The Full Life (Part I)

Looking back over the photo's from the past two weeks, I'm amazed at all that God packs into our life. Lot's of love. Lot's of dear friends and family. Lots of adventure. Our Christmas was celebrated in two parts. The first part (consisting of the 3 days prior to Christmas) was spent with the Blanco family. Rafael & Mary & Jonathan graciously hosted & housed us & fed us as much delicious food as we could eat (and we can eat a lot!). It is such a joy to share the girls with them - they are a truly wonderful family, and I love em. Here's a peek into our lovely time with them (if you see AG smiling, it's most often at or with her Grandma/Abuelita - she sure enjoys her!):

Havyn & her Grandpa/Abuelito:

Our amazing Christmas tree : ) Both girls (make that all three of us girls) thought it was beeaautiful!

 Havyn's Abuelito seeds pomegranates by the dozen & then freezes them. To Havyn, it was pure candy! (Thank you Rafael for sharing the fruits...er...seeds, of your labor).

 More Havster & Grandpa time.

 There's a special smile that just comes out for Grandpa.....

 Grandpa & his girls:

Ooh, but I love the hair on this girl!:

 So here's one way the girls do NOT act like identical twins; Havyn adores hats right now. Whereas it takes Ava Gray approximately 45 seconds (or less) to get the wretched things off of her. : ) Here's her in action:

 And....done! Proud of you AG. I think that might have been a personal best.

Hanging with the Havster....

 Ava Gray getting to walk (and run!) with her Abuelto. Man, but they have fun together...

 Here's a shot of all the lovely gifts under the Christmas tree... Guess which one is my favorite? (Hint: she's wearing purple socks!).

 So we almost had a traditional Colombian Christmas. If it was the real deal, we'd have had dinner at 11:30pm and opened gifts at midnight. Since everyone figured the girls would never stay up that late (primarily this mama-girl!), we moved the girls' dinner back to 7pm, put them down, and then took our time to tuck away a delicious dinner in the company of extended family & friends who came to celebrate with us. After we'd finished dinner & desert, Havyn woke up, so we all tromped into the living room to open gifts together (10:30pm-ish - closer to midnight than I'd ever dreamed possible!). Ava Gray wisely chose to sleep through the hoopla. : ) Here's a few of Havster giddy and overwhelmed with all the sweet gifts and people...she had so much fun.

 Leggo's from her Papi - one of her favorites. She plays with these, like, 15-20 times a day. Perfect.

 Another gift from her Papi: colored pens and her own notebook. She was so excited that she started drawing in it with both hands. I think we're gonna have to get her a new book soon - it's almost filled up with sweet lil scribblings.

 And the morning after: Ava Gray is refreshed and content.....

 While Havster is moving slow & in a daze (hanging here with her new sock monkey & Elmo):

 Before we left, Grandma/Abuelita squeezed in as much time as possible with her AG:

 while Havster was still recovering from her wild Colombian Christmas : )

 The take-away from this Christmas with the Blanco's was an incredible sense of gratitude for how God pours out love onto these two girls through their grandparents. They (& I) are truly blessed. If you're reading this Mary & Rafael, we miss you & can't wait till you come back home! (Both are in Baltimore right now helping with their new granddaughter, Ana Marie, a darling, darling, darling little girl! We'll try to share pictures of her soon).

I'm pretty sure AG's was thinking something along the lines of "God. Bless. Grandparents." : ) To which I echo, "Amen!"