Christmas in NY

These pictures are some of the precious moments we had for Eli's first Christmas and first time meeting many of his family and friends: Eli as Alfalfa, A stocking full of preciousness, mommy and daddy on Christmas day, Eli on Christmas day, A couch burrito(get it-haha).

Mitch and I took Eli home to NY for his first Christmas and what an adventure it was (are you really surprised?). We had a very late night the night before we left doing our last minute getting ready. I am pretty sure Elijah slept better than mommy or daddy. We kept him up most of the day and then gave him a bath and swaddled him. Before I could even get him wrapped up he was asleep in my arms.
We got up at 4:30 am to make sure we got out of the house with plenty of time to get us and all of our goodies to the airport in time for our flight. We had a pretty crazy flight schedule...El Paso to DFW, DFW to Chicago, and Chicago to Roch, NY...or so we thought. By the time we landed in Chicago we had a message that our flight to Roch had been canceled due to weather. I will spare you many of the ridiculous details. The major points are that they were telling us we couldn't get a flight until X-mas Eve, AA agents were telling us to call the 800 #, the 800# was telling us to talk to the agents, we decided it would be best to drive from Chicago to NY through the terrible weather rather than stay at the airport w/ our newborn and 2 dogs for the next 3 days.
Praise God that my husband is an expert driver b/c he drove us safely through some pretty crazy weather/road conditions. It was so cold outside that I ended up changing diapers on my lap in the car! A trip that normally would have taken about 8-9 hrs, took us 16!!! Eli was the most amazing baby. He handled the stress way better than mommy did. I broke down a couple of times just feeling so awful for putting my little precious baby through all this craziness. My wonderful hubby reassured me that I was doing the best I could and that b/c of how well I prepared, I had everything we needed for baby to get through a 36 hour trip w/ all of his needs met.
After an insane couple of days of travel there was of course no time for rest. We had a full schedule of visiting ahead of us. Many of our family and friends got to meet our precious Elijah for the first time and those who did meet him were anxious to see him again. We enjoyed sharing our time with our loved ones but were absolutely exhausted! Mitch had tried convincing me many times that staying put for Christmas was a much better option and until this experience I had been opposed. It is amazing how things change once you have a child whose well being you are solely responsible for.
Mitch left for NM on the 27th w/ dogs in tow and made it back w/ little hassle (but you better believe there was some hassle). Eli and I finished up our visit and headed out on the 31st to get back to daddy. Of course that day there would be a snow storm. The weather was perfect for every day in between our travel days. When we checked for flight delays AA kept telling us we were on time. As soon as we got to our gate, there was an announcement that the airport would be closed for the next two hours. This meant that we would miss our connection in Chicago. We had to take a later flight out of Chicago to DFW. We did end up meeting a very nice couple who also had a 6 wk old. They were on our flight from Roch to Chicago and from Chicago to DFW. We also got bumped up to First Class ;-). Eli and mommy had a very long day of sitting in airports and flying when we finally for back to daddy, but boy were we glad to see him!
Needless to say, I did not end up being conscious to being in the New Year, but I did have a dream that my hubby came in to give me a kiss and say, "Happy New Year." Oh wait, maybe that really did happen ;-).