Amelia's blessing

What a wonderful Christmas we had! Every year we take a picture of all the grandkids in front of my parents' christmas tree and usually it is such a stuggle to get all the kids, especially the little ones, to sit in front of the tree with presents they know they get to open. But this year they were all so good! There was no crying, screaming, or trying to get up before all 6 cameras went off 100 times (or so it seems). It was wonderful!

In years past, after the pictures, we would have all the kids open their presents and then we would send them downstairs to play with those presents. This was mostly done because they have such a hard time sitting there watching EVERYONE (23+ kids and 13+ adults) open presents and they have no patience to wait for one for themselves. But this year it was so calm and everyone, kids and all, sat and opened gifts. This year many people made gifts for the people they had and all they gifts had so much thought and love put into them. Again, it was wonderful!

I was especially excited for Joey to open the blanket that I made him. It was hard for me to decide what to get for him this year since we didn't have a lot of money to spend and we were going to have a new baby. I started the blanket about the beginning of November and I didn't get it done until Christmas Eve morning, mostly because I didn't plan on having Amelia so early. A nursing baby takes a lot of time out of your day. Anyway, it was probably a bigger project than a beginner should have tackled, but I had my mom to help me so that's mostly why it turned out the way it did. The best part was when he opened it and saw what I made and that it was for him. We were truely blessed this year and it is a Christmas I will never forget!

My brother and his family were here for Christmas and so we decided to have Amelia blessed so he could be a part of it. She was blessed on the 29th by Joey so she is now offically Amelia Naomi. It was a beautiful blessing and she was just as beautiful! We looked for a blessing dress for her, but those that we found wer $60 and more! It's amazing what they charge for such a little dress. There was no way we could afford that so my mom offered to make her one. With Christmas and visitors we forgot about it until the day before. Thank goodness there was a fabric store open and that my mom is a genius when it comes to sewing! (Just to let you know, I made the headband. Not as difficult as the dress by far, but I did it, flower and all.)