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| Our last family photo of 2012! |
Happy New Year’s Eve! I can’t believe we are saying goodbye to another year and welcoming a new one. I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday season celebrating with family and friends. James and I had an incredible week celebrating Mason’s first Christmas and spending time together being lazy, watching movies, and not getting out of our pajamas! Our weekend trip to Dunn and Cary before Christmas to celebrate with our families was wonderful as always, and then it was back home to spend Christmas Eve at home (our first time!) and spoil Mr. Mason. James starts the night shift on the ship this month so we both took the week of Christmas off to spend some time together as a family before our schedules get crazy and we don’t see each other too often. It was perfection, and I love the memories we are creating as a family.
Below are some pictures from our time with family, and Mason’s first visit from Santa.
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| Mason got his lifetime hunting and fishing license! |
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| Christmas cousins! |
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| Mason with my Mama, his great grandmother |
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| Mason and Granny |
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| My siblings! |
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| Mason with my Granny, his GG (Great Granny) |
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| Checking out the Christmas tree and ornaments |
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| Christmas morning, found the clementines in my stocking |
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| My high chair Santa brought me! |
And as I always do on New Year’s, I want to take a minute to recap 2012 and all the blessings James and I have experienced, the places we’ve gone, and the memories we’ve made. It goes without saying 2012 has been a pretty special year as we welcomed the arrival of our first son Mason Eldridge. He is by far the shining star of this year. He is our greatest accomplishment and we are awed by him every single day. But there are so many other reasons this has been an amazing year. We settled into Norfolk, VA and started building our life here, James is established on the USS Theodore Roosevelt and I love my job at Mosquito Joe, James turned 30 (!) and we celebrated in the only way I knew how for him…with a pirate party complete with costumes, our nephew Jackson Edward was born and Warren and Tara became parents, we celebrated Mikey and Steph’s wedding in Hatteras this past Spring, Annie and Will shared their AMAZING news they are adopting and we are already so excited about our new niece or nephew, Molly Carter turned TWO, James completed a huge accomplishment on the ship and was pinned with his Surface Warfare pin, we celebrated three years of marriage – and for the first time we were in the same house, not states apart!, I started working again and Mason started daycare (thank goodness he loves it!), we found out James’s best friend Justin is cancer free after a three year battle, and we celebrated Mason’s first Christmas at home. It has been an incredible year. James and I are so lucky we have all of you in our lives to help us write this crazy story of ours. Wherever 2013 takes you and your family I hope it is full of love, laughter, and happiness. Thank you for following our journey and giving us so much love and support...we have felt it every step of the way.
Happy New Year!!!
James, Julie, Mason, & Silly Lilly
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