Merry Christmas & Happy 2009...Texas style!
One of the things that made us moving out to VA more manageable was knowing that come the holidays we would be heading home to Texas!!! So what if there was 70 degree weather during December, we were home, at least for a little while :) Isabela and I flew to San Antonio on December 3rd and spent time with my family. My dad and sister Patty hadn't seen Izzy since we were back there in June. We had lots and lots of quality family time together and it was truly a dream come true <3
As a Christmas present my dad bought himself a digital camera, but not just any camera, one of those incredibly sophisticated ones that professional photographers own!!! He bought lots of different lenses to play around with and read in every forum, blog or whatever to learn different kinds of tricks to pull out of his sleeve ;) He of course chose Isabela as his model and muse, and I mean, come on, who wouldn't? She has that beautiful, angelic face that poems are written about! Our very own Gerber baby if you will! Suffice to say that there were a bajillion pictures taken and many of them absolutely brilliant! Way to go dad!!! Jaccob, who was unable to take leave until December 22nd, eventually made his way to San Antonio and just in time to celebrate our baby's very first Christmas! We did the usual McAnally tradition of watching movies and snacking on food until it was 7ish and it was time for all of us to get all dressed up in time for pictures :)
We took tons of pictures with my dad's new camera and then it was time to put Isabela down for the night. She fell asleep right away, knowing of course that Santa would be by later on to deliver to presents, haha! The remaining five of us sat around and ate an incredible dinner of turkey and gravy, mashed potatoes, rollitos de jamon, and rolls...yummy! By the time we were finished it was time to open presents!!! My parents gave us this awesome 11" digital photo frame so that we could put all of our new pictures on AND a video camcorder so that we could record all of the wonderful moments of Isabela's life and the family's as well!!! I was so freaking ecstatic with the gifts they gave us :) So grateful! We got a bunch of other things but I promise I won't go into exact detail of every one of them. Isabela got a bunch of cute clothes from her Abuelitos Oscar & Paty and also a Precious Moments Belle (from Beauty & the Beast) and teapot snowglobe that plays the theme song of the movie from her mommy and daddy <3 She absolutely loved it! Now that we are back home in VA I play it for her whenever she goes down for the night, a gentle song to put her into a blissful sleep!
Isabela and her Tia Bere <3
The next day, on Christmas day, we took a trip to Houston to spend the day at Jaccob's Uncle Victor's house. He was having family over for lunch and it was nice to go down there and spend time with them. We ate a wonderful meal and then celebrated with his Uncle Victor, and cousins Brandon and Tim playing us music on their instruments. It was really fun to watch them play and see Jaccob having such a good time with his family :) After a couple of hours my sister, Isabela and I drove back to San Antonio while Jaccob stayed behind so that he could go deer hunting with his cousin Brian. Jaccob shot and killed a doe on the very first day, which he was really happy about, and after two days he reunited again with us in San Antonio.
Before heading home to VA my dad had one last gift for us...a family photo shoot! We went out on New Year's Eve to this little park by our house and my dad took these AMAZING pictures of us!!! Jaccob, Isabela and I all wore white shirts and blue jeans so that the contrast would come out beautiful in the prints :) We all came out so good in our pictures and it's all thanks to my dad and his eye for wonderful pictures! 
My dad. The amazing photographer. 
Dad and his two princesses!!!
Jaccob, me, Matt and my sister Patty
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