Merry Christmas!

Em woke up before 7:00 on Christmas morning, and we jumped out of bed as soon as we heard her.  She saw Elfie at the top of the stairs with all of the balloons and was so excited she didn't know what to do!  Elfie has been her close friend this month--he's given her a new book every day (I started off wrapping them and letting her open one from under the tree each day, but gave up on wrapping on about the 15th).  So part of finding Elfie each day has been the excitement of knowing a new book is waiting for her!  She'll be really sorry to see him go back to the North Pole after this morning, but we let her say her goodbyes before he left.

 

The first thing Em wanted to do when she started down the stairs was check to see if Santa ate his cookies and drank his milk.  She did leave a bowl of carrots on the front step for the reindeer, and seemed surprised that they ate them all (carrots are one of Em's least favorite foods).

 

She saw the balloons, her tiger, the presents, and about 10 minutes after coming downstairs, she noticed there was a bicycle under the tree for her!  She seemed almost as excited about the flashlight in her stocking as anything--I think that was one of the coolest parts to me--she was so thrilled with some of the little stuff.

 

Aunt Jenn, Uncle Jason, Cody and Chase sent Em a Cinderella Barbie, which was one of the first things she opened after she got over her initial excitement and realized there were presents!

She named her tiger Daku, and introduced Cinderella to him right away.

She was really excited about her backpack, which we packed with a couple of puzzles--it's a preschool size, so it's small and lightweight--perfect for her.

She jumped on the bicycle like she had ridden it before--the helmet was exciting, and she kept it on to open the rest of her presents :).

She helped Mick and me with our gifts (even with opening them), and was ready to give Gracie and Bella the toys and treats in their stockings too.

There was plenty of time to play with all the shiny, glittery bows and decorations!

And I'm a little sad to see what a big girl she looks like with her backpack and bicycle!

Our biggest realization was that we could have saved money on all the presents and gotten only the balloons!

She wanted to untie all the balloons from around the house, and must have spent half the day running around crazily, laughing and screaming.

We had such a fun day--we had balloon fights and chased each other around the house.

Em even decided that the Santa balloon was a surfboard, and scooted around on him to the point where he was almost flat!

Such a happy little girl today!

I ordered Daku online, and he turned out a little bigger than I expected.  She was determined for him to ride on Gracie's back, which was absolutely not going to happen...Bella was happy to oblige though :).

This is a pretty good representation of our house most days, minus the tree and balloons--dogs standing around watching Em, and toys scattered everywhere.  I guess there are more important things than a super clean house...at least I hope so :).

I realize this is a terribly blurry picture, but her bike has a baby carrier on the front and she took Chicken for a ride in the neighborhood when we went outside.

When things settled down enough for Em to realize she was hungry, we made snowman pancakes for breakfast and then went back to balloon games :).

It was a great day together.  When I look back at pictures and remember last Christmas, it's so hard to believe how much she's grown and developed from a baby into a little girl.

Christmas Eve

We got home a little before lunch time on Christmas Eve, and Em and I had some last minute shopping to do, so we ran out for a little while.  The weather was rainy and cold though, so we spent the afternoon at home.  I made our sugar cookie dough and chilled it while Em was taking her nap, so we were ready to roll the dough and cut out the cookies.

 

While they baked, we made our icing.

This is one of Em's favorite parts--she loves stirring, and always likes to be my helper in the kitchen.  She especially likes it when she's stirring something deliciously sweet, and finds ways to keep stealing a little taste.

We had a great time, and made an enormous mess.  I let her pick the icing colors we'd make, and she picked red, green and yellow.

She was the official taste tester of all the sprinkles, sparkles and chocolate chips!

Our yellow turned out looking like Velveeta!  These were some of her favorites, and a few of these made it onto Santa's plate.

She had tried so many samples by the time they were ready that she didn't even eat a whole cookie, but she really didn't need one by then.  We were surprised she even went to sleep, considering the sugar overload combined with the excitement of Santa's impending arrival!

