best. christmas. ever. (a.k.a. how do you spell 'recession'?)

What a beautiful, lovely, perfect, sweet, and delicious Christmas it was!
Chris and I hosted the family Christmas for the first time in our little house.
His parents, sister and brother in-love, and Bella, their Chihuahua came to spend the holidays.
(Technically Bella is the first grand baby, or grand dog as we call her. We love her, and she is quite cute and lovable for a small yappy dog. We like to play with her and awww at her cute tricks. But we have started to warn her that soon she will not be the center of attention anymore...there will be a new Little Sheriff in town. Baby Brink will come soon, and he will certainly steal the limelight. As he should! :)

We all seemed to forget how to spell 'recession', which was evident by the ungodly amounts of presents that poured out from the under the tree. When your love language is gifts and you have a family who is the same, it's easy to go overboard. I understand how quickly it can be all about the gifts and have that be the focus, but really when you do it out of a good place of love, then it's not the focus. It's just...the joy of it. I was so happy to see everyone's face light up when they opened something that they truly needed, enjoyed and wanted.

My favorite gift this year was the one I gave Chris. I secretly saved up (and by saved I mean scrimped. Every penny. It's hard when you don't work!) and bought him a beautiful Taylor acoustic guitar. I was crying when I gave it, and he cried when he saw it. It was the best gift I've ever given. And not because it was worth a lot of money, but because it was so heart felt. My husband deserves the world for taking care of me and our house, for selflessly going to work every to provide for our family. He needed to be thanked, and sometimes my words just can't do justice what is in my heart. I wanted to do something for him that he would never do for himself. He is just too selfless. In this season of our lives as we prepare for our baby to come, the needs are ever increasing. So spending so extravagantly wasn't maybe the smartest idea, but it needed to be done. He is worth that much to me.

So as I gave it to him all I could do was cry....I could hardly spit out the speech I had created. I just watched him in awe as he was overwhelmed, and he was speechless too. I can tell you, this 'love' thing....is really SO much better, and deeper and amazing than I expected.

My favorite gift I got? An hour long prenatal massage (thank you chris!!) Other favs included a Jelly Cat alligator for my son. He and Ardi the Arvark will be great friends. What else... Oh!! A harddrive from my dad. So now I can finally free up some space on my overly full computer, restore some order, and begin blogging again. (I would've gone to the library like I said I would, but we had quite the snow storm, and I've already slipped once on the ice. So I don't want to take any more chances.)

There is so much more to write about, but I have to end it here. Coffee and Saturday is calling. I must comply. Future posts: new belly pics & 'Confessions'

LOVE & LOVE, Cheers, Bliss, xo,
Yana