The Birkholz Family Blog: Merry Christmas!

We had a wonderful Christmas! Henry, though he didn't fully understand it, was in love with the idea of Santa! My parents drove from Sonora to join us for he holiday. We spent the days leading up to Christmas cooking and enjoying all of the Christmas festivities around town. We met up with my brother's family and watched the Christmas ships which was a lot of fun. We also went to the Microsoft party and decorated cookies and played around! Henry and Titi also went ice skating!

Henry awoke each morning asking for Titi and Papa and was more than happy to wake them to get the day started. He did a lot of cooking with my Mom. His specialty is limes in water with cinnamon! He did a lot of handiwork with my Dad and loved how Papa let him use the tools just like a big boy!

Henry became accustomed to having a Titi cookie after every meal. Funny thing is he likes my Mom's spritz cookies with the cherry in the middle! No one else in the family like those ones except for my Mom so she was very happy! He loved all of the attention and did lots of showing off for them.

My favorite part was having my parents here to take care of me! As I have entered my third trimester I notice that I am slowing down quite a bit. So having someone cook all the meals and do all the laundry, etc was quite a treat! My Dad took over as resident handyman and we finally installed our new pot rack which I love! We had a little misstep while installing a back splash in the kitchen but we will blame that on the materials (those little glass tiles are really hard to install perfectly!) My Mom cooked and cleaned and let me sleep which was magic!

We all logged a lot of time playing our new Kinect and it is quite a fun workout! My Dad was amazing at soccer and my Mom has the routine to Poker Face down pat! My brother and sister in law and their kids came for Christmas Day as well as our friends the Hubert's. We had a great time. Holidays are so fun with kids running around and family and friends to relax with. We had an amazing Mexican fiesta courtesy of my Mom and everyone went to bed full and happy!

As for gifts I decided to let Henry open only two. My reason was that we could slowly open the rest as I get bigger and bigger and also have some things to open once baby girl arrives and we are figuring out how our little world is going to be. Also after opening just one, a motorized fire truck, I realized he was quite content. So we gave him a car ramp from Santa and that was that. He still is consumed by both and happy as can be. Also this means I have another awesome fire truck and train set for him to explore once we bring the baby home (thanks Nana and Piper fam!)

Here are some pictures from all the fun

Henry cooking with Titi