She did though, and that gave Santa's Elves plenty of time to get everything set out.  I had ordered balloons from Party City, and Mick picked them up while we were making cookies.  He kept them out in the garage until she went to bed, and then I distributed them throughout the house.

I tied a couple of them to her tiger, and the rest were up the stairs and around the house--there were 25 total, including a 2-foot Santa that we also put by the tree.  Mick had put her bicycle together earlier when Em and I were out shopping, and I wrapped ribbon and tinsel on it.  We had a few smaller gifts for her under the tree, and of course her stocking was stuffed.

We were done fairly quickly and went to bed, probably as excited as Emily--I can hardly wait until she wakes up!

The Polar Express

I got tickets for the Polar Express on the Great Smoky Mountain Railroad a while back, and we've been looking forward to it for a while--we decided to go the Sunday before Christmas (the day before Christmas Eve) since we didn't have anyone visiting for Christmas and we knew we'd be at home anyway.  We left Sunday morning and let Em stay in her pjs in the truck--she was super excited since Elfie had brought her some new slippers to wear!

We got to Bryson City in time to look around a little, check out a bookstore, eat dinner and stop by this toy maker's workshop, where Em made a link for this paper chain to put on the tree.  There were over 800 links, each one with a child's name on it who had been to the workshop.

We got to the train depot, picked up our tickets, and Em had a chance to see Santa before we boarded the train!  She stuck with her wish--a tiger and a balloon, please.

The town was all decorated and Christmasy--it was cold, too, so it made it feel like the North Pole.

I didn't get a great shot of the train.

For anyone who has read the book or seen the movie, they do a pretty good job of staying true to the story--everyone is encouraged to wear pjs, so Em and I both wore ours.  There were two servers on our car, and when the music started, they got all the kids in the aisles clapping and dancing and marching.  Em, of course, joined right in with no hesitation--it was so cute.

She had a great time with all the older kids.

The story talks about having hot chocolate "as thick and rich as melted chocolate bars,"



and it really was--check out Em's chocolate mustache!  She loved it.  As if that wouldn't have been enough, Mrs. Claus had also made chocolate chip cookies for everyone.

We got cleaned up after the snacks, and they read the book--we were asked to bring our copy to follow along, and this was one of her favorite parts.

When we arrived at the North Pole, they turned off the lights in the train so it was really dark, and you could see all the city lights.  Again, I didn't get a great picture here.

The conductor came around and punched everyone's golden ticket, just like in the movie.

And then we stopped long enough for Santa to come on board!  He came around and spoke to each child and gave out silver sleigh bells.

This was by far Em's favorite part--she had looked forward to the bell the whole time,

so she held it up and said "the first gift of Christmas!" (also from the book/movie if you're not familiar with it)

We sang Christmas carols on the ride back to the depot.  Em had a wonderful time, and it was of course so much fun to see how excited she was.  We stayed in a hotel nearby in Cherokee so we didn't have to make the 3 1/2 hour trip home until the morning.

Christmastown

On Saturday, my parents were in town briefly for a function with their church, so we decided to meet them for dinner before they left town.  It was a really quick visit, but a couple of hours is better than no time at all.  After we parted ways, we headed to McAdenville, which is also known as Christmastown, USA and is just south of Charlotte.  We knew it was a pretty big deal around here, but had no idea how big--we sat on I-85 trying to get off the exit for about three hours!  Em was a great sport about it though--we listened to Christmas music and sang, she played with some of the apps on my phone, and we talked about what we were going to see.

Finally, we made it into McAdenville, and we let Em get out of her carseat and sit in my lap up front--she was so excited, so that might have been the best part!  We put the window down and as we passed people who were walking, she waved out the window and yelled "Merry Christmas!"  People loved it, and she was thrilled when people spoke back to her.

I was so wrapped up in looking at the lights and enjoying her excitement that I forgot to take pictures!  I remembered to grab a couple--it took us about 30 minutes to drive through, and it really was cool.  The church bells were ringing, there was Christmas music playing, and tons of people out.

