it took him all of three photos into it before he got used to the whole idea

1. "what is this strange green stuff with twinkles?"

2. "um, i think i'm gonna have to get used to this idea before i go exploring."

3. "ok. never mind. i'm goin' in!"

so, as i said in my post yesterday, we put up our christmas tree last saturday night. as you might imagine, this is a very exciting christmas for us! but more on that later.

since this is isaac's first christmas {post-birth}, i had the camera ready for the big "lighting of the tree". right after we plugged in the lights, i sat him down smack dab in front of it and raced to the couch to pick up my camera, sit down and start capturing his response. {and those three shots above really are the first three i took, just as the scene really unfolded.}

and then he was off!... off to a good half hour of pure enjoyment of a whole new world.

as you can see, i couldn't stop at just three photos... there were so many sweet little expressions to get and i could not pick only one adorable face out of the bunch. so i had to post them all {well, actually, i took so many more. but these shots turned out the best.}

anyway, as i said, this will be a special christmas for us. in fact, it will be the first time in a long time that we got really excited about celebrating it the way we did as kids. we were more excited than usual last year at christmas... just with anticipation of the arrival of our first child in the new year to come.

but this will be far more special. isaac is sitting up completely on his own now {even without the support of pillows and such around him}. so we feel like it will be lots of fun to have him around on christmas day. he may not remember it for a long time to come. but we will enjoy him more if he is sitting up with us... able to play and laugh and listen to the christmas tunes.

it is special for both mr. b and me. but i feel an extra special aspect to this time... because it was last year at about this time, that i announced my pregnancy, using this very tree to take photos for that post.

and though i already used "isaac is my gift this year" for my birthday in september, it fits here, too... this is our gift this year... so how appropriate that i should let him hang out under the tree {supervised, of course... don't worry, it's a fake tree}. i'm so grateful to have someone new to celebrate christmas with this year!

well, i guess that will wrap up my "thankful for" posts for the month. i wanted to do another, but i don't think i will get around to it. i'm bummed, 'cause after a short series that a blog friend of mine invited me to take part in, i won't be blogging much again. i've got projects in the works, and christmas to prepare for. and with the gratitude posts behind me, i'll be back to not blogging regularly again {not that it was a regular thing in november}.

anyway, the in-laws just spent their last evening here. they will head back to florida in the morning, and they will be greatly missed. we are already planning our next trip down there. i think we'll be going sooner than we thought. we have other relatives that really want to meet isaac. he is growing so fast, so we feel a sense of urgency to get down there soon.

tomorrow is december, and i am ready for it. i'm so excited to make christmas as magical as it can be. i want isaac to have great memories of his first christmas... they may not stick in his mind, but i'll be sure to capture it with the "pen" and lens so that he can relive them some day.

my hope for him is that he senses the wonder of the reason we celebrate.

stay warm, all! see you around in december.