Whew!! I have been M.I.A. on the blog for the last couple of weeks, and it has been both refreshing and challenging. Refreshing because I really needed the break to enjoy Christmas with my family, but challenging because there was no shortage of things to share or photos to upload from my holiday week!

So I am making it up to you all (and to myself). Here is a summary of what my Christmas was like!

A New Addition to the Family

On December 9, 2019, at 9:35 AM MT, little Eleanor “Ellie” Louise Beamish entered the world. My older sister gave birth to her firstborn in a matter of only 6 hours!! (Same length as my mom’s longest labor, so fingers crossed this pattern means it’s genetic for us Schneider girls to have short labors!!!)

On Dec. 21, my younger brother Erik and I flew out to Arizona to spend Christmas week with my sister, brother-in-law, and parents, to meet our new baby niece. And from the moment I first laid eyes on that little girl, I was in love!

Ellie was an absolute angel the entire week!! She hardly fussed except for when she was hungry. And her mom and dad did such an amazing job adjusting to their new parental roles. Ellie is one lucky little girl to have both of them.

White [Sand] Christmas

Spending Christmas in the Arizona desert was definitely a different experience for us. Wintery Christmases have always been the norm for our family growing up in northern New Jersey. So to not even need a light jacket to Christmas Eve service was very new.

We enjoyed a sunny walk in a desert park in Tempe the day we arrived. And on the 23rd, my sister, brother, brother-in-law, and I hiked to the top of Camelback mountain.

I really enjoyed bringing my camera with on this trip. Shots of cacti, cool mountains, and rock formations were my new obsession for the week. I tried to experiment with the different landscape and perspectives, angles and subject matters that you just don’t see on the East coast.

Ellie’s First Bath = Success

Ellie had her very first bath on Christmas Eve. And if you can’t tell from the photos, trust me when I say she LOVED it!! She was so content int he warm water, and kept making this adorable cross-eyed stare when her mama shampooed her head with a washcloth. When it comes to bubble baths… same, Ellie… same.

A Very Merry Christmas

All in all, it was still a really great Christmas. It had been the first time in quite a few years that we got to spend Christmas with my sister again. Ellie got lots of adorable clothes and toys, and even Ryan got a present for me to take home to him – an advent calendar of cat toys (thanks to my big sis on that one for thinking of my fur baby!)

Here are a few snapshots of our week together. I hope you all had a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!! Share some of your favorite memories from these past weeks in the comments below!

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