We were really glad we stuck with it, even after the long wait.  Em fell asleep on the way home, and woke up just long enough to let us put her pjs on and went to bed.

Santa's Workshop at the Library



Tuesday night, the library near us was hosting a Santa's Workshop.  I put the wrong time on my calendar and thought it started at 6:30, so we got there at 7:00 and they were packing up!  Luckily, Santa was still there and Em was the last one to get in and see him.  It was worth the trip since he gave her a new book, but Santa was a little grungy so we were okay with her not having more time with him.

When we got home, she asked me who gave her the book, and I said "didn't Santa give it to you?"  She replied "Mommy, that wasn't Santa--it was just one of his helpers."  So even she realized that he wasn't quite right :).

Movie Night

Mick's company Christmas party was tonight, and we had decided a while back that we wouldn't both go--we used to, but haven't since Em came along.  It's not a kid friendly party, and although Mick usually has a good time with his guys from work, I'd rather be with Em.

 

Our neighborhood has a kids' movie night every month, and Saturday night was The Polar Express.  I hadn't seen the movie and thought it might be a little over Em's head, but thought we'd try it since the clubhouse is within walking distance, and it would be easy to get home halfway through if we needed to.  We took her beanbag and she wore her pjs.  I took some popcorn (her favorite right now), and she LOVED it! 

She watched the entire movie very intently, and ate popcorn the whole time.  She seemed to understand the movie too--she asked questions and made comments about things that I thought she'd miss.  It was a lot of fun, and makes me a little more confident about the first time we decide to take her to a movie in a theater.

Christmas Craft #3: Frosty!

I foundthis cute idea for making snowmen out of empty toilet paper rolls, and when we finished a roll, I set it aside until we had a second one.  Mick must have thrown it away three times before I finally thought to tell him about my project and why I had a cardboard tube setting on our dresser! 

It turns out I probably only needed one, because as we started gluing cotton balls, Em decided she wanted my snowman instead of hers!  So this was our joint effort here, and she immediately wanted him on the tree.  There was quite a bit of glue that had to dry, so we waited overnight.



The miscellaneous craft items I've accumulated over the years are really coming in handy (odd buttons, pipe cleaners, felt, etc.).

Good Find!

Em is really starting to love playing dress up, and she had a few dresses and some play jewelry, but I felt like she needed a few more options.  The problem was that I didn't want to spend a lot for something she was just going to play in, and those princess dresses can be expensive.  I found a lady on craigslist who lives near us, and she had pictures so I could tell the dresses were just what I wanted.  I drove over on Sunday night and got a huge bag of stuff for $20!

We decided not to keep some of it, but most of it was perfect for Em, and she wasted no time diving right in.  Whenever she hears music, she wants a skirt or a dress to dance in (or when she's making her own music).

This adorable lady bug umbrella was a gift at Thanksgiving from Aunt Julie--Em loves umbrellas, but this one especially, because it's just her size. 

 

It's obvious that her girls were in dance recitals, because some of these are costumes and not princess dresses.  They're really adorable.  Em totally gets into character, and when she's Cinderella, she won't answer to anything else--same when she's pretending to be anything (baby bull, kitty, dog, etc.).  She will usually give us roles too!

There were plenty of princess shoes, tiaras and magic wands in the bag!  It was a great find, and we put some hooks up in her play room so we can keep it all out of the floor...most of the time.

Christmas Craft #2: Gingerbread House!

I've never made real gingerbread, so we totally cheated here and bought the kit, but I wanted Em to be able to decorate it more than anything, and didn't care that much about doing everything from scratch (we'll have plenty of time for that as she gets older).

She wasn't interested in the candies, but loved the icing, and kept accidentally sticking her finger in it so she could try it--then she'd say "I just want to taste it!"  She was too funny.  I did most of the icing work, but she stuck all the candies in place.  It made for a very fun Sunday afternoon, and we each ate a little piece before bed.