A Very Merry Christmas

Michael's first Christmas was spent in Colorado. He was wonderful for the flight out, even though we spent far too long in the airport. Our flight was delayed, although Delta didn't think that the information was important enough to be shared with its passengers. We finally got sick of waiting and talked to an employee who apologized and was kind enough to get us on another flight which left only 2 hours after our flight was suppose to. It was better than the 4 and a half hours we would have had to wait for our original plane.

Michael loved the Denver changing tables. They had mirrors! He even got to dance with his reflection:

We finally arrived in Colorado Springs where Ki and Tess were so happy to see us.

They really were excited to see us. They really, really love Michael -or "baby Michael", as they call him. I was "baby Michael mommy" and Jeff was "Jeff daddy". They are adorable children.

We celebrated our 3 year anniversary and both Mary and Katie's birthdays while in CO.

Michael enjoyed borrowing Tess's highchair and his Grandma Veronin got him an adorable santa hat to celebrate Christmas in.

Tess still used her highchair a lot and can apparently even sleep in it. It's amazing to me, and so stinking cute:

We took Michael on a walk with his uncle Ki to the park. Michael loves being outside, but he did miss the use of his fingers while wearing his mittens.

They both had a lot of fun swinging on the baby swings:

Every year for Christmas Eve, our family reenacts the nativity scene. This year, we had the babies do it. I shouldn't have been surprised at how hard it was to get them all to hold still long enough to take a picture, but we were able to get some really cute ones:

Christmas morning is always a blur, and I didn't take any pictures, but Michael was not interested in ripping opening gifts. He liked the discarded wrapping paper and ribbons and whatever Jeff and I were holding, but he did get the perfect gift from his Great Grandma Durney: a stuffed kitty. He giggles at it and loves to pull its tail and ears and it can't run away or scratch him.

He also got an adorable knit hat from his Aunt Jessi which unfortunately took a few tries to get right (she knit it while we were there). We continually underestimated the size of our fat boy's head, but it finally came out perfect.

It was a wonderful visit. We got to spend a lot of great time with sisters in the car to and from our Grandma's, Dad played Eternal Darkness to show us the HP Lovecraft-iness of it, we got to eat Mom's amazing homemade meals, and of course we played cards. Oh, and we all got sick. It was great.

It really was a lot of fun. I love going home.

On the flight back home, we got over halfway through the flight before Michael decided he wanted to be one of those babies. He was happily sitting on my tray table when, without warning, he freaked out. I don't know why, but he just suddenly started screaming. He wouldn't calm down. We walked up and down the airplane aisle (bumping people's elbows and constantly apologizing). Then, while I was desperately bouncing him on my lap, he started playing with his toes and cooing. It was the weirdest thing. One second screaming, the other second playing with his toes and as happy as can be. Needless to say, we were very grateful when we finally got off the plane. I think we might take a break from travelling for a bit.

Here's Michael loving the plane window, sitting next to his new kitty:

Merry Christmas everyone!