I'll be home for Christmas

     Tim, Owen, and I were very fortunate to be able to fly home to Georgia for Christmas this year. We had a wonderful time with our family and friends. We split the week pretty evenly between Tim's parents and mine. We saw a few friends, but mainly wanted to spend the majority of our time with our family during this trip. It seemed like Owen remembered his grandparents and aunts and uncle pretty well from previous trips and Skype. He showed very little separation anxiety for which we were really grateful. And we were also really excited because Owen learned a few new tricks while he was there too. The most exciting of which was that he started crawling on Christmas day. He also started babbling quite a bit more and started making several new consonant sounds. The most frequent is a "Puh" sound for all the many dogs that our families own. Whenever we said, "Look at the puppy, Owen," he would start making the "Puh" sound.
     Here are some photos from our trip.

Owen helped paint sugar cookies - a Rumely family tradition.

This really just meant that Owen got to eat part of a sugar cookie. And stay up two and half hours past his bedtime with a sugar high.

Frosting Puffs to our child's face doesn't make us bad parents, does it?

Hanging out with Papa.

Uncle Joseph was able to come over during the day and see Owen awake! The night before, he rocked Owen to sleep after getting off work. He was a natural.

Jodi and Marcus got some one-on-one time with Owen since they arrived early!

My "brother" Nathan finally got to meet Owen for the first time!

Uncle Larry and Aunt Barbara got Owen a bath toy. It was pretty fun until it sprayed him in the face.

So excited to open presents on Christmas Eve at Nana and Papa's house.

Checking out his musical train.

Owen with one of his two stockings on Christmas morning. It's hard being the only grandchild.

Rocking a Santa suit and Converse hightops!

Opening presents with Grandpa and Grams on Christmas day.

Tickles and kisses from Grams.

The best of our family photos.

Playing with Nana and practicing his newfound ability to crawl.

My cousin Johanna and her boyfriend tried to feed Owen a bottle but he was too excited to eat!

Meeting my Uncle Justin. Already a Bulldogs fan, Owen promptly ripped his hat off.

I followed my Dad outside when he had Owen and captured this sweet moment.

Outside explorations with Grandpa are so fun, checking out plants and animals and all sorts of things.

Such a happy boy. And happy grandparents.

Owen played Peek-a-Boo Farm with my cousin Sarah.

Grandpa took Owen down to the pond behind their house to show him the ducks.

All smiles with Aunt Jenny before having to say goodbye.

      We had a great time as you can see from the photos. My inlaws also have some photos on their camera and I hope to see them at some point. I know we got a really great picture of Owen with them on the last night we spent with them.