, having family in the Springs means we get to make the drive quite often! Between birthdays, parties, Christmas Eve, Christmas day, and New Years Eve let's just say that we did our fair share of traveling. I don't even want to calculate how much we spent on gas! Thank the Lord the prices have gone down! We have talked though, and even though driving can get to be such a huge pain, we wouldn't want to spend the holiday's any other way.

Ashley had 9 Christmas outfits
Yep- 9! She even had three more that were given to us that ended up being too big! She looked so darn cute in all of them though! Her actual Christmas dress is the red one. It was so fancy with her tights and black dress shoes! I know it might seem silly to have so many outfits, but as Erin's mom explained, "You only have your first Christmas once!" Amen to that!

































Ashley got an 8oz jar of cereal
That's right- we got a green light to start cereal with the wee-tyke:) The first round she made some hilarious faces, and didn't seem too impressed. She then proceeded to scream through each bite until we made it extra soupy and warmed it up:) Now she is as happy as can be when we put her in her high chair (or her 'Bumbo seat' to the left). Just make sure you keep it coming! If you take your time feeding her- she will tell you to hurry it up by screaming and kicking her feet. Don't worry though-as soon as that spoon touches her lips again- it is smooth sailing:) That's my daughter!

We had 7a.m. wake up calls
Poor Ashley got a pretty bad cold the week of Christmas! She faught it like a champ during the day, even though we had to clean out her nose like every hour. At night it was a different story. Due to the fact that she could barely breath, she was up quite a bit. We would give her a pacifier, rock her, try and feed her- nothing really lulled her to sleep for an extended period of time. The only thing that would work was bringing her into bed with us- she LOVES to sleep on people. Unfortunately, that means that our night of sleep was constantly inturrupted and of course- she never slept in past 7! Oh well, I guess that is just one of the joys of parenthood...yeah, sure!

We watched 6 football bowl games
How can you get through New Year without watching the Bowl games? Our boys at Notre Dame walked all over Hawaii in the Holiday Bowl! Now where was that all season?!


We watched 5 Christmas movies
We LOVE Christmas movies! Some of our favorites inlude Elf, Christmas Vacation, Home Alone, The Santa Claus, and White Christmas. There are so many to choose from sometimes it is hard to get them all in!


Ashley had her 4 month appointment
Poor thing had to get four more shots! She was a champ though and took them with just a little crying. She weighed in at 13lbs 10 oz and is 23 1/2 in long! Her head is still holding strong at the 85th percentile (what a little genious :) and everything else looked good! Yeah!


We hung up 3 Christmas stockings
What fun to decorate for Christmas! We absolutely loved adding Ashley's stocking to our decorating collection! This year was so much more fun to celebrate even though she is still a little too young to understand.


We waited 2 hours for Santa
Oh yes we did! We, being obvious first time parents, waited until the week of Christmas to bring her- and on to top it off, we went in the middle of the day! 45 minutes of our wait was Santa's lunch break and so we were literaly standing in line for NOTHING for half of the time! Oh well, 30 seconds on Santa's lap and this picture make it worth it right? Next year we will definitely do this earlier! Erin's mom and Matt's brother and his fiance were with us, so at least we had company. We also took 'shifts' waiting in line so the others could do some shopping:) They must love us to be willing to wait with us through all of that!



and we put up Ashley's 1st ornament on the tree!
Another favorite of Christmas time-decorating the tree! Here Ashley is with her first ornament! It is a picture frame with "Baby's first Christmas 2008" and her name. Another one of our traditions is to give a new ornament each year, so here is the first of many more to come!







We always seem to feel blessed beyond measure around Christmas! The obvious reason is remembering the gift of Jesus! We hope his love has surrounded you and your family, and that it continues through the new year! God bless!