Merry Christmas

We made it through Anabelle's first Christmas! I'm going to miss this time of firsts. I read a line in a baby magazine that tells you what's going on with baby each month and it mentioned that she's almost half way through her first year...I teared up! I can't believe how fast the time is going and how big she is already. I remember when she was born counting out how old she would be at Christmas, 5 months seemed like an eternity away. I couldn't imagine her wearing anything bigger than newborn clothes and now she's starting to wear 6m.



We spent Christmas in Colorado this year at the Ranch. We left NM Wednesday afternoon and came home Sunday. It was rainy and gloomy for the first few days. This is the first year in a long time there wasn't a white Christmas at the Ranch. But the rain finally ceased and the sun came out for Christmas day. It was cold but beautiful.

Before dinner there was some cowboy work to be done so half the group headed out to unload a trailer of hay and seperate calves from the mamas to wean them. I wish I took some pictures but I'm finding its a lot harder to play photographer with a baby in my arms. Not to mention it was too cold to take Anabelle out so we watched from the window.

Truth be told, I'm having a hard time remembering to take any pictures of anything besides Anabelle. I took one token picture of the crowd but it was so blurry I had to delete it.

Trace's mom made a ham and turkey and I made my near famous bacon wrapped smokies (yum!) and we had 16 people for dinner. We had a great time. It was really fun to see everyone and Anabelle got to show off her party dress. Then when the crowds died down we still had 7 of us there for the night and we ended up playing a few rounds of Mexican Train dominoes. Anabelle napped through the 1st half and then decided to join the game. Trace won but we all had fun.

Sunday came and we had some bacon & eggs, cleaned up our party messes, and headed home to Gallup. There's nothing like your own bed. :)