My birthstone is Garnet and Jon's birthstone is Diamond (lucky)! The birthstone for November is Citrine; which is orange in color. Jon surprised me with a beautiful ring made from Mikayla's birthstone and diamonds. Do you know your birthstone? 
Today I took Mikayla to meet Santa Claus for the first time. She wore her red outfit that reads "Baby's First Christmas". We met Kelly and Grady at the North Pole (Superstition Springs Mall near JCPenny's) and waited in line together. Grady went first. He smiled the whole time. Then it was Mikayla's turn. At 5 weeks old she is still too small to sit on Santa's lap, so he just held her. Of course she was in a milk coma and slept the whole time. I should have tried to wake her a few minutes earlier and maybe then she would have been more alert. But she was wearing that cozy outfit and that made her really comfortable and sleepy too. At least she was not screaming her head off. And this Santa was great, even his beard was the real deal! Santa told me that Mikayla asked for an Ipod and a cell phone... she is all her daddy! Hope you are all on Santa's "Nice" list this year! 
The hustle and bustle of Christmas morning has passed and the house is now quiet. The lights on the tree are twinkling. It is raining outside and we are nestled into the couch cushions watching A Christmas Story (it's on for 24 hours). Mikayla is on her boppy lounger sporting her "Baby's first Christmas" outfit, Willie on his bed gnawing on his new favorite toy he got from Santa in his stocking. And Jon and I are toasting each other with rum drinks. Our hearts are filled with so much love and joy and we are so happy today to be spending our daughter Mikayla's first Christmas with her. What a wonderful gift she is to us. We are forever thankful and happy. While the four of us sit and enjoy the rest of the day we are also reminded what Christmas means. To us it means that we are happiest when we are with each other. The gift of love and friendship is worth more than anything material. With that said, we are thankful to have such great friends and family and we thank you all for making our lives more fulfilled. We wish you a Merry Christmas and we hope to see all of you in the new year, 2009! 
