Our Christmas..

Kerry had such a fun Christmas season this year. This seems to be the first year that she was old enough to really be into everything about it. She was enjoying all of the Christmas music (just like her mommy) and even learned a few songs, she was really into helping us decorate the tree, and Santa was finally a hit this year. We watched some of the classics like "Frosty" and "Rudolph" and she loved them...last year, not interested. She had so much fun helping me wrap gifts (just not hers of course) and was my official "tape assistant". And she apparently has the ability now to anticipate the arrival of a big event so we got the "How many days til Chrismas?" question almost daily for at least 2 weeks, hee hee. Best of all she learned more about the birth of Christ =).



New jammies for Christmas Eve. She's still really into Minnie Mouse so she got a cute little gown and new slippers. (Her much loved froggy slippers are pretty much outgrown now..sniff, sniff).



This was the first year we left out milk and a cookie for the Man in Red. She even left a note. I wrote "to" and "from" and she wrote the "Santa" and "Kerry". I love her fancy "S" and the fact that she ran out of room and put the "A" underneath =). But she caught on quick and wrote her name smaller.



Sleepy eyed girl on Christmas morning passing out stockings.







This was all Daddy's idea. It really "eats, drinks, pees, and poo's". She's had fun with it so far.



This was her "Santa" gift. She asked him for a computer game so we got her a Leapster Explorer. She LOVES this and it has some great educational games like "Mr. Pencil". She's all about learning to write letters and spell words lately so its a favorite.

She got some other fun stuff, too, like two Play-Dough play sets, Lego's, lots of craft supplies and other goodies. We spent Christmas Eve with Doug's family and enjoyed our church's candle-light service. Christmas Day, after a nice leisurely morning at home we went to my parent's house for a huge lunch with family. I'm really feeling so blessed as we wrap up 2011.

Merry Christmas from our family to yours!

( these are the two photos that were on our Christmas card this year).

Kerry sings "This is the stuff"

Kerry has a few favorite songs that she requests to listen to every-single-time-we-get-in-the-car. Here she's singing one of them. Oh my..she is a mess. I flipped the view screen over a few times so she could see herself...I bet you can tell which parts =).

What have we been up to?

Baking cookies, with sprinkles of course. She's getting better about not dumping half the container of sprinkles on one cookie but, judging by the evidence on her lip, she still can't resist sampling the icing =).





Decorating Christmas trees.




Making milk chocolate and white chocolate dipped pretzels with Mamaw..a yearly tradition.




Lots and lots of pretzels.



Trying to get a Christmas card worthy photo. When the subject is as fidgety as she is cute, and Mama is 4 hours into an all day nausea inducing migraine...well..you get the picture. At least, if you're on my mailing list you will =) !

and an unsuccessful attempt at putting together a gingerbread house...she still enjoyed sampling the building material so all was not lost.

Kerry recently saw episodes of Team Umizoomi and Special Agent Oso that both involved libraries. We visit the local library on occasion and I had always just checked out her books with mine. Well, after watching these episodes and learning about how libraries work she was so into everything about it. She was over the moon with excitement when I took her the library to get her very own card and so proud to sign her name to it all by herself and check out her first book. Afterwards we went to pick out a wallet to keep it in..she chose a cute little pink monkey wallet. Oh yes, she feels like "big stuff" now =).

"Shhh, Mommy, I'm reading."

And you should have seen her strutting around after she found her purse to carry her new wallet and card in. Too much, hee hee.