Christmas in Philly

We had such a great Christmas this year.  It was so fun to celebrate Stella's first Christmas together.  Since we were going to be traveling for Christmas this year, we decided to celebrate our Christmas early so we could keep our traditions going and make sure Stella starts her life off with some of our own Christmas traditions.

For Christmas Eve every year, we get each other a pair of new pj's and an ornament.  We try to make sure the ornament represents something from that year.  So, with Stella being born, you can guess what our ornaments were...

 

Our Pj's...

 

(Stella unwrapping hers, you'll see them revealed below for Christmas morning!)

Also, typically on Christmas Eve we make fondue.  This is a tradition passed on from Mike's family and we absolutely love  it.  It's easy, quick clean up and so fun to sit around the fondue pot together.  This year, we opted for appetizers instead and are going to do fondue for New Year's Eve (since we're now parents with no other plans :))

Our spread of appetizers...

Christmas morning!

We slept in and Stella took her morning nap with us.  We got up around 10, I have a feeling next year will be different...

Santa came!

 

Christmas morning breakfast... mimosas, morning buns, bacon, eggs and lattes... yummy!

  

Not only did Santa come early for us, but he brought us a beautiful, white Christmas!  It was the biggest storm in Philly in years - the mall even closed (the weekend before Christmas.)

Stella of course immediately loved the wrapping paper.  It was her favorite present of all.

 

 

Stella's big present from Santa... the fancy, shmancy exersaucer.  She LOVES it.

 

 

We had a great Christmas together this year and are so excited to head to Utah and see our families for some more holiday celebrations.

Laguna Beach - Birthday Getaway

We were lucky enough to travel to Laguna Beach Dec 9 - 13 for a birthday getaway that Mike had surprised me with.  It was Stella's first time in California (a 6 hour and 30 minute flight out there due to tailwinds - yikes!!! She was luckily very good though :))

Our hotel room was amazing - right on the beach.  It was great for the first 2 days when the weather was nice, it rained the last 3 days but hey, we were in Laguna so it didn't even matter to us.

 

 

We had so much fun hanging out with our friends, Sierra and Chase and their 2 kiddos.  We miss them already and wish we lived there so we could hang with them all of the time:)  On Friday night, Sierra's sister, Amanda came over to babysit the kids while the four of us went out to dinner.  It was soooo weird to leave Stella, but it was really fun!  I don't know if Amanda realizes how much we appreciated that - there's really no one here in Philly that we can do that with... so thanks again Amanda!

 

 

 

My friend Sierra is also an amazing photographer - especially when it comes to babies!  She had a shoot scheduled for Saturday and asked if we wanted to jump on it and get a few pics of Stella while the studio was set up.  It was so fun to see her in action... I love seeing my friends in their professional element.  She really is amazing.  Her blog is sierracampbellphotography.blogspot.com and her website is sierracampbellphotography.com.  You can actually see a few of the photos from Stella's shoot on there. I can't wait to get these pics!

 

 

 

 

 

Thanks Mike - It was such an awesome birthday trip... I love you.  And thanks again Sierra and Chase, we had a great time and miss you already!

Newton and NYC

This past week Mike decided to take an advanced equity evaluation workshop in NYC, so Stella and I decided to join him and enjoy Christmas time in NYC.  Apart from the summer, this is my absolute favorite time in NYC.  It's so beautiful and it just feels so warm and magical.  Kari and CJ were nice enough to let us stay with them in New Jersey so we didn't have to pay the ridiculous price for a hotel room.

We had a blast.  I loved spending time with Kari and the girls.  While in NYC, Mike, Stella and I went to see the Christmas Spectacular at Radio City.  The Rockettes were amazing and Stella loved the lights, the dancing and the music.  She sat there like an angel for the entire 90 minutes.  NY definitely got us in the Christmas spirit.

On our way home, we stopped to buy our tree.  We picked out a lovely frazer and hopped back in the car and it's a good thing we did because it started dumping!  Huge snowflakes, it was so pretty and it made for a perfect evening of house and tree decorating.  We are really enjoying having a fireplace :)

 

Hannah and Stella are buddies.  Hannah loves to take care of her cousin, Stella.  And Stella is always entertained by her.

Stella with Hannah and Haydin.  All in there PJ's watching toons in the morning.

Rockefeller Plaza

Macy's

Times Square

Radio City Music Hall

Buying the perfect tree

It's a winter wonderland!

Decorating the tree

Stella is 5 Months Old

It's amazing that it has already been 5 months since the day Stella was born.

This month has been so fun. From the first Halloween to the first Thanksgiving. Stella is laughing, she's sitting all by herself, eating her toes, doing yoga poses, she's eating rice cereal and drinking water out of a sippy cup. She now has her own room with a crib and sleeps so well in it every night.  She is literally changing every single day and pulling new tricks out of nowhere.  We are loving every single minute of it!

Make a Smilebox photobook