Wintertime with the Williams Family

Our Colorado trip this Christmas was such a delight. We spent lots of time with family, with many coming in town from all directions! Of course, many photos were taken to capture all the memories, so I’ll do my best to limit them to my favorites…

Enjoying a good pop-up book with Grammy on our first morning in Woodland Park…almost time for presents!

      

She was so excited to open all her goodies!

        

Helping Aunt Betsy open surprises…     

Much silliness everywhere:           

And, of course, so many wonderful clothes:

She knows just what to do with those:

A familiar scene on our back porch…

I gave Bridgey a chance to say hello (notice the deer are bounding to safety from this little pink monster):

She loved seeing them, and I loved how close they stayed even when she was outside. Awesome!

This year my mom was nice enough to save cookie decorating til we arrived. This is a Williams family tradition that I usually miss out on due to being in Texas with the Adamos on Christmas Eve. Isn’t splitting holidays hard? At least we’ve found a way to make it our own now and make it work…thanks, Mom, for letting me decorate this year!

     

We enjoyed many visits with my Grandparents, and though they aren’t in good health these days, we managed to fit plenty of family, love, and humor in their little apartment almost daily. Here’s all the Needham/Mayberry ladies (4 generations!):

 

Bridget played plenty with cousins Laurel and Carolyn. Isn’t it sweet how much young children LOVE playing with babies?? It’s exhausting on a young mom like myself, but I still love seeing their enthusiasm and B is finally getting big enough to play back ;)

 

Grandma got a chance to help me feed Bridget. So precious!

On to a field trip to the Pioneer Museum! Since my mom’s cousin Matt is the curator, we try to make a visit each year to see new exhibits…

    

I’m sure you can hear her saying her favorite word…”baby”…she had plenty to point at! (my mom tried to teach her how to saw “creepy baby” since all these old dolls were certainly nightmare material for the two of us!)

   

    

I think 5 Bee trips were made to our favorite pub throughout the family’s two week stay (we participated in 2 visits)…love it!

   

Precious Elle came over to meet us with her daddy. When I heard him say she was 8 months I didn’t blink an eye. Later Jonathan told me that I’d misheard and she was actually 18 months! Bridget often seems to act/look older than she really is…must be her tendency toward the genius…:)

          

Happy 35th anniversary, Mom and Dad! What great role models I have as parents…

                       

We have so many movies that we like to put on this time of year: “It’s A Wonderful Life”, “A Muppet Christmas Carol”, “A Christmas Story”, “Elf”, and of course, “Ruldolf”. Can you believe we managed to see ALL OF THEM this season? Yay!

  

Enjoy this self-sacrificing pic of me working a puzzle with Bridget. Puzzles are a huge tradition in my family, though one I admittedly DESPISE. I don’t know what it is about puzzles that I loathe, but I managed to introduce her to this one (don’t think she’s quite ready for them!) as well as finish this year’s family puzzle once Mary had officially given up. Go me!

She loooooved this Snuggie…  

We can’t make it to Colorado without a trip to the Hungry Bear:

This is going to be a year of games for all of us. Jonathan and I share a monthly Game Night with friends already and hope to continue it in 2011, and my sisters are excited to start that tradition in their own homes, too. Both Betsy and Mary got Yahtzee for Christmas and Bridget got a chance to “play”. Know this: I am TERRIBLE at Yahtzee. It doesn’t bother me at all, because I just assume I am lucky elsewhere in life so many ways so there’s just no luck left for this dice game. Oh well! It was very giggle-worthy, however, when a few hours after I’d mentioned never rolling a Yahtzee myself (EVER!) Bridget managed to roll herself a full Yahtzee! Bahahaha! Good times…a lucky girl, indeed :)

Sweet times with Aunt Mary. She was a great babysitter for me!

She even taught B how to “feed” some of her favorite new stuffed friends. Aren’t these pics adorable?

 

What a sight for sore eyes for Jonathan when we realized Woodland Park was getting its own microbrewery over the summer! Unfortunately, it wasn’t open at that time and we had to wait til our holiday return…it was a success!

 

The waitress we had was so sweet and really hoped B would like this orange creme soda, even though we told her our little girl only likes water and spits everything else out. Everything. Well, about 2 seconds after this shot what happened? Orange creme all over B, Jonathan, and the floor. Hehehehe. She did LOVE that whipped cream on top, though!

Such fun times with my family this Christmas! Look for some Adamo Adventures from the trip soon, too. I just totally ran out of room in this lengthy post!