Toth Family: Ho Ho Ho....

Christmas was a much different experience this year. Henry has impacted the holidays for me in several ways, mostly good, but a tad depressing on some levels. As those of you who have visited my house around the holidays in years past can confirm, I love decorating for the season. We had a Christmas wedding, so I have great decorations leftover from that... I change out my everyday dishware for holiday dishes and everything. This year I was off to a great start... we got the tree out early, and as we all know, that was a bit of a bust b/c of the cat. However, it was downhill from there. I was too busy, too tired and too selfish to put up the majority of my decorations this year. Selfish in that I get approximately 3 hours of awake time with my boy each day and I'll be damned if I am going to spend that digging through boxes to put up decorations that I will have to take down a few weeks later. With all of the events and travel between Thanksgiving and Christmas, there was little to no time to do any of that. The same thing happened with shopping, which meant that the 23rd and 24th I was frantically trying to find gifts and as late as 2:30 on the 25th, I was throwing said gifts into bags to pass out. Kevin was a big help and took care of most of the shopping and gift ideas, but it was still rather stressful. I love shopping, I love decorating, I love baking Christmas goodies, but all seemed like chores this year when faced with the choice between hanging out with Henry and doing the typical holiday preparations. In the end, all that had to be done got done. The dishes were never changed out and the baking did not get done (but with baby weight, this was probably a blessing), but the important things were accomplished and I even managed to throw up some of my favorite decorations. Despite the "chores," this Christmas is definitely at the top of my list. It was so fun to buy gifts for Henry and to have the focus of the holiday be him. While he is only 3 mos. and really does not know any different, he had a great Christmas. He loved his toys and was sooo good everywhere we went. He slept through dinner on Xmas eve and did not wake up until 7:15 on Xmas morning. He giggled and smiled at his toys and looked amazingly cute in all of his Xmas gear (we had several costume changes). I think I mentioned that we tried to give the boy mashed taters on Thanksgiving, but that he wanted nothing to do with it... well, in one month's time, he has developed a taste for real food apparently. On Christmas day, I fed him a smidgen of squash on my finger and he thought it was the best thing ever. He would smack his lips and smile with each bite. (Don't freak out, he literally only had three tastes)... Rice cereal will be next, and with his size, I am not sure we can wait much past 4 months to start. I can only imagine how much this boy will eat once real food becomes a part of our daily routine.

Hope you all had an amazing holiday, I know we did. We are so thankful we had the opportunity to spend the holidays with so many friends and family. So much has happened in the past year, and we are so blessed. Happy Holidays!

Much love,
Paige