Christmas

We had a very good, albeit busy, Christmas this year. On Christmas Eve we hosted my mom's side of the family at our house. It worked really well to have everybody at our place because Jillian is much friendlier to unfamiliar faces at our house than at other people's house. It is like she went into instant hostess mode, and there wasn't a single person's lap that she missed. On Christmas day we ran all over the place to my Dad's, Jeramy's mom's and Jeramy's dad's. Starting next year it is my goal to stay home on Christmas Day and we can host whoever wants to come over sort. It is just too hard to go to so many places, and I want to start building traditions with my children other than hanging out in the car and throwing tantrums when mommy won't let them touch people's breakable objects.

Jillian was completely spoiled, of course. Here are some pictures of her fun...

Christmas Eve she got a Pelican pull toy with balls in its mouth from her great aunt and uncle. She really liked taking the balls out of the pelican's mouth and throwing them down the stairs. Luckily she also thought it was fun to retrieve the balls, which thankfully she can do by herself. We took down the baby gate at the top of the stairs before company came over, but I think we're going to leave it off since she is so mobile on the stairs now.



Christmas morning, Jillian woke up to find that Santa brought her a play kitchen! She likes it almost as much as the real one...more maybe since these cabinets don't have locks on them. We moved the changing table out of her room and into Hayden's to make room for toys (Jeramy already painted Hayden's room if you can believe it). I figured that I would change her diapers in there, and after the baby is born we'll set up the pack n play as a second diaper changing station.

She and her cousin Julia got life size dolls (well bigger than life at their current size). They modeled with Aunt Brittany/Julia's mom because it is pretty much impossible to get a decent shot of both of them without adult intervention.

Jeramy's mom made Jillian the coolest rocking motor cycle. It turned out really great (which is good given the countless hours that went into it!). At first Jillian was uncertain about sitting on it, but once Julia showed her how she was fine.

Riding her new quad. She could figure out how to hit the button to get it to move but only in little spurts. Jeramy practiced with her last night, and she was getting the hang of holding it down longer. Not too much longer until she can ride a real one!