Christmas Time

for some reason she really wanted to hold our hands in the pictures

Christmas was a lot of fun this year.  We stayed in Memphis and it was just the 3 of us, but Craig had 2 weeks off from his externs and Brooklyn understood a little bit more about the whole thing this year.  She was so excited to help me decorate the Christmas tree the day after Thanksgiving.  I think she liked that the tree was just her size.  She did pretty good about not touching the tree, well at least with her hands.  She liked to test us, she would stick her hands behind her back and touch it with her tummy or she would walk really close to it and let her elbow brush it or she would hold one of her stuffed animals and let them touch it.  She though she was pretty sneaky, but she did get a few timeouts because she just had to touch the tree.  We didn't put any presents under the tree though until she had gone to bed on Christmas eve.

Since Craig had time off we decided to go see the march of the ducks at the Peabody Hotel again.  Brooklyn loves ducks and is a pro at quacking so we figured she would enjoy it.  We got there early and looked at all of the beautiful Christmas decorations.  Brooklyn loved the huge tree with the huge ornaments.  She really liked to see the ducks walk by and watch them swim in the fountain.

We didn't go see Santa this year.  We were pretty positive that she wouldn't take a picture with Him so we didn't want to waste our time.  At our gym there was a mechanical life size Santa that would dance and sing if you pressed a button and it totally freaked her out, but because of Him she thinks that all Santa's dance.  Anytime she sees one she starts to dance.  On Christmas Eve we went to Texas de Brazil for dinner...so good.  Brooklyn did great.  She loved to people watch and she liked all of the meat.  She really liked the coke bottle that the brought to Craig for his Cherry Coke, it was just her size.  After dinner we came home and lit the fire and read the story of Christ's birth from the bible and drank "fancy juice" (sparkling cider), which Brooklyn thought was awesome.  She loved the fire and pulled her little chair up in front of it and just watched it.  we then got her ready for bed and she watched a little bit of The Grinch with us and then she was off to bed.  Craig and I finished the movie and brought out her presents.

Christmas morning was a blast.  When she woke up that morning we brought her down and we were hoping to get her to eat a little breakfast before she opened presents but as soon as she spotted the presents there was nope hope for breakfast.  I told her she could open some after I changed her diaper, well that wasn't soon enough for her so she took off toward the tree and grabbed 2 presents and ran out of the living room.  So we let her open one small gift and then we changed her diaper and she ate a banana and then we let her open the rest of her presents.  After each gift she was content to just play with that gift.  It took us a little while to convince her that there were more toys for her.  She loved all of her toys,but I think her favorite is her Mickey Mouse stuffed animal.  she is obsessed. After gifts we then ate breakfast of monkey bread and an egg casserole.  A little later we went to the park and went for a walk and then that evening we had a nice Christmas dinner.  It was a great day that we were able to spend together as a little family.  Later that day I told Brooklyn that her birthday would be soon and that she would get to open more presents and she asked if they would be under the tree, what a sweet girl.  So grateful for this wonderful holiday and the chance we get to celebrate our Savior.