Christmas 2012

It was not anything less than amazing!

On Christmas Eve we got to my parents at 3. The cousins played for awhile, then we started the kid presents. After presents dinner was preparing and the kids did a Christmas craft together which was fun. I hope we can continue that tradition. After dinner, the girls all went to play together while the adults opened their presents. I got a Cricut! I can't wait to use it.  We packed up the car and headed home at 8:30. Jacie fell asleep within 5 minutes being the car.

We got home and she woke back up. We had to open our star presents... she was so happy to see the penguin dream lite in the sack. I also got matching penguin jammies too which I thought was a cute touch on dada's part. We put out the cookies, milk and carrots and got her into bed.

We didn't have anything we HAD to build before Christmas but we really wanted to build the kitchen we just got from my parents. We had built the train table the night before and I had built the puppet theater earlier in the week and had it hiding in the closet. Not thinking we would be up super late we got building. 4 hours later it was done! We went to bed at 2:30am!

Christmas morning I woke up before anyone. Finally at 8:30 I went to wake everyone up. I was too excited to wait any longer =) Jacie came out and got busy emptying her stocking and opening presents. We got busy opening boxes and building what needs to be put together. I tried to offer breakfast but she didn't wan to take a break! It was hard getting her up and going so we could get to Ben's parents house for their Christmas. I finally got her dresssed and we were out the door at 11.

We got there and of course she got right to business. I don't even think she said hello to anyone! She is the only grandchild so there is no need to wait or take turns at their house =)

Right before lunch the rain started turning to SNOW! She ran to the door and saw the snow coming down. I told her after lunch we would go out (although I really didn't think it would snow so I didn't dress her right) We stayed outside for about 1 min and she was ready to go back in. We packed up the car, and headed home.

When we got home we unloaded the car and got her ready for a nap. While she napped I found new homes for all her toys =) She got up at about 5:30. After snowing for 5 hours we had enough on the ground to play in for awhile.

After we came inside, she continued to play and play and go to bed! 

Christmas though the years

Days 21-25

Day 21- Eat lunch with Dada. It has been almost 2 years since I brought her up to his work. She loved the Christmas decorations and receiving goodies from his co-workers.

"Riding" in Santa's sleigh

Day 22- Christmas snack

So loved the candy cane

Day 23- Make Christmas cookies for Santa

Day 24- Open her star present! It was a penguin themed present since she really wanted a penguin dream lite so she also got penguin pj's and a penguin Christmas book

We both got penguin jammies. Dada planned mine =) 

Day 25- Celebrate and open Christmas presents =)

In the morning after she opened all her presents. She was checking out all her new toys 

Christmas post to come... FYI....IT WAS A WHITE CHRISTMAS!! 

Days 16-20

Day 16- Went to buy a special ornament. We got her a 3rd Christmas one.

Day 17-  She received a special present from her mama and dada. We did a record a story Frosty the Snowman together for her. We only had to re-record this last page about 10 times!! I couldn't help myself from laughing every time =) 

Day 18- We did a family Christmas craft

Day 19- Eat a special Christmas treat. I made special treats for her dance class christmas party so it worked out perfectly =)

I made the reindeer popcorn bags and the pretzel kisses 

Day 20- We decorated a Christmas tree cone and worked on the grandparents Christmas presents.

It is hard to believe we are down to our last 5 days! I can't wait to celebrate Christmas with this little one. I know she is going to have a great one =) 

Days 11- 15

Day 11- I took Jacie to my schools 4th grade Christmas PTA performance.















Day 12- After dance class we went to eat at a special restaurant

Day 13- Penguin craft with dada

Day 14- Snuggled up on mama and dada's bed and watched Polar Express. Held her extra tight that night!

Day 15- Went to a popular neighborhood to look at more Christmas lights

Advent activity calender days 1-10

A few months ago I ordered a Santa Claus Advent calendar from Pottery Barn. We started doing our activities on Dec. 1. I have told Jacie what number to look for and she brings me the little paper inside. Her face is so cute and she looks so happy when she is carrying it over...she has been able to identify 1-10 on her own, we'll see how well she does tomorrow =) This is what we have been doing for the past 10 days. 

Day 1- Go to ICE

Day 2- Help decorate Aunt Tiki's Christmas tree

Day 3- Create an Elf on the shelf color book

Day 4- Decorate the window with clings

Day 5- Do a Gingerbread craft with mama

Day 6- Color a Christmas picture

Day 7- Go to Prairie Lights

Day 8- Go to Creative Hands to make presents

Day 9- Drink hot chocolate with marsh mellows

Day 10- Get new Christmas pajamas ( this is her new monkey face)

2 1/2

Jacie is officially the big 2.5! It is so hard to believe that it has already been 6 months since her birthday and then in another (most likely fast) 6 more months she will be 3!!

She is truly the best thing ever and I love spending every second I can with her. We can now have the best conversations and she says the funniest and something craziest things. I love when she says something and my thought is "where in the world did she learn that?" That just truly shows me how smart and observant she really is!

I couldn't even tell you what has changed in the past 3 months although I would love to try...

- She has become a huge Toy Story fan, but her favorite TV show is Peppa Pig. Around Halloween she LOVED watching Disney's Halloween Treat (a bunch of older Disney shorts put together that fit into the Halloween theme). After Halloween she got her to watch Mickey's Christmas Carol and now that is almost a daily thing she wants to watch. She loves to say "Bah Humbug!"

- She loves reenacting experiences that we have or do (example... she is still giving her Dora people a "hayride" and we did that back in October). Her imagination just keep growing and growing!

- She loves to pretend to be animals, the most common ones she pretends to be is a dog, cat, frog, butterfly, bee, and a spider. She loves to get "squashed" (by her blanket) when she is a spider.

- She can use zippers now so she can take off her boots or take off her jackets, which is normally followed by "I take my shoes off all by myself" or "I take my jacket off all by myself"... She is in the independent phase where she wants to do everything "by myself" or "me do it" "me help"

- She now says her whole name (first, middle, last) when asked what her name is. People don't expect 3 names at once so they get thrown off sometimes =)

- She is now telling us when she is hungry. For some reason she use to just scream "want cookie eat" over and over when she was hungry. No idea where that came from but we knew what it meant, Lately though she was finally been telling us "I'm real real hungry (while rubbing her tummy)"

- She is really into emotions of people around her or in books/ t.v. She knows lots of different ones such as (happy, sad, mad, angry, scared, frustrated) We have a book on emotions that she likes to read.

- Started dance/ gymnastics class. She did such a great job! Hope she continues to love it

- Can tell if someone is a boy or girl, and likes to go through our families and tell us who is a boy and who is a girl.

- potty training? hopefully I will have more to report in the next 3 months...

- she already loves Christmas and it just started. She loves looking at the Christmas lights outside our neighborhood, she wants our tree on 24/7 and loves going to find "cookie the elf" every morning. I can't wait to see her face on Christmas morning!!