~~ The Halsted Herald~~: Blessings of Christmas

After a long trek west (14 hours door to door) the 4 southern Halsted’s arrived for our holiday vacation a bit tired and hungry. But in no time at all we were loaded up with a yummy smoothie and amped to see the whole family. It meant so much to us that we were able to spend oodles of quality time with the Halsted clan. They are such a great bunch of people and like the blog title mentions; we are so blessed to be related and with them for the holiday.

During our trip we made room for tons of visiting, loads of great food, lots of cousin play time, ample snow time including multiple snowmen, sledding, snowballs, etc. and of course the heated vest Dan bought me was put to great use. It’s a tad colder up there, as you can imagine.

It was both Grayson’s and Delaney’s first time in the snow and little man had an absolute BLAST. Thanks to Daddy and Aunt Karley (and Mandi for the snow gear, thank you so much!) he was up to his eyeballs in excitement. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, I LOVE seeing these first time events through his eyes. His blue eyes sparkle and the laughter is contagious. It’s one of the many things that make me proud to be a mom. My kiddos are really the best kids EVER!

Ok, all their cousins are pretty darn spectacular too.

And speaking of spectacular cousins, one of the best parts about our visit was having the honor of becoming godparents again. Little Alexa took the Sacrament of Baptism and it was an amazing service. The whole thing from start to finish, minus Grayson wanting to be part of the on-stage merriment, was truly spectacular. Congrats baby Alexa! So proud of you!

This year we also continued the “baby almost walking!” tradition and had Delaney push around the wicker chair. Grayson had the honor last July, and I believe almost everyone has used that chair as a walker, right on down to Uncle Sean starting the custom.

At the end of our visit, we were sad to leave and head back south, and as usual I was a blubbering fool. Delaney did manage to sober us up pretty quick with a fluke puking all over Daddy. Gotta love airplane jostling, bumpy trips to the airplane potty for diaper changes, plus mommy forcing liquids in an effort to keep baby girl hydrated: vicious combo. I have no idea how I skirted that either, but Daddy earned a medal for calm clean up before I even got back from Grayson’s potty break. Good job as usual Daddy!

And I know I say this every time too…but this time there needs to be an exclamation mark…We took a BUNCH of pictures. And because I know everyone loves to look at them here and on Picasa, I’ve posted some below but all of the pictures are HERE.

Hope everyone had an equally amazing Christmas celebration.

Thanks for all the fun, love and celebration Halsteds!

We love y’all!

Opening up GG and Grandpa's gifts before heading to Washington.