I have never felt more joy at Christmastime than I did this year. Despite her being too young to understand, seeing the innocence and wonder in Hadley’s eyes as she experienced everything this year made my heart so full it could burst. My parent’s and sister came up on the 21st, and my sister’s fiance joined us on the 23rd and they all stayed through the 26th. We definitely had a full house, but it was so much fun to have relaxing family time and extra hands to help with Hadley! She was over-the-moon happy with all of the extra love and attention she was getting. She literally woke up from every nap grinning from ear to ear and squealing as we would walk into the family room where all of her adoring fans were waiting for her (or at least that’s how she saw it).
My absolute favorite moment this Christmas was not Christmas morning as I expected, but rather Christmas Eve at church. We decided to keep Hadley with us since it was a shorter service and we assumed would be mostly music. Although it got a little long for her and we had to trade off taking her out, the first half was a time I will not soon forget. Standing in church, holding our little girl and singing praises celebrating our savior filled my heart with so much joy! Hadley was clapping her hands and kicking her legs and dancing in my arms. She kept turning to my mom on one side of me and Matt on the other side with the biggest grin on her face as if she was saying “Can you believe how FUN this is? This music is great!” I had tears in my eyes through every song. It brought an entirely new light to the verses: “Truly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it” and “Jesus said, "Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these." What an awesome picture to see her innocent, joyful praise. I pray that she never loses that light, but only learns more about who the true source of that light is!
We took a TON of pictures, so here is a giant picture recap for your enjoyment!
Playing around with Poppy in mommy’s Uggs!
Hadley LOVES to play with her Nana’s iPad…
Before Christmas Eve service…
Santa came!
Checking everything out Christmas morning…
“This is all for me, right y’all?”
Poppy had to make sure she didn’t get too much girly stuff… so he got her tonka trucks!
Hadley actually surprised us all. We figured she’d be more interested in the wrapping paper and bows than her presents, but she was actually kind of scared of the sound the wrapping paper made, but was all eyes & ears once the gift was open and she saw it was for her!
Family PJs picture. Hadley didn’t quite get the memo on the “silly face” picture below…
I hope all of y’all had a blessed Christmas! It’s hard to believe we’ll be in a new year in just a couple days, and even harder to believe that this time last year I was less than a week away from meeting our sweet, sassy, stubborn baby girl!
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