A Quiet First Christmas

Heidi and Elaina and I spent a quiet Christmas at home. This little girl is a half a world away from everything she knows—everything looks different, sounds different, smells different. The people taking care of her are, in fact, different. We didn't want to bombard her with lots of people, so we spent Christmas at home, just the three of us.

Elaina has lots of people very eager to meet her, who were willing to give her a little space for now and meet her, little by little, over the coming days and weeks. In the meantime, here are some pictures from Christmas.

The picture at the top of this post is, of course, Elaina with her proud (and now less exhausted) Mommy. Elaina herself looks a little sad in this picture. Christmas was kind of when the trip caught up with her, and she was momentarily less like a ray of sunshine and more like a normal baby—but just momentarily, as the next pictures show.

You've actually already seen the happy picture in the red "twinkle suit", but I like that one, so you get to see it twice.

And here's one of Elaina and I on Christmas eve. As you can see, she's just a little thing. At 9 months old, she's still less than 13 pounds, but the doctor believes she'll catch up quickly. I think her cheeks already look chubbier than when we got home.

Finally, this one is Elaina asleep in her carseat after returning from the doctor's office. (Routine post-adoption check-up.) Actually, this picture is from the 23rd, so it's a little outside the Christmas theme, but I'm calling Father's Prerogative on the grounds that she's wearing a fuzzy polar bear coat and holding the blanket her Grandma (Lammers) made for her.

For anyone (my Mom, for instance) stressing about the small size of these pictures and thinking about prints, these are only web-sized images—even the larger ones you get when you click on them. That's likely fine for 99% of you, but if anyone (my Mom, for instance) wants larger ones, the originals are 4-5 times larger, so just ask.