Christmas fun, part 4

Christmas itself was pure joy.  The night before, I finished doing all of my advent calendars.  We went to church for a really pretty service and then came home for bed.  I set out a plate with lots of cookies for Santa, plus some ice cream and milk!  I also went outside to sprinkle Reindeer Food on our front bushes so the reindeer would have no troubles finding our house.  It took me a long time to get to sleep, I was so excited!

 Here I am Christmas Eve with the Reindeer food!

 It was made of oatmeal and glitter so the reindeer would find our house!
It was rainy outside so we just put it on the bushes right up close to the house!

Santa brought me a big beanbag chair with my name on it!
And the book "I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas".  I love that book!

 We got Lucy and Charlie some Santa hedgehogs. 
They didn't last long with these two....

Charlie surely loved his hedgehog!
They are the perfect toy, though maybe better when Charlie stops EATING them and just plays with them instead!

I got to help everyone open their presents.
Here I am helping Grandma!

And helping Poppy!

 And G!

Poppy and G opened the calendar we made for them.
They loved it!

 I helped Auntie open presents!

 With opening all those presents, we worked up quite an appetite.
Lucky for us, Christmas morning means STICKY BUNS at our house.
YUM!
I had sticky buns AND hot cocoa!  What a treat!

What a wonderful Christmas morning!

The vegetable song

One of my favorite songs is "The Vegetable Song", at least that is what I call it.  It is on one of my cd's.  I was singing and dancing to this song in the house so Momma tried to catch me on video.  The trouble is, once she pulls that camera out, I want to see the pictures she takes.  So, I keep going to her to see the pictures, and she has a hard time taking any!  Anyway, here I am dancing to the vegetable song!

Gymnastics class

I am taking a gymnastics class!  It is super fun!  I try to tell people about what I do there, and it is hard to explain, so Momma brought her camera today to take pictures!  Gymnastics is FUN!

When we first get there, there is an obstacle course set up.  It always starts with a somersault on what I call "the big cheese".  I like doing somersaults, so I tend to come back to the big cheese a lot to do more!

Today we also walked along the uneven bars!

We also did a barrel roll down another big cheese!

 And practiced on a balance beam.  Last week we walked on a real beam!

I swung from the trapeze!  When Momma tells people that I swing from a trapeze, many can't believe it!  Here I am!

More trapeze!  I was going so fast Momma's camera had a hard time keeping up!

 I love to jump on the trampoline.
I tell Momma that I am a jumping bean!

Whee!

 It is hard to clap your hands while you jump!

Jump!  Jump!  Jump!

Coach Sarah helped me do a flip over the bar!

This isn't even all we do there.  It is a jam-packed session of one fun activity after the other.  The very first time I went to gymnastics class, I said to Momma, "That was FUN!  Let's do it again!"

T-Ball

Oh, boy.  My friend Owen gave me a T-ball set!  He had two and thought I'd enjoy one too!  We had to wait until the weekend to use it, because Momma said Daddy loves baseball.  It was worth the wait!

Daddy showed me how to do it and then I tried:

 I much prefer hitting the ball with the handle end of the bat!

 Daddy tried and tried to get me to hit the ball with the end of the bat!

I like to do things my own way.

"That's ONE way to do it!"

"Crash!"  When Daddy hit the baseball, he hit it so hard that the stand fell completely over!  I tried to do that too!

I sure had fun playing baseball with Daddy!

A cold day at the park

We had some cold weather over the weekend, so we got all bundled up and went to the park!  Though of course I enjoyed the swings for a good while, I also decided to play with some of the other park equipment!

 I am enjoying the slide again!  For a while, I was crazy about slides, the scarier the better, and then I took a big slide hiatus.  Now I am enjoying smaller slides again!

Here I go!

Whee!

Then I would run around to the steps and climb up to do it again and again!

 I also played at the music station.  You know how I love music!

Daddy made music with me!

I love to sing.  I am still singing "Jingle Bells" a lot.  Often, I use the Jingle Bells tune, but make up my own words.  I like to make up my own songs.  Momma says I am just like Frances, who is a badger in some of my books.  Do you have Frances books?  I suggest you look into them.  They are great!

More upcycling

As you may recall, Momma upcycled some of Daddy's shirts into dresses for me last summer.  Well, Uncle Jay gave Momma a shirt for her to make into a dress, and check this out!

 I love it!

Momma asked me to stay still, so I made a face!

 Acting aloof in my new dress.  Do you note the hidden pocket?  Cool, huh?  It is comfy cozy, as it is made of flannel!  I love it!

Thanks, Uncle Jay! Thanks, Momma!

