O Likes to Search for the Pickle, too!

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O asked to search for the pickle tonight. My mom hid it for her, and she had a great time looking for it. We need to do more of this because she needs a lot of practice looking and finding objects :)

Special Ornaments

Every year (starting last year) we trace O's hand onto craft foam, cut it out, and let her decorate it. Can you tell that we love things made from handprints?

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Elliott's Aunt gave this angel ornament to O for Christmas. She loves it because it's blue (her favorite color), and it has her name on it (under my finger). I love it because it reminds me of our baby who is now O's guardian angel. O knows that the baby is an angel who is watching over her to make sure she is happy and safe, and although Ell's aunt probably didn't intend for the angel to have this special significance, it does for me and it will for O as she gets older and understands things a little better.

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Searching for the Pickle

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Guh-guh and Grandpa have a tradition at their house of hiding a pickle on their Christmas tree, and whoever finds the pickles gets a special monetary surprise! We usually forget about it until my mom starts hinting around, but Elliott remembered this year. He kept making eyes at me trying to get me to start looking (I was sitting by tree). I finally figured out what he was talking about and started discreetly looking for it. Then the others remembered and we started frantically searching. I was the lucky one this year! Hooray!
Guh-guh and Grandpa also have lots of stockings hanging around decorating their house, and this year they put surprises in them, too. They left a note on the hearth telling us about this. I was the only one who saw the notes, so I had a head start! These are really fun traditions that we REALLY get into :)

Favorite Christmas Books Tradition

I wasn't planning on blogging today, but since O and Ell are sleeping, I figured that I might as well...

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A new tradition that I'm starting this year is choosing O's favorite 4 or 5 Christmas books each year and writing a few sentences in each book telling about her reaction to the book, things that she said and asked about it, etc. I think it will be fun to look back each year and remember what her favorite books were in the previous years :)

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O LOVES this gingerbread house in the Cookie Count book! This book is really amazing :)

She Loves Everything!

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We gave O her handmade cradle, doll quilt, and doll diaper bag filled with lots of goodies tonight (Christmas Eve) after we ate supper and watched home videos. She LOVED it all! I'm so excited :) I was secretly afraid that she should wouldn't be interested in everything, and I'm so glad that my fears were unfounded.

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Elliott gave O this super cool wooden camera for Christmas. Maybe my camera will be safe now :)

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Merry Christmas!

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Christmas Traditions

One of my favorite Christmas traditions when I was a child was putting this puzzle together. I don't know why this was so special to me, but I remember being so excited about this puzzle. I remember this tradition far more clearly than I remember the toys I recieved :)

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Another Christmas tradition that we had was to use these Christmas glasses for the month of December. Everyone had a favorite number, and we were (and still are!) to use that glass for the whole month. I'm 8 Maids a Milking :) My mom bought each of us our own set of these glasses, so we have the tradition at our house, too. Although, we aren't quite as strict as my mom :)

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A new tradition that Elliott and I started last year (among many others!) is that on Christmas Eve (after leaving his parents' house), we get Japanese take-out for dinner. When we get home we have a picnic on the den floor while watching old home videos. I can't wait for O to see herself on video from the past 2 Christmases. She's going to LOVE it! We also plan to show her our wedding video and her birth video. After our picnic and the videos, she'll open a few presents from us.

Mesmerized...

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O is mesmerized by this tree with a train running through it. Guh-guh is an Avon lady, so she has lots of neat Avon Christmas things. O and my niece, M, LOVE this train or as O says "tain."

Favorite Christmas Books

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Here are a few of O's favorite Christmas books so far. She especially loves the puzzle books. Santa Mouse is also VERY popular :)

O's Stocking is FINALLY Finished!

I embroidered O's stocking using a free pattern from Wee Wonderfuls (love that site!) months ago. Then I put it aside until just a few weeks ago. Thank goodness for Guh-guh! I told her how I wanted the stocking made, and she made it! I embroidered O's name at the top of the stocking, and Guh-guh did the rest :) Thanks, Guh-guh!


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Our stockings don't match, but they all have one thing in common...they were handmade with love by our mamas and grandmamas! This is my stocking. We had several different stockings as we were growing up, but this one was always my favorite :)

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This is Elliott's stocking (obviously!). His mom made it for him. His is MUCH smaller than mine and O's, so Santa can focus on ours :) Opening my stocking was always my favorite part of Christmas morning :)

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All She Wants for Christmas Is...

choc-choc (chocolate), kleenex, and bandaids. Hmmmmm. I could have saved myself a lot of time and money if I'd had this list a few months ago :)

My Favorite Ornaments

I thought I'd share a few of my favorite ornaments. I love photo ornaments, and ornaments that have a story behind them :)
I made this ornament for O's 1st Christmas. I found the HUGE stocking at the dollar store, and we took LOTS of pictures of her laying on the couch in it before I was satisfied :) Then I cut out the picture, glued it to foam core board, cut it out with an x acto knife, decopaged it, and added a ribbon. It's a great keepsake, and O really loves it!

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This is O's 2nd Christmas photo ornament. I made it the same way that I made the first one. I need to start the 3rd one soon!

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We always try to buy an ornament when we travel, and this little wooden angel is from Poland. We bought her after hiking (and almost falling to our deaths) in the snowy mountains of Zakopane.

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This ornament came from Prague, which is one of our favorite cities. It opens and there is a tiny nesting doll inside.

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I love this felt frog. He came from Costa Rica where we also had a very scary experience. This was the trip that helped us decide to give up traveling to have a baby!

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We forgot to buy an ornament when we camped in Maine for our 2nd anniversary, so I had one made for Elliott for Christmas. This was our favorite vacation, and we can't wait to take O back one day!

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Here's our little tree. It's small and simple, but we love it :)

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Our Simple Christmas Tree

Elliott and I are not very enthusiastic decorators for holidays, which makes things much simpler and,for us, more enjoyable (since we don't enjoy decorating). We have a 4 foot hand-me-down pre-lit (with colored lights) tree that we LOVE. It's easy to store and super quick and easy to set up. O was excited, and she loves the tree, too. I started to feel a little guilty that we don't go all out with decorations, but then I remembered that O's Guh-guh and Granpa decorate enough for all of us, so I don't have to feel guilty at all :) She (and we) can enjoy their decorations, and we can also enjoy our simplicity! Since our tree is so small and our storage space is so limited, we are simplifying even more. As we were decorating the tree, I was culling ornaments from our stash. We kept the handmade ornaments, ornaments from our travels, ornaments with special significance, and the ones that we just really like. All of the rest have to go! I think that about half of the ornaments that we own went in the donate box :) Hurray! We're also getting rid of most of the decorations that we own unless we absolutely love them. I really want the vast majority of our decorations to be handmade, so the first step is getting rid of the store bought stuff. Then I've got to get to work!

Elliott was at the computer trying to find Christmas music to play when O requested "ap" music. Ell put on "you dropped the bomb on me" (not "ap" but still danceable) and cranked up the volume. O loved every second of it (and hopefully our neighbors also like 80s music!). They danced and danced and our decorating was a bit delayed :)

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She's a nonstop dancer!

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Ummm...did somebody teach her to break dance?

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Still dancing! O was much more interested in dancing and then popping the bubbles on bubble wrap than in decorating the tree :)

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