Santa Claus

We made a second attempt at seeing Santa before Christmas.  As you can tell by the picture, it didn't go very well.  We got Avery to sit on his lap, but that was quite a feat in and of itself.  She didn't like him at all.  Hopefully, Santa doesn't take it too personally and still brings Avery some gifts this Christmas.

After getting over Santa, we explored the rest of the Christmas decorations and activities at Bass Pro.  Avery absolutely loved the train.  I think we need to get one to go around our tree next year.

 There were also cookies to decorate.  Avery had a great time putting the icing on her snowman and then making a mess eating it once we got home.

Decorating for Christmas

 I'm not sure why it took so long this year, but we finally put our Christmas decorations out.  By decorations, I mean our tree...we really kept it simple this year.  Avery had a good time picking out the ornaments and looking at them, but really had very little desire to put them on the tree.  We had fun anyway, though.

Once we got the tree up in the living room, we put up a little tree in Avery's room.  It's just a little white tree with pink ornaments, but it looks so cute in her room!

Jeremy's Birthday...the big 2-9!

It seems that the older we get, the less important our birthdays seem.  So, it's nice that we can have a little time to celebrate birthdays, especially when they fall so close to the holidays.  This year, for Jeremy's birthday, we managed to squeeze in a day trip to the Lake to celebrate with Grandpa and Grandma Cover.

 In addition to a birthday celebration, we had our first chance to see Santa this year.  This was as close as Avery would allow Santa to get, and if you notice she's even leaning away from him in the picture.

 Although she wouldn't sit with Santa, he still gave Avery a nice Christmas present...a little stuffed frog and bunny.  I think this picture is actually the second or third time she opened the present.  She kept putting them back in the paper, putting the bow back on, and then re-opening the present.  It was good practice for Christmas morning.

Thanks Grandpa and Grandma for an excuse to celebrate a December birthday and for our first Santa experience of the year!  We had a great time.

We had such a great time at the Lake, that Jeremy and Avery were exhausted for the ride home.  Luckily, I managed to keep myself awake to get us home.

Daddy Phase

 Avery is going through a bit of a "Daddy phase."  She's really started to notice when Jeremy's not around and asks for him.  She's also taken notice of the fact that every morning, at about the same time, her DaDa leaves for the day.  That is the point where she now cries.  So, on this particular day, in order to appease her, I gave her Jeremy's robe (something she knows is his and can kind of cuddle up to).  She decided that the best thing to do with it would be to wear it...whatever makes her happy!  I somehow managed to roll the sleeves up enough to see her hands, tied the end of it up in a knot, and secured the front with a chip clip.  Yes, I said a chip clip.  That made her happy enough that she was willing to part with Jeremy's lunch (in the bag in her hand) and tell him good-bye for the day.  However, there was not one point throughout the day that I was allowed to take that robe off of her, including nap time.  Again, whatever makes her happy!

Breakfast in Daddy's robe

Even when Daddy was home for the night, she still wore that robe!