The Warren Family: December 26, 2010

We had a wonderful Christmas filled with good food, wonderful family and of course our precious little boy. We had a visit from Grandma, Uncle Paul, Jennifer, Carley, Nolan and Johnathan right before Christmas. It was entirely to short but it was really nice to have everyone together at least for a brief visit. We don't get to see that part of our family nearly often enough so we appreciate every moment no matter how fleeting. Jake really enjoyed playing with his Grandma and keeps asking when she can come back to his house. He also became quite smitten with his very beautiful cousin, Carley. We made her a nice bed on the couch in our family room and Jake had to get up and go back in there three times to tell her that he loved her before he could go to sleep. Trip asked Jake what his favorite thing about the visit was and he quickly said Grandma... a brief pause followed then he said and Carley, too.

We spent Christmas Eve at Mamaw & Papaw's house with them, Uncle Russell, Aunt Kristi, Gage, Katie and Abbie and enjoyed way to much good food. Jake's Aunt Kristi found "the" perfect gift for him and my brother was so excited to give it to him that he could hardly wait until we began opening gifts. They got Jake a ride-on excavator and he was thrilled. He opened several other gifts first because we knew that gift was going to steal the show once it was brought into the room. Someone would ask him what he thought every gift was going to be and every single time he would say... "I think it's a CAT excavator" and then suddenly it was an excavator and the smile on his face was bright enough to light up the night. We spent the night at Mamaw & Papaw's which Jake thought was awesome and we woke up Christmas morning to light snow falling. We were getting ready to start making a big Christmas morning breakfast when it became very clear that if we didn't leave immediately that we wouldn't be getting home for several days. We hated to miss our traditional family breakfast but we packed up as quickly as possible and slowly made our way back up the mountain. It really was best that we made our way home when we did because the roads were getting bad and the snow hasn't stopped falling since it began Christmas morning. We're approaching another foot (yep... this snow event should put us just over 3 feet for the month of December) but it sure was beautiful to have a white Christmas.

Santa had visited our house while we were away and Jake was so excited once he saw that he had left him a new race track, several cars and a stockings stuffed full of goodies. It was so fun to see his reaction this year! One of the things that Santa left in his stocking was a real Appalachian football jersey and he literally jumped up and down and squealed with delight when he pulled it out. He put it on immediately and has been wearing it ever since. I'm not sure how I'll ever convince him to wear anything else. After he spent some time enjoying his Santa stuff we let him open his gifts from us. Once of his gifts from us was his very own digital camera. It is by V-Tech and it's made specifically for toddlers. It comes with a memory card just like any digital camera and it holds 400 pictures. He has already taken a ton of shots. He was taking pictures over and over last night sitting beside of me on the couch and I asked what he was taking so many pictures of and he said... "your knee, Mama". A few minutes ago I heard him say ... "smile at me Daddy" so I'm pretty sure that he has his camera out again.

Today we got outside and played in the beautiful fresh fallen snow. It was only 17 degrees so we didn't stay out long but Jake had fun sledding and wanted Daddy to go faster and faster when they were going down the hill. It has been really nice to be tucked safely in our nice warm house watching the snow fall and playing with our little boy without worrying about work, errands or other obligations. It has been a nice break after all the hustle and bustle leading up to Christmas and I think we're all much more relaxed after a couple of nice lazy days at home together.

We've had an amazing Christmas together and I feel so grateful for all the blessings in our lives especially our precious child who asked if Jesus was going to get some cake on his birthday. I hope all of you had a wonderful Christmas too and are looking forward to what the new year will hold.

Jake's Christmas Concert