Reading with Papa

I love for Papa to read me stories.  He is a good reader.  I got this new favorite book for Christmas and I have been reading it over and over ever since.  The book is The Adventures of Harold and the Purple Crayon, by Crockett Johnson.  The cool thing about this book is that there are actually 4 books inside it!  There are 4 Harold books, and they are all together in my one book!  That is great, because then I can convince Papa to read more and more of the book!  Yippee!  If you have not read about Harold and his purple crayon, you are missing out.

Thank you for reading with me, Papa!  I really enjoyed it!

At the park with Grandma and Papa

Surprise!  I took Grandma and Papa to a park. You know how I am!

 They pushed me high up on the swings!  I like to go WAY UP HIGH (as you have seen) and Daddy always gets nervous that I'll somehow slip on out of the swing.  Silly Daddy! 

Then, I rode a horse-type thing and Papa bounced it with his foot!  We had fun!  As you can see, we had a warm spell while Grandma and Papa were here.  Weather here is wacky!

80's Hair Band

We tried out our talents in a rock band! I think I prefer being a disco girl, myself, but it is important to try new things. Check out G and Poppy rocking out!

Personalize funny videos and birthday eCards at JibJab!

Another Christmas!

We celebrated Christmas AGAIN! Wowie. We got up one morning and Momma made Aebleskivers, which are ball-shaped pancakes. They are a tradition for Daddy and Grandma and Papa. What fun! We dipped them in cinnamon-sugar, powdered sugar, syrup, and rugelach filling (rugelachs are a family tradition for Momma). What a fantastic way to start the day!

Then we opened MORE PRESENTS! Yippee!

 I got some new books!  Papa read me one...

And Grandma read me the other!

And I got a new snowsuit!  I immediately put on the coat, but I didn't think the snowpants would be comfortable over my jammies...

so I stripped down and put on the snowpants!  Look at me!

I thought my mouse should get in on the fun!

It was a great morning.  Even Lucy enjoyed the festivities with extra cuddles!

After we got dressed, Papa joined me in the ladybug tent!  I love this thing!

 

I am so lucky to have had 2 Christmas celebrations!  What fun to have so many visitors at our house!  I got to see my G, Poppy, Auntie, Grandma and Papa!  That is the best Christmas gift ever!

Butterflies

When Grandma and Papa came, we took them to the Butterfly House at the Museum of Natural Science.  It is a great place.  There are lots and lots of beautiful butterflies.  We went on a dreary overcast day, so the butterflies were mostly resting, not flying around very much.  That was ok, because I could look at them really close as they relaxed on a leaf!

I am a butterfly!!

Fun with Auntie

My Auntie Silly truly lives up to her name.  She is so silly and fun!  We have a blast together.  Sometimes we  get each other into trouble!

Auntie likes to help with my bath.  I prefer to take baths in my Momma's big bathtub (who wouldn't?) so one day when I was taking a bath, I moved all the way to the far side of the tub so Auntie couldn't reach me.  Well, she rolled up her pants and got into the bath with me!  I was so surprised!  G and Momma laughed and laughed!

We are making funny faces at each other.  Are you surprised??

Yep, more funny faces!

Momma and Auntie like to sing silly songs, so we are often singing together.  One day while Auntie and Momma were helping with my bath, they started singing about pasta to the tune of Handel's Messiah chorus.  It was so funny.  It went something like:

MA-ACARONI

FETTUCINE

LASAGNA!  RAVIOLI! TORTELLINI!

MA-ARINARA

ALFREDO

PESTO! BOLOGNESE! ME-EAT-BALL!

They also did it with breakfast foods, diner foods, pot-luck foods, you get the idea!  It was great! 

 Auntie also did a great rendition of my Jazz Fly book.  The book came with a CD of the author reading the story to a jazz beat, and Auntie did it!  I love this book.  If you have a kid that likes music, I recommend this book!

I was clapping my hands and dancing to the beat!

I had so much fun with my Auntie.  I can't wait to see her again. 

Tea Party!

I love to "make" tea.  In fact, I make tea for everyone!  Come on over, and I'll make you some tea and use my new felt tea-bags!  My favorite tea to make is "pepper tea", which Momma thinks means peppermint.  Maybe!  Anyway, G, Auntie, Momma and I had a REAL tea party!  We went to a tea shop and had tea together!  It was so great!

A big mouthful of tea!

Oh, did you notice I wore my fancy jewels for the party?

More silly faces at Auntie.  Check out my cool tea-cup!  It's an OWL!!  Whooooo!

And yet again, more silly faces....

 Here are Momma and I at the tea-party table. 

Plus G and Auntie!  What a special time!  I was so excited to have my first tea party!

When Grandma and Papa came to visit from Colorado, we tried 2 times to have a tea party at a new tea shop near our house and both times they were closed!  Boo!  So we had a tea party at home and made our own fun!