The best 48 hours of the year are Christmas Eve + Christmas Day. This year I had the anticipation of a five year old for Christmas morning to come because we got to open a present revealing the gender of our baby!!! It was the most magical gift I've ever opened. As usual Todd spoiled me to rotten with a great mixture of functional, wearable and just plain awesome gifts. And I decked him out with my favorite current fashion trends. The guy loves clothes, his eyes light up for a nice vest or bow tie just like they do for the manly tools my parents always give him. He is seriously the best to shop for. Wait, I actually take that back Lucy is the best to shop for. Or she would be the best if I didn't actually have to store the things I buy for her. Lucy was the cutest thing ever opening her presents. She unwrapped things slowly and would say "whats this" as she was opening them. Then would immediately start playing with whatever it was she unwrapped. She unwrapped the tiniest corner of an Elmo book and saw half of that red body and started going crazy for "Elmow." Funny how the little stuff were the big hits, and the big stuff were the little hit's. **Note to self: Remember this for next year.** She was walking around saying "happy, happy, happy" in between holding her microphone to her mouth and singing "fox say.. nanana.," or "I'm funny." I always want to remember her tiny fingers peeling off small bits of wrapping paper at a time. I always want to remember staying up until 2:00am with Todd unwrapping presents we had bought for each other. It started as "let's just open one," and ended up with us making five trips back down to the tree to get more presents. I always want to remember our family Christmas prayer as we thanked Heavenly Father for "Jeezie." And of course I always want to remember the best moment of the whole season (actually probably the whole year), when we found out we were having a little baby boy. Christmas is celebrated because of a little Baby Boy, I am eternally grateful for him. I know Jesus Christ, I love Jesus Christ. I am who I am because of him and his birth, life and death for me.
Sometimes it hurts my heart that Lucy isn't growing up living super close to cousins. Lucy is OBSESSED with her cousins. She has woken up every day for the past week asking for "Riey" (her 9 year old boy cousin Riley, who she worships) and keeps saying "frens" throughout the day, hoping her friends (cousins) will come to play. And, unfortunately I don't think we will ever live in Rexburg where most of my family resides. I try to get over it by thinking of all the amazing things the city has to offer for her, like amazing Thai food, museums, great shopping, theatre --ya know all the stuff an almost two year old values :) But, it sometimes doesn't help and I just wish we could plant a big mansion for ourselves in the fields behind my parents house. Ah, then I'd probably miss the city and crave date nights to Lebanese restaurants and photography spots at every corner. I'm hoping we get to always see our cousins often no matter where we live! 
