THE HEUSSER FAMILY: Merry Christmas!

This year marked the first Christmas in 28 years (29 years for Randy) that we had spent away from family! Although we missed being with our families over the holidays, we were also excited to start some new Christmas traditions of our own. Joanna and I baked cookies on Christmas Eve for Santa, and that evening, we went to Christmas mass. Once Joanna went to bed, Randy and I had the joy of acting as 'Santa' and setting-up all of Joanna's toys and making sure that 'Santa' ate just the right amount of cookies and milk and left just enough crumbs on the plate... it was such a small moment and yet one that I will always remember.

Joanna woke up Christmas morning, anxious to see what Santa left for her! She was so shocked by the site of all of the presents that I think it took her a moment to realize what was going on. She was immediately drawn to her new train table and played with the set for a good half hour before we could convince her to open her other gifts! Even then, she would take 'breaks' to go play with her train set one more time. We took our time unwrapping gifts and listening to Christmas tunes and even took a time-out of our own to make some blueberry muffins, eggs and bacon for breakfast (Joanna had been following me around the house with this box of muffin mix the entire week, saying 'muffin mama?' 'muffin pleeeeeeeeease!' ' mama, I like muffins' and I promised I would make them for her on Christmas morning -- she was in heaven!). That evening, we were invited to a friend's house for a get-together. We all had such a great time relaxing and watching the kids run wild!

We are so thankful for the time we spent together this Christmas (we know that we can not always count on this happening every year with Randy's flying schedule) and for the memories we were able to create with just the 3 of us. With the end of Christmas comes the start of a new year, one that I know will be filled with many challenges and many many more joys!