Connor's First Christmas!

Connor's Christmas was definitely filled with lots of "firsts" - playing in the snow, sledding, going to Christmas Eve church, lots of playing with his grandparents, etc.

First Christmas in Edina, Minnesota

We celebrated Christmas at my parent's house in Edina, Minnesota with Connor's great grandma Ruth - "GGMa."  What a fun time to see him in his element - crawling all over the place, playing with the wrapping paper, and exploring with his new toys.  As I'm sure you could have guessed, he enjoyed playing with the wrapping paper and boxes than the actual toys at first.

He finally sat still by the tree

 Christmas Eve with daddy

He must not have gotten Grandma's memo about not opening presents before Christmas... 

Eating some Cheerios Christmas morning

Climbing up one of his gifts rather than opening it

Excited about his stocking from Santa!

Connor's first Christmas!

How cute are these?  Grandma Cathy had them made with each other her grandkid's hands when they were babies... Tanner Taylor, Connor, and Charlie!

Sledding

Keith and Pop Pop wanted to take Connor sledding so we went to my elementary school and took him sledding.  Connor did NOT enjoy it... hopefully he will next time we go up there in the winter!

Getting ready to sled 

 This has to be one of my faves!

Not sure about this whole sledding thing...

The face says it all :)

Smiles with Grandma

Grandma and Pop Pop

The Bratton's have a baby (James) that is just a few weeks older than Connor... how fun to see them interact with each other!  It looked like they were looking in the mirror when they first saw each other.  What crazy little personalities they both have!

It was so interesting... in the 11 days that Connor and I were in Minnesota, he went from occassionally crawling and mostly army crawling to totally crawling and being able to sit himself up from any position.  Pop Pop and Grandma loved seeing his progress!  He even started eating Cheerios... yum!

Our plane ride home from Minnesota went just as great as the ride up - an answer to many prayers!  He slept part of the way, crawled back and forth on our laps, and ate lots of Cheerios!

2nd First Christmas in Marietta, Georgia

On Saturday when we returned, we celebrated Christmas with Keith's side of the family at our house.  Connor was on his best behavior and loved getting to open presents again :)

Climbing in the presents

Grandma put a bow on his head...

Future NFL star!

Connor played while daddy assembled his car!

He's up to no good...

Christmas with grandparents

Mattie didn't like that Connor tried to steal her treats

He loves his new car! 

The easiest way to describe Connor lately is busy and curious.  Now that he's able to move everywhere, he has started to pull himself up and is curious as to what is in every corner of our house!  He loves playing with his new Christmas toys and chasing balls throughout the house.

Pre-Christmas Fun!

We have had lots of fun so far celebrating Connor's first Christmas!


Ugly Sweater Party

First, we hosted our 5th Annual Ugly Christmas Sweater Party last Friday night!  We had a smaller party this year since lots of people ended up getting sick and their significant others came solo... but we still had fun!  Connor was an unexpected guest when Grandma got pink eye and wasn't able to watch him.  He didn't have an ugly sweater so he wore a Christmas onesie and Santa hat!  He seemed to have fun - for the hour that he was awake! :)

On Saturday, we went to our church small group's Christmas party, which was super fun!  The highlight was definitely the hilarious white elephant gift exchange - lots of creativity :)

Minnesota Trip

Connor and I headed up to Minnesota to be with the Snyders on Tuesday and Keith will be meeting us up here later.  I was super nervous about flying with him by myself but it ended up being a great experience.  We were seated next to the most amazing lady named Rosa that was travelling to see her nieces and nephews that were around Connor's age.  Connor loved playing with her on the plane and I greatly appreciated the extra help on the 2.5 hour journey to the frozen tundra.

Connor and Rosa

The weather up here so far hasn't been too bad (knock on wood!).  Connor's grandparents have fully prepared him with a North Face snowsuit and an adorable "Sock Monkey" hat that Pop Pop bought at the hardware store :)

All bundled up!

Snuggly sleeping in the car

Grandma and Pop Pop have two golden retrievers and they have not seemed to mind Connor at all, even when he is pulling their tails and 'aggressively' petting them.

Christmas Tree Shopping

We went to the Boy Scout Christmas tree lot where they sell real trees and found a great one... quickly, which is always nice in this cold weather!  Connor enjoyed looking at the trees and lights above.

We couldn't get him to look :(

This was Connor's first time being outside in the snow and when we sat him down on the ground, he immediately flipped over and was crawling... we made sure to catch him before he face-planted!

Connor wasn't sure what to think about the snow at first...

... then he got excited

... then he tried to escape!

I think he enjoyed it a bit too much... We will have to take him out to play in the snow more while we're here!

Santa!

Grandma Cathy and I took Connor to the downtown Minneapolis Macy's store to see Santa.  On the 8th floor, they put together an awesome even each Christmas - "Santaland".  Included is a story that you walk through with moving figures/music and at the end kids can see Santa.  We got there right when they opened at 9am and were the first in line - no wait, yay!!  I was thinking that Connor would scream but he thought Santa was quite interesting and just stared at him.  Santa told us that Connor 'asked him for power tools'... hmmm... interesting :)  After seeing Santa, naturally, we went down and did some shopping and he was quite the little trooper!

Macy's 8th floor "Santaland"

Walking through "A Day in the Life of an Elf"

Santa's workshop

Ready to see Santa!

Of course "Curious Connor" had to touch Santa's beard

Not sure what to think!

We have been going to Great Grandma's (GGMa) apartment each day to see her and bring treats.  She seems to enjoy seeing Connor crawl everywhere and eat his "puffs."

We hope you and your family have a Merry Christmas and travel safely to your destinations!