Christmastime

Let me just say that I love Christmas. I love the parties, the food, the presents, the drinks, the coziness of sitting in a warm room on a cold night with my whole family in front of a twinkling tree. I love the music and I love getting dressed up in a pretty sweater. Maybe I'm sounding a little weird now, but I remember absolutely loving the various traditions that my family had around the holidays when I was little. I guess I still love them, but now we have to start our own traditions so that JD (and any other future little Eckert babies) can cherish his holiday memories.

So, I guess we're starting with our first Christmas Eve party tomorrow night. There are lots of people coming, and hopefully, everyone has a great time and will look forward to coming to our house for many years to come. It's especially important for us to enjoy Christmas this year, because if you remember, or if you just take a look back to December of last year in this blog, you'll see that we spent the entire holiday in the hospital. Jeff was stuck inside his room last year with no appetite, and no desire for much of anything but getting his hospital stay over with. My Dad, Rich, Nicole and I ate a free Christmas dinner in the hospital cafeteria, which nice as it was, is a horrible place to be on Christmas.

Sometimes after thinking back on something bad that happened, you can sort of say to yourself, "well, it wasn't that bad..." I'm still not able to say that about last year. In fact, the more I think about it, the more horrible and real it all is, and the more I can be thankful that we made it through and that Jeff is doing great. Enough said about that.

Lately, JD has been taking 3 or 4 steps at time from one spot to another. This morning, he basically went almost the whole way across the room before falling at my feet. He was so darn proud of himself, and so adorable that I just can't stop thinking about him.