Merry Christmas to All and to All a Good Dose of Cough Medicine

We hope you all had a good Christmas. Matt and I spent most of the days leading up to Christmas with horrid sinus infections, which made us even more grateful that Grandma and Grandpa were able to come down for Christmas. They willingly took Amelia duty for a few days while we slept and tried every cough medicine known to man.

Gloria had promised Amelia they could make Christmas cookies together. In her brilliance, she pre-made the cookie dough so all they had to do was roll them out, then decorate. Amelia wasn't so good as the rolling them out, but was all about shaking the sprinkles. And she must be the only child in America that doesn't want to eat the raw cookie dough.

Shaping the cookies.

And decorate.

Amelia opened her one present on Christmas Eve and it was half the cast of Sesame Street, along with a couple of books. They were a big hit and had to take a turn in everyone's lap.

Amelia's presents to Grandma and Grandpa. She drew portraits of them.

Feeding mommy one of her cookies.

When I put her to bed we made sure to read "The Night Before Christmas." I've probably told this story before, but since that's never stopped me before, here we go. When I was little my dad and step-mother lived in the brownstone that Clement C. Moore lived in when he wrote that poem, so I had to memorize the whole poem and repeat it on Christmas Eve. