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Happy New Year, baby! Another year for the book. Another great Christmas. More happy memories. More sweet photos to help us remember.
Granny, Grandpa and Auntie Steph stayed with us for a week over Christmas this year and it was so much fun watching you be the center of attention for even more people who love you this year. You kept us thoroughly entertained and smiley. The mountain of presents you see in these photos is embarrassing. My only defense is that we all really did try to keep it reasonable this year, and that there were 9 of us celebrating together this year. So it divvied up pretty well when we got down to it. But I can’t say that we’re not all very, very blessed. And you definitely got to open the majority of those boxes. The perks of being the first and only baby… 🙂
Granny had the awesome idea of buying you a bag of bows to put on the presents. Since they traveled down from Washington on a plane and shipped a lot of their presents, they waited to put bows on until they got here. And instead of doing it themselves, you got to. Given your obsession with stickers, this was a brilliant idea. Good job, Granny! It was funny watching you. At one point, you put a bow on Grandpa. And similarly to how you decorated the tree by putting 12 ornaments on 2 branches, you put about a dozen bows on one present. 🙂
We had a fun time as grown ups too. Daddy’s family is awesome and we keep trying to convince them to move here. When you learn how to talk, you’re going to have to help us convince them. It’s sure nice to have more family around. You love them and they love you. You especially loved cuddling with Auntie on her air mattress. We started out with her in your room. She got no sleep for 2 or 3 days because you decided you wanted to chat with her all night long. We moved her out into the living room after that. She thought you were cute, but you both needed some shut eye.
Christmas Eve we had the whole fam over (minus Tia Kristy and Tio Brian, who we missed :() for Christmas dinner, a joint effort resulting in the famous Tranmer cabbage rolls paired with ham, mashed potatoes, honeyed carrots, creamed peas and onions and orange jello.
Christmas morning was our best one yet. You are now old enough to really participate and enjoy all that happened. Gosh I love you. Look at that face. You did that for me. I put you up on that present, told you that you were my best little present after showing you a bow on my own head, and you smiled and posed for me for a good minute or so. You are not a typical 2 year old. You’re amazing.
We took our time and let you explore most of your presents as you opened them. You got into playing every single one. Actually, you opened and played with a lot of everybody else’s presents too, including Momma’s new underwear – 3 pairs you put on all at once.
You crashed hard at nap time and woke up ready for round 2.
The Grand finales… a trike from Mima and Papi – something I’ve had to hold myself back from buying since I knew Mima already got you one. You loved it, especially the horn. And even though you couldn’t quite get the petals to work, we pushed you around and tried to teach you how to steer. And then the Tractor was unveiled with all the cute little duds to go along with it. You even got a pair of Carhartt overalls and pink cowgirl boots. Aaa, cute! You’re legs are just about a centimeter too short to get good traction on that pedal. In a few months I know you’ll be driving that thing around in circles in our gigantic backyard. The thing is amazing with a trailer and working radio included. Ridiculous.
Just the tip of the iceberg, baby. But I hope that gives you an idea what your 3rd Christmas was like when you were 2 years old. It was wonderful and you just couldn’t be any cuter. Love you!