Merry Christmas!

Family Photo: Bill, Monica, Meredith, Reese, Jon, Emily, Darrell, Abbie

This year, I was able to go to my Dad and Abbie's house for a short while on Christmas day. We took our first ever family photo of our blended family. All of us together at the same time! I had the camera take 16 photos...and it was still hard to get us all smiling and looking at the camera at the same time. Still, I think we got a couple of good ones. 

Reese says "Drive, Drive, Drive!"

I also met my step-sister Meredith's son, Reese, for the very first time. During the Year of the Pajama, I just couldn't enjoy visitors or company at all. It was so great to finally meet this precious little man and get to enjoy the time with him. I didn't understand too many words he was saying, but he sure can enunciate the word "Drive"! He seems to like his John Deere as much as my dad loves his.

Dad and Abbie

Everyone ate lunch, and then I headed over to join them while they opened presents. Other than opening my (awesome) presents from Meredith and Monica, I just watched everyone else open their stuff. I felt that in order to make the visit 'doable' it would be too much for me to open presents also, so I just got to watch, see what everyone was opening, interact with folks, and be entertained by Reese.  I just would have felt so overstimulated had I tried to watch others and open gifts myself. Dad, Abbie, and I will take an afternoon later this week to open gifts together.

Meredith opens her presents and Reese's too! :) Jon is hiding over on the sofa.

As you can see there was a lot to open. Reese had no interest in opening gifts, so Meredith got double the stuff to unwrap! Dad watched Reese a lot of the time, and it was funny to see him chasing after a toddler! Either Reese is better behaved than I was as a child, or Dad has gotten to be a better 'supervisor' because the afternoon was trouble-free. :) Meredith's husband, Jon, wasn't hamming it up for the camera, so I just have this photo of Meredith.

Bill and Monica being all cute and sweet.

This is my step-sister, Monica, and her husband Bill. Monica is the beauty expert (stocked me up on nail polish. I've already painted my nails purple with my new goodies!) and Meredith is the craft queen (she stocked me up with a doable card-making project that I am super excited about).

One more of the whole family together.

Abbie puts so much time, energy and effort into the holidays, especially Christmas. She decorates, shops, cooks. It was really special to have all of us together for the first time in a very long time, and for the first time since Reese was born. I think it has been since Easter of 2009 that I was over at D and A's for a holiday. 

Hopefully, I'll be making it to more holiday celebrations in the near future, and getting to know everyone, including Reese, better. 

After opening presents, Dad drove me home. I was completely exhausted, and as always, paid a price that night, but it was worth it for the smile on Abbie's face, for seeing everyone, and for finally meeting Reese.

Hope you had a blessed Christmas day,

Emily

Photos: Guess what? I figured out how to do captions, so no need to do this labeling thing at the end now! Now, if I can just learn to use my camera better...wish the lighting wasn't so poor on our family photo!