The Most Wonderful Time

Mann Clan
Jan 22, 2018
4 min read

Claire's first holiday season has come and gone. We had a wonderful time celebrating with friends and family.

Let's back up a bit to the first holiday: Halloween.

We had already agreed we wouldn't take Claire trick-or-treating. We both think it's a bit silly when parents take their baby trick-or-treating - obviously the baby can't eat the candy, so you're really going for yourself; but that didn't mean we couldn’t dress up! Originally, I was thinking of making a penguin costume for her, however, as Halloween got closer I didn’t really find the time and decided that we’ll save that for next year when she can waddle around. Chris said he didn’t care what she was so I was super excited for plan B. I’d seen this costume on Pinterest years ago and thought it was just hilarious! It was easy to put together and didn’t cost a lot, and you can really only do it when they’re a baby – so old lady it was! It was quite the hit. We spent Halloween at Grandma & Grandpa Sprengeler’s handing out candy, then the following day got to dress up again for a Halloween day at daycare. It was such a fun first Halloween. (For what we used for her costume see at the bottom of this post.)

After Halloween came Thanksgiving. We all had a great day enjoying family, food and football. I think most of us went into a food coma after lunch and just lounged around the rest of the day. Every day, is a day to be thankful for everything God has given us, but I think we can really spend some special time on Thanksgiving reflexing on just how blessed we are. We have loving parents and siblings, wonderful friends, jobs we love, a cute quaint home, a loving spouse and the most amazing and cutest daughter in the world. We are so very blessed.

Now, Black Friday is not a holiday, but it has always been a day that my mom and I get to spend the day together and shop some good deals. This year we got to add another gal to our crew, and I have to say, Claire was probably the best shopper ever. She got the most stuff and didn’t spend any (of her) money. Now that’s a pro shopper! She did a great job getting dragged around to different stores, but then again she is the best baby I’ve ever had, so I wouldn’t expect any less. I’m hoping she enjoys shopping and we get to always have a girl’s day out on Black Friday.

Christmas is one of my favorite holidays. We started off the Christmas season with the boy’s Toreador Relays and the Festival of Hope. Claire and I got to go cheer on Dad and the Toreador swimmers for their first meet of boys season. Then we hopped on over to the other side of the school where Grandma Sprengeler’s choir was singing at the Festival of Hope. The Festival of Hope is an event that’s been around Boone for quite a while, basically the teachers from all the school’s in Boone put together themed baskets for a silent auction. The proceeds go to help families around Boone. It’s a great cause and helps everyone get into the Christmas spirit.

The weekend of the Toreador Relays and Festival of Hope is always a fun one for our family because that’s when Chris and I put up our Christmas decorations. Claire loved looking at all the ornaments and would get mesmerized by the lights on the tree.

December 8th Claire celebrated her half-birthday and got to start eating baby food, which she loves – we haven’t found a food she doesn’t like yet. After that the rest of December seemed to fly by. Claire caught a nasty cold right around Christmas (no fever thankfully), which was a bit of a downer, but she bounced back fairly quick. We had a wonderful Christmas Eve celebrating with the Sprengeler side of the family and worshiping at Christmas Eve and Christmas Day service together. Chris and I always want Claire to celebrate CHRISTmas. Sure there are so many fun things about the holiday, but we don’t ever want her to forget what it’s truly about.

Christmas Day we headed to Muscatine to celebrate with the Mann side of the family. We went over to Great-Grandma Schaffer’s, went bowling, and opened some awesome presents (although I think Claire had more fun playing with the boxes and wrapping paper than the actual toys.)

Claire rang in 2018 by eating meat for the first time, taking a bath and heading to bed. The next day we went to Grandma & Grandpa Sprengeler's house for a day of snacks and relaxing. We had fun recreating a picture my mom took of me on my first new years.

We loved celebrating our first holiday season as a family and look forward to many many more!