Season's Greetings! For family and friends located in the midwest in the sub-zero temps, this series of posts for Christmas and the New Year is just what you need on a cold winter's day! I have about a hundred pictures- so grab a cup of hot cocoa, a fuzzy blanket and start the fire up...these posts might take you awhile to get through!
Instead of posting just about the Christmas events where Drew is "opening presents" (really just trying to eat the paper, boxes and any object he can get in his mouth) I thought I'd start by documenting the entire season. I absolutely love Christmas time and all the preparation and anticipation for the celebration of Jesus' birth, so I'm gonna take you through the whirl wind of events the Merrills took part in throughout the entire season.
First up. Santa. Our church, St. Marks has a pancake breakfast with Santa each year. The money goes to the youth group at the church so we decided this would be more fun then waiting in line at the mall.
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| "Ho, ho, ho! Looks like you ate lots of pancakes this year, big boy! If you keep sleeping through the night I bet you will get everything you ever wanted this year!" LOL. |
I think with Thanksgiving landing so late this year, it seemed like we had SUCH a busy season. Between the Ray's Christmas Party, the B-Lynk Christmas Party, B.B's Christmas Party (Ronnie's old agent that always has a HUGE party each year), our annual Christmas cookie baking party at the house and preparing gifts for friends, family and a week long trip back to Iowa (plus working full time and closing out the year), I have NO. IDEA. WHERE. THE. TIME. WENT. December FLEW by.
We celebrated an awesome year (up 59% from last year) for my business by going to a wonderful dinner! I am so fortunate to have such dedicated and inspiring people work for me, both full and part-time!
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| This table was for 1 back in 2009.... |
The following weekend was the Rays Party - it was held at the Florida Aquarium and we had a great time celebrating with many of the awesome people that work for the Rays organization and our great season this year!
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| The backdrop is mist! |
One of the biggest things that will go down in the history books this Christmas Season was that DREW CRAWLED! This picture was taken right after his very first 'crawl'! I put this red plastic candy cane cookie cutter down on the floor and sure enough it was just interesting enough for him to take off after it!
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| "Hey mom -- you can put some cookies in this one too...' |
This was the third year that Raquel and her daughter Aliyah (Drew's favorite babysitter) came over for a Christmas Cooking baking party! We made 7 different kinds of cookies to give away to friends, neighbors and family - it was a blast!
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| YUM! |
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| Aliyah is the best at frosting the cut-outs! I don't touch those things! |
You can't celebrate Christmas for the first time without some Christmas jammies! Thanks Connie for sending these down - they fit like a glove. We tried to get as much rest as we could before our big trip to IOWA to see the cousins!
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| Snoozin' in my Christmas jammies.... |
All of these events leading up to Christmas were great reminders that we have so many things to be thankful for in all aspects of our lives!
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