Christmas time

Well, all things considered Christmas went fairly well. We managed to make our budgets work for buying gifts for lots of people, which was nice. Things were going pretty well until Rick got a phone call on the 23rd letting him know that his uncle had passed away from a heart attack. Obviously that put a damper on the mood. However, Rick tried really hard to keep his spirits as high as he could considering the circumstances and we still managed to have some good times...
We celebrated Christmas with Rick's family on the 24th and went to my parents on the 25th. What a big difference there is between the 2 families! With Rick's family there are around 20 people with all the kids and grandkids and with my family there are my parents, Mark and us. Definitely a lot quieter, but definitely still nice.
Even though we had Christmas with Cruz last year, this still felt like his first Christmas because he was able to enjoy it a lot more than when he was 4 months old. He still preferred to play with everything but his actual presents, but I guess he's just at that age. He loves playing with his stuff now, but that's because all the boxes are thrown away!

We took a lot of pictures, but here are just a few for now. I put the majority on facebook though.

The first present of the year... he wound up playing with the box more than the dog, but as long as he enjoyed himself I'm happy!

Rick's nephew Ash put on the Santa beard... Cruz sat way better with this Santa than the Santa at the mall.
I just really loved this photo of Cruz. He was being all sneaky and stealing bites of his uncle's sandwich.
Playing piano at my parents place. He loves the piano!
The awesome rocking horse my parents got for Cruz. It neighs and wags it's tail from side to side when you press his ear. Pretty cool!