The Days Before Christmas...

Soooooo...my posts aren't just behind, they're also completely out of order! Ah, well...better late (and out of order) than never, eh?!

In the days leading up to Christmas, our family had such sweet days of celebrating the season of Advent. Having an 18-month-old Strawberry in our midst helped our celebration IMMENSELY, we must report! Almost daily, we read the story of baby Jesus's birth in her Jesus Storybook Bible, following along with her plush Nativity set. Just a few days into hearing and seeing the story, Susannah could label all of the people and explain some of the events while manipulating the figurines. Pretty incredible for such a little toddler!

Read and look on for other highlights from this year's celebration...

Daily Susannah looks for the mailman to put mail into the mailbox. She LOVES his arrival almost as much as Rylie and her doggie friend Missy do! :) In fact, every time Rylie and Missy are inside the house and start barking like crazy for any reason, Susannah scurries to the dining room window declaring, "Mailman! Mailman here!" while climbing onto the stool we often keep there for this exact purpose. Christmas provided a joyous influx of cards and letters, and daily she accompanied Mama in opening them. She would then sit down with them piled all around her, sorting through them. "Nozu" her light-up snowman friend was usually Susannah's audience for these readings. She would study the front of the card then open it, jabbering all the while, "Djfjeiopwjfndainp...angel...dfjdfjieopejfnddsam...baby Jesus...staw [star]... fjdaslrjeopfndfnak!" She was quite serious about this daily task, and if a letter or card fell off the chair upon which she was sitting she would gasp and let out a semi-panicked, "UH-OH! CAWD!"

We kept our cards and letters and pictures in a Santa basket in the foyer, which she also rifled through many times a day before starting to load up a Tinkerbell gift bag and carry them all around the house in that! Busy, busy girl this Christmas!








My first attempts at a Christmas picture to mail to friends and family...









Yet another attempt...cute, but not nearly cheerful enough!






Here, Susannah goes through the Christmas story with her plush Nativity set. If you ask her where Mary and Joseph are going, she responds by saying and attempting to fingerspell, "Stable." HA! It took quite some time to convince her that they were riding on a donkey and not a "horsie...NEIGH! NEIGH! BRRRRRRR...(with her lips)", and I must confess before the world that she was far more interested in the animals gathered around the manger than she was in the wee Babe contained therein...

Showing "Nozu" the doggies and squirrels outside (little did they know that green, green grass wouldn't be seen for many weeks on end come mid-December...)

The horsie--errrrr, donkey--fetches Baby Jesus in the manger to take Him back to His parents in the stable.






Our Christmas Tree

We made our annual post-Thanksgiving pilgrimage to the Middle River Tree Farm in nearby Verona once again this year, and loved every minute of it (minus the whole chainsaw experience...that really terrified Susannah!). Rylie went off-leash, sniffing and peeing upon hundreds of trees that would soon adorn the living room of some unsuspecting family. Susannah loved sifting through all of the ornaments, exploring their details and carrying them to Dada to put onto the tree.

Somehow we managed to select the fattest tree on the farm once again this year! What can we say? The fluffier the white pine, the better! After covering it in lights, we worked as a family to put the ornaments into place, all the while listening to Christmas music that cheered our hearts. We just loving having a live Christmas tree in our home...even if it means that half of our living room is eaten up by the overgrown evergreen! :)

With the branches clipped from the base of the tree, Susannah and Dada assembled a "baby Christmas tree" in a Ball jar filled with water for her room. She decorated it with some leftover shiny Christmas balls and was quite delighted to place it on her bookshelf.

Just had to throw this one in, because Susannah really started getting into her animal figurines shortly before Christmas. She names them all in sign and spoken English, "organizes" them in varying ways, makes them "interact" with one another, and matches babies and mamas or otherwise similar critters. She is particularly fascinated by the fact that the baby calf drinks milk from the mama cow. These are still her two favorite animals, and she checks all other animals' tummies for "milkies"!!! Quite perplexing to her that not every plastic molded creature presents with nipples, though she never gives up the search!

More to come...promise!