Ava's First Christmas - 2012

What a whole different experience Christmas is going to be for us, now that Ava is in our world.
This year we spent Christmas with Brady's family, in Westbank, at his Nana and Papa's house. It was sure special to be able to not only introduce our sweet girl to two very important people in our lives, but also to be able to spend Christmas with them. Ava quickly learned that Nana would be her go-to when she needed soothing and that Papa would be the one to make her laugh.


Ava started getting ready to smile a few days before we left for Westbank, and her Dad claims that he had been seeing the smiles for  couple of days, but I saw my first big gummy grin two days before Christmas, as her Daddy and I were giving her a bath in the kitchen sink. To think that after our first experience giving her a bath weeks ago, I was sure she was going to hate it! After she broke through with that big smile, there was no holding back for the rest of our visit, it was so nice for Brady to be able to share all of this with his family.

 
Our sweet girl gave us the best gift that she could give us on Christmas, 8 hours of uninterupted sleep! That has not been repeated since, but boy was it welcome! She woke up bright eyed and ready to start the day and give some cuddles to her Nana and Papa, her Great Nana and Papa, and her Auntie Sky. I think it was all a bit too much though, because she slept through the whole gift opening, even after we stopped to take a break and thought we had woken her up by squeezing her into a stocking!
 
 
                            
 
What a Christmas it was! We think that this visit maaaaaay just have been the tipping point for Nana and Papa Janzen to get in gear and move a little closer to us - as they both had a very hard time saying goodbye to their girl.
 
 
As much as I love Brady's family, it is always hard to be away from mine over the holidays. There are so many traditions that our family has over the holidays, that as much as I can try to recreate them with Brady's family, I will always just miss mine, and I am sure that is the story with most families. This year we did Watson family Christmas on the weekend of December 28-30th - it was nice to be able to stretch out the season just a little bit longer.  All 14 of us gathered at my Mom and Dad's house on Friday night and started right in with the noise, the playing, the laughter, the games, the eating - all that is right about Watson Family Christmas.
 

 



 

Christmas has always been my favourite holiday, because of the traditions- the annual watching of "It's a Wonderful Life," and celebrating George Bailey's return to his family on Christmas, the playing of Rumoli and awarding of the trophy (although this has been missed the last couple of years), Dad's speech at Christmas Dinner that always manages to have the gals in tears. I think it will always be sweeter for me, now that we have Ava and have a family of our own to both carry on the traditions and create new ones for ourselves.
 
Mom is positive that as Ava gets older, she will be the one who is "game" for any shenanigans that Kai wants to get into, and even at only just about two months old, I am quite sure that she and Kai will be the ringleaders and Lizzie and Austen will be our more "quiet" and calm crazies that are pulled into the fun! I adore my family, but Kai, Austen, and Lizzie will be the three that will have me so excited for Ava, and so excited for family get togethers. It is only January 1st, and already I can not wait until our family Christmas next year!
 

 


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Whitney Houston

This is going to be such a brief post, more of a drive-by rant, if you will. Whitney Houston died suddenly on Saturday. Her music has been in high rotation on my playlists for years, I can possibly even say close to two decades. I was shocked, and saddened by her death, which also led to disappointment.  I consider myself to be a very compassionate person, I feel the pain of others, and when someone dies, my heart aches for their families and for their loved ones. Whitney Houston had a tumultuous life, to say the least .She struggled with addiction, with abuse, and probably with a host of other things that the majority of us can not even begin to understand. After her death, just like after the deaths of other celebrities like Michael Jackson and Amy Winehouse, I am always so disgusted by the lack of compassion for others. One friend of mine posted on facebook, hours after we found out that she had died, that she does not understand how people can be shocked and sadenned when a dr...
Read more

Sarah Burke

Image
Canadian skiier Sarah Burke died tragically on January 19th. She had an accident training for the half pipe, on January 10th and severed an artery going to her brain. She was placed in a coma for 9 days, but suffered too much irreversible brain damage to survive. I must admit that I had heard of Sarah Burke and knew who she was, but never really followed her, or her husband Rory Bushfield's careers. She lives in Squamish, and when something like this happens to someone your age, so close to where you live, you can't help but pay attention. But this death has shaken me more than I would have ever expected. I have watched videos, read articles, and done so much research since her passing. I am truly, truly shaken, and a bit terrified. What she does is dangerous, and there are extreme risks involved. Risks that her and her family knew, but when you love something, you just take that risk. In one video of her and her husband, they say that the mountain is where they met, it's...
Read more

My Nanny and our Ava

In my last post about my dear, sweet Nanny, I was TERRIFIED (to put it lightly) about my Nanny moving into her new facility.  I was terrified to the point of emailing her new place JUST so they knew how loved she was and remembered to love her double time for her family, even though it is what they do and of course, they will do it well. My dear Ava has this love affair with her Nanny that I only wish Nanny could remember, but as my Auntie Sherri put it best, sometimes it is nice to be able to just live in the moment, and we should be thankful that Nanny has those joyous moments. I phone Nanny because of my own love affair with her, but I call her as often as I do, because my dear sweet, not-yet-two, daughter asks, and asks, and asks to call her Nanny.  And I am SO beyond relieved and thrilled that Nanny seems to be LOVING her new place. Every time we speak, she raves about her veranda, and how it is so nice that she can go visit with people when she pleases, but that she h...
Read more