The marathon of Christmas ended with my parents waking up at our house the day after Christmas so we could enjoy some of Mom’s traditions. We woke up to Mom’s melt-in-your-mouth cinnamon rolls and a new batch of presents under the tree. We exchanged our gifts and enjoyed watching Cora open her gifts. After gifts and breakfast we took a walk to a school a few blocks from the house to let Chase run and feel the crisp morning on our checks.

In the midst of the business of Christmas Andy and I spent a lot of time talking about how hard it will be to keep the focus of Christmas on Christ for our kids as they grow up. We hope that while the world may leave Christ out of His own birthday that we will be able to instill the truth and importance about the celebration in our children.

Grandpa picked this out for Cora

Cora IN her present

The Botts Family (minus the 3 Kosters & 9 Michiganders)

I know…part 4.  Christmas was a bit of a marathon this year. So, after our quiet Christmas morning at the house we headed down to Port Charlotte for the Botts Christmas. Being that it was a Botts gathering we of course ate a huge meal before anyone even thought about gifts. We had all of the traditional Botts dishes from a ham to Auntie CoCo’s taco salad, and the dutch favorite Bon-Ket. After we ate we carried on the unique family tradition of arming ourselves with Nerf guns and ammo for the infamous “Nerf War.” Besides Grandma’s dutch style pig-in-the-blankets and Grandpa’s prayers, this may be one of my favorite traditions. Grandpa calmed the group and gathered us around the tree where DJ acted as Santa and passed out gifts one-by-one. Cora was spoiled once again with great gifts that lit up, sang and rolled, but this time she was more interested in DJ’s pink santa hat. The night ended with a buffet of  10 different desserts and once again, full bellies.

Aunt Michelle & Cora

Cora's mission: Get the Pink Santa hat!

Andy, Cora and I were able to spend Christmas morning at our house and really enjoyed starting some of our own traditions.  One of Andy’s favorites was the coffee cake recipe that I found from the summer camp in Missouri that we worked in the summer of 2002.  Cora got three presents from Santa, a ball, a tambourine, and a nursery rhymes book. We spent some time on the floor showing her how to roll the ball back and forth and she clearly didn’t need any help learning how to make the tambourine make noise. After we opened presents and ate our warm coffee cake, Andy, Cora, Chase and I piled onto the pull-out-bed from the couch and watched a few episodes of Andy’s gift, The Cosby Show. It didn’t take long for us all to drift off into a perfect Christmas morning nap.

Cora's first Christmas morning

On Christmas Eve we headed to Venice to spend the day with the Wells family. We tore through the presents in record time and Cora had a pile of presents to open, or rather to taste. She liked eating the bows and boxes more than discovering their contents. A few of us walked a couple of blocks to a little community park where Cora was able to try out the play equipment. We finished the day with a traditional Christmas feast and full bellies.

Andy & his baby girl!

Cora loves the swings.

She had two shoes at the top of the slide...?

Grandpa helping with the infamous lost shoe.

Cora eating the monkey bars

Cora sporting her new bib, thanks Grannin!

Last Saturday we celebrated our first Christmas with my  family at our home. Cora was more interested in Hunter than any of her presents. We all received great gifts and enjoyed a cold winter night together. Cora came down with a fever that night that lasted for 3 days. She was miserable. I hated seeing her so sick. Her fever got so high that we had to put her in a luke warm bath twice to bring the fever down. She just looked up at us with a quivering lip and cried. Poor baby girl.

Andy and I stayed the night in room "128" on Siesta Key for my 28th Birthday.

I had a wonderful birthday. Thank you to everyone who sent texts, cards and left messages! I especially liked the off key birthday songs! Thanks again, I am so blessed!

Andy and I enjoying Siesta Key Village and soaking up another Florida winter.

Cora is so much fun right  now, I think the past few weeks have been my favorite stage so far. Just the other night while Andy and I were eating hot bowls of chili on the back porch enjoying a cold night, Cora decided to entertain us for a change. She threw her head back and then looked at us with a grin as if to say, “Did you see how funny I was?” Andy and I would laugh and then she would do it over and over again. It was the funniest thing. She has also started saying “Mama & Dada,” usually at random, but we are pretty certain that she knows which one of us is which. She is crawling everywhere and testing everything to see what can hold her so she can pull herself up and what can’t. When she finds something that will hold her she likes to “bounce, bounce” up and down. She’ll even bounce on command. One of my favorite things is that she has learned is the word duck, I can set up a few toys and I can ask her where her duck is and she’ll grab it with a s big proud smile. I’m still working on some sign language but she just smiles and waves her hands around to mimic me.  The best thing is that she really is starting to understand us and react to what we are saying. We are so blessed to have her and watch her grow. What a gift we have this Christmas season.

Aunt Kathe & Cora at Grannin's

Aunt Marilyn & Cora

Uncle Dave & Cora

We spent Sunday afternoon at Grannin’s house with the Wells family to celebrate Dan’s birthday and mine. Cora was the center of attention, literally, we watched her play in the middle of the room while we cheered her on.