THE MALDENS

Really?! The holidays are over and the first month of 2010 nearly is too. Justin has been on break until just a few days ago, so we're just barely getting back into the swing of "real life." Here's some of the stuff we've enjoyed over the past few weeks:

We celebrated our own little Christmas on the 23rd of December. It was humble and quaint, with the anticipation of 3 additional Christmas celebrations to follow. But you know what? Our little Christmas was my favorite one. I was with the two people I love most in the world. I felt the excitement and the magic of Believing. I felt JOY.

Bryn tore the bow off her first present and kept it in her

mouth while opening all the remaining gifts. Silly girl.

After our Christmas morning festivities we headed

downtown to visit Santa at Macy's on 34th Street.

These are the two I mentioned earlier, you know, the ones I love most in the world.

We made friends with this little guy while waiting in line to see Santa. I'm pretty sure these two were just as excited about touching each others' hands as they were about seeing Santa. Alright, maybe more excited about touching hands.

Bryn LOVES hair (I've lost much due to this love), so this very hairy Santa was a hit. She could have played with that beard all day.

On the 24th we flew to California. We were so relieved to make it without any cancellations or delays due to weather. A Christmas Miracle!

Our first stop was Christmas with my dad and his fiancee. They both work at Sugar Bowl ski resort so this is the whole group adorned in Sugar Bowl attire.

Our next stop was my mom's where Bryn discovered the love of her life: Ginger.

Our final Christmas celebration was with Justin's fam. Sadly, the pictures we took with all the Malden cousins got saved to a location on our camera that we can't seem to download from. Hopefully we'll figure it out some day.

We had the camera out so much during these Christmas celebrations that Bryn learned to be quite the little poser.

In addition to Ginger, Bryn also had tons of fun with all of her adoring grandparents, uncles, aunts, and cousins during our 2 week stay. Likewise, Justin and I had tons of fun going on dates, running baby-free errands, and sleeping in thanks to all of those adoring folks.

There were so many willing fingers to lend support to Bryn while she walked around the house. What a lucky little one.

My grandma organized a girl's weekend while I was there. We got to stay in a hotel, eat out, shop, laugh, talk, etc. It was super fun. Love you, Grandma!

Four Generations

We came back to NY with a week remaining in Justin's break. We had a great time with the whole family in CA and have continued to have a great time with just our family. Bryn is eager to walk, but her wobbly legs aren't fully supportive (PUN!) of the idea yet. She'll cruise though, holding on to whatever she can get her hands on (table, couches, mom's legs, etc.). She even pulls herself up on her own. We made predictions about when she would start crawling, for months thinking "It'll be this week for sure!" She turned out to be a bum scootcher instead of a crawler. We made predictions while I was pregnant as to when she would make her entrance to the world, a week late was NOT one of our guesses. As a result we've become a bit disheartened when it comes to predicting this little one, but unofficially? I'd say she'll be walking within a month.

In other news not pertaining to Bryn (is there such a thing anymore??): Justin has been offered an internship for the summer/fall in India. It is in an area that is conducive to all of us going. We want to get more offers before we make a final decision, but this is the first offer so far. We've been talking with Indian accents ever since we got the news.