Christmas has come!

Embarrassment...I'm so ashamed that it has been a month already since I last posted anything to the site. We have been so busy with so many things that it seems the time is just flying by!
Here it is, Mariel's first Christmas and WE ARE SO EXCITED! I could hardly contain myself tonight... I was almost going to let Mariel open just one present... but Eric said no way. I guess I have to be the adult now :(. So Mariel sits patiently waiting to rip into one of those shiny things under the tree. At least 20 times a day I have to whisk her away from the tree. She's a quick one these days! She's now learned to pull herself into a standing position in her crib, in her playpen, well.. just about anywhere where she can get a good grip. She hasn't started full on crawling yet, still doing the "commando" style crawl.
Anyway, we have had a really busy two weeks. Gramma Pursell passed away on December 8th, and so we were down in Grants Pass attending her funeral. It went well, and Gramma Sell would have been SO happy to see that all of Eric's family came together. Some hadn't seen eachother in up to 40 years!!!
After our tricky return over the snow blown mountain pass, we went to work for a day. Tuesday, the 20th, Eric had facial surgery. He spent one night in ICU, and then another night in a private suite in Hotel St.Charles Hospital.
You'll see his picture after this post. He's doing great now, but still has a sore throat. This is to be expected considering the amount of diggin around the surgeons did to him. He is sans tonsils, sans soft pallette, sans ability to swallow very well. He's eating lots of soup and finally moved onto mashed potatoes tonight! Yippee!
Anyway, he's getting a little better each day... so lets just hope that the breathing ability is better after all the healing is done!

Anyway, here it is, the night before the night before Xmas, and I'm catching up the last few weeks. Mariel's been her amazing cute little self, but has developed a touch of a cold. She's getting her two top front teeth in and so a combonation of not feeling well combined with teething is making for a little fussy baby at times. Overall though, she is as cute as ever. She's waving to EVERYTHING she sees and is recognizing... and sometimes I swear to it... she's saying Mamma and Dadda (to the appropriate person!).

Enjoy the couple pics and I hope you all have a TERRIFIC Christmas!!!