Merry Christmas everyone! This is the first of two Christmas posts as we have so many pictures to share. Please scroll down for more pictures.We are home and happy to be here. Christmas and visiting family is great, but coming home is wonderful too. Many people have been saying to us how wonderful it is to be celebrating our first Christmas with Sophia, and it is. Every once in a while she’ll look at the tree or a toy and get an
expression on her face of pure joy. When I compare this Christmas to where we were a year ago, every day is full of joy. A year ago we were waiting for a birthmom to pick us and carrying our cell phones everwhere in case we were contacted. It was sad and stressful. This year we have an amazing, growing little girl.But the season is also full of stress (of course this is not a problem unique to people with 9-month-olds). Sophia is quickly overwhelmed by the hustle and bustle. Present opening absolutely wiped her out. In part this was because we had to hold her the entire time. With all the wrapping paper and ribbons on the floor it wasn’t safe for her to crawl around (since she puts everything into her mouth, it's a choking hazard) and she was quickly frustrated by not being allowed to move. But also the noise and craziness was highly
stimulating for her. There were also times when a new toy would scare her. You have this image of a child on her first Christmas tearing into presents with absolute glee. But it’s not realistic. That’s a vision of an older child. We had to carefully regulate how much we exposed Sophia to all of that. We removed her from present opening to a nap at both Paul’s family’s house and my family’s house. It’s not as exciting, but involves a lot less angry baby.
But enough complaining. As expected, Sophia got lots of wonderful gifts and she was really happy with them. She got 3 toys she can push and walk with and LOVED that with tremendous enthusiasim. She hasn’t yet learned course correction so she ran into walls and furniture and got stuck a lot, but she still loved it.
Saturday afternoon as soon as I was off work we went to Portland and spent the night with my parents. Sunday morning after Sophia’s morning nap we went to Battle Ground to spend the day with Paul’s parents and Barry and Jess. Aunt Amy and her partner Karen were there in absentia by sending gifts. The Smith family tradition is to open presents Christmas Eve and my family’s 
tradition is to do it Christmas morning, so we’re able to accommodate everyone. This morning with my parents we had Christmas stockings, our traditional breakfast of scrambled eggs with ham and cinnamon rolls and then after Sophia went down for her nap we opened our presents. Many lovely gifts were given and received with both families. As expected Sophia made out like a bandit.
This afternoon we visited my grandmothers in the nursing home. In the late afternoon Sophia continued to impress by holding a bottle on her own for their first time. We left in the late afternoon and came home. Now to find places for all the wonderful presents. What a wonderful Christmas this was, if tiring and stressful at times.
