Christmas Vacation

I'm not sure that I would really call our recent trip to Houston a "vacation", but since I didn't have to cook or clean for a week, I think it counts. This Christmas could only be described as weird, for several reasons:

- Claire was far from her usual happy self. She was not cool at all with being confined to our laps for hours on the plane. Not only was she forced to sit somewhat still, but how dare we expect her to nap in our arms? Her stranger anxiety was also out in full force the whole time we were there.

- Besides the stranger anxiety and the fourteen four-hour flight, she also cut a top tooth, had a terribly runny nose that required way too much use of this contraption and threw up in her car seat two mornings in a row.

- The combo of stranger anxiety, teething, runny nose and jet lag from the two-hour time difference, led to ridiculously long {3+ hours} bedtime routines the first several nights.

- Despite the above-mentioned setbacks, Claire still managed to spend most of her free time trying to unwrap the presents under the tree, terrorize Adam's family dog, knock breakable items off the coffee table, pull out any cables she could find, and stick her fingers in all nearby electrical outlets. 

- Four family members came down the with the stomach flu, which meant the Christmas Eve and Christmas Day festivities were cancelled. 

- We went to a not-on-purpose candlelight Christmas morning Mass. A windstorm caused a power outage at church! During the Gospel {from the first chapter of John}, when the priest read "and the light came into the world" the power came back on but when he read "and the darkness did not overcome it" the power went off and stayed that way for the rest of the service. Crazy!

- My parents and little brother, Scott, live in Shanghai now and this was our first Christmas not celebrating in our old house.  They did come back to visit though and stayed in my sister, Allison's, apartment. It was great to see them but Houston doesn't feel quite as much like home anymore, you know?

Despite of all that, we had an awesome time seeing our favorite people and eating our favorite food {Tex-Mex, barbecue and Chick-fil-A perhaps more than once a day}.



Claire with our friends, Jake and Jamie.

Adam, Claire, and his high school best friend, Nick.

Me, Claire, and my high school best friend, Sam.

Adam's oldest brother, Jeff, and his wife, Jenn, had a little girl, Estelle, in July. The cousins finally got to meet over Christmas!

Claire was unimpressed until she realized that she could steal Estelle's pacifier straight out of her mouth.

Does it get any sweeter?

Oh, right, it does!



After Christmas Mass. 

The less interested you are in Claire, the faster she will grow to like you. It's no surprise, then, that she quickly warmed up to my little brother, Scott.





Don't worry, by the end of the trip, she warmed up to the rest of the family too!



The whole Crawford family on Christmas Day.



Claire and her cousin, Estelle, didn't get to spend as much time together as we'd hoped {darn stomach flu!} but they did get to see each other again very briefly before we headed home.  It is nearly impossible to get a non-blurry shot of two little babies!



I just can't get over Estelle's face in this picture. Instant mood lifter.



Okay, she didn't quite get over the stranger anxiety. Or she was already dreading the flight home as much as her parents were!