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.
No comments:
Post a Comment