dad & son, Christmastime

a very Draeger Christmas

There was much excitement at the Draeger Christmas this year! Our celebration is a couple of days long and involves a lot of food (we are large German people, it's part of the territory). This year we had a newbie winner of the Pickle ornament contest (BJ), a bloody lip (Stella), a baby reindeer (Sydney), a Santa visit to the house, and a Christmas story reading by Papa Draeger (Jason and I portrayed snow, we were fantastic). We ate ourselves silly and had a great time.

Randi Brunt photography

My friend Rechelle (Jeremy's mom) and I had our family's Christmas card photos done by Randi Brunt, a phenomenal photographer and also a wonderful person. Randi puts her clients' shoots up on her blog. Take a look at Jeremy here - she wrote a really lovely summary of Jeremy's situation. This is my kid who is all grown up... 13 years old this year, what a miracle. He was only 4 when I started taking care of him. You can also see some of our family pics. Just act surprised when you get our Christmas card, ok?

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a "ditto" kind of year

first snow

We went up to my parents' cabin in Idyllwild for Christmas... Jason's surgery was cancelled at the last minute, and there was 2 feet of snow up there, so we packed up for a very fun and different Christmas! We had a great time in our little green sled in the backyard. Stella liked eating the snow and sucking on icicles. She was relentless about messing with the presents, so we let her open most of her gifts on Christmas Eve (so spoiled!). We hope you all had a fantastic Christmas with your families.

merry christmas, everyone!

disney christmas!

For Stella's birthday we bought Disney passes (happy birthday to US, really!). It's so fun to go to Disneyland - Jason and I hadn't been in years - we are loving to see it all through Stella's eyes. If you're going anytime soon, shoot us an email, we'd love to to join you!!

ho ho ho

I had hoped for my screaming & crying picture with Santa this year... but Stella was completely herself and just loved Santa. She looked at him and smiled and then started clapping! (There's always next year I guess!)

Merry Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

We had a great Christmas with our girl!

Here are some of our pics that I'm finally getting around to posting.

Stella's first Santa picture It's tradition that we go to Fashion Island with the Draeger clan and take pictures with Santa. Stella slept right through... maybe next year we'll get the crying picture!

The best present ever Jason said that all he wanted for Christmas was Stella under the tree with a big bow... well, Santa delivered!

What Stella got for Christmas I found this a little while ago at Nordstrom's and ordered it... it's a doll called Baby Stella! It was delivered on her due date (November 16th)! The pacifier is magnetic - so cute - Stella's doing her "touchdown" sleeping pose next to her twin.

New Year, New Baby And for ringing in 2008, Stella partied with us at a friend's house in her snazzy glasses! She slept right through Rockin' New Year's Eve. Best wishes for a healthy, happy and fun 2008!