Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

I know my viewers are probably anxiously awaiting a new post from me. Hehe. Well I finally found some time to write a little something. It's been a wonderful and busy Christmas and New Years, but we managed to come out alright on the other side.

We spent Christmas Eve with Gary's parents at their house. We had an amazing dinner, opened up lots of gifts (mostly for Anna of course), watched Polar Express on the big TV and ate too much junk. We had a lot of fun kicking off Anna's first Christmas. She got a big hairy scary doll (you'll know what I'm talking about in the picture), a snail where it's shell rolls out, lots of books, and the basic toys that we all had as a kid from Aunt Sheila.

Then Gary and I did Christmas with Anna at our house Christmas morning. She really doesn't have a clue what's going on yet and because we figured the grandmas and grandpas would spoil her with gifts, she got to go to Build a Bear with daddy (this will be a yearly daddy/daughter event) and got a turtle named Pooky complete with a Pistons jersey (don't worry, she will be introduced to the great Chicago teams). She also got an ornament from us. Then Santa brought her a pair of "vacation" sunglasses for whatever vacation we take this summer.

Then over New Years weekend, we headed to Chicago to celebrate Christmas with my side of the family. We did it up on Saturday complete with a chocolate fountain and guitar hero. We spent the day eating, opening presents, taking turns playing guitar hero, eating some more, breaking out some adult beverages and eating from the fountain the floweth chocolate. We had a lot of fun that day.

In the meantime, Anna has learned how to roll over from her tummy to her back multiple times in a row. She smiles all the time and has managed to find her voice from time to time, but not consistantly yet. She got her first shots just after Christmas and got through that with a couple doses of Tylenol. She's a whopping 8 pounds, 6 ounces and 22 inches long now. The doctor said she's doing great. She goes back in 2 months for her next round of shots. She still sleeps through the night (from about 10:30 to 6) and is on a pretty good daily schedule. She's still the hit of daycare, I have to pry her out of their arms sometimes! She flashes smiles to anyone who looks her way (this could be dangerous later). We're up to 5 ounces of formula at a feeding, so we're hoping to plump her up! We had photo shot with Auntie Jenn to use for Christmas gifts, too cute!

Here's a link to see more pictures of Anna (this thing just takes so long to upload photos and for as many I want to show). http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=24252&l=c6682&id=501622976 and http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=24259&l=58f1f&id=501622976

Just before we headed to Chicago for Christmas, Gary wanted to decrease the population of deer in Michigan by one. He nailed the deer on the drivers side and laid it out. He took Anna for her shots that day and when he hit the deer, she didn't even wake up! We thought the insurance company would total the truck, but they are able to fix it. We're replacing the truck with a 2005 Taurus and hopefully selling it to Gary's dad so we can keep it in the family to use as a hauling vehicle.

Work is going well for both of us. Gary's heading out to Virginia for a week to learn more about the programming language he's working with at work. So Alex is going to stay the week with me and Anna. I've been back for about a month now and we're starting to pick up again. I have my own office now and with that came a lovely raise.

We're excited for what 2008 brings for us and to see Anna grow! We're hoping to change priorites more on our family and our health, than other things that we did before Anna came around. I hope this is a good update and I should be able to keep up on the blog now that the holidays are over.

Love to all of you and hoping you had a great Christmas season!

Gary, Christie and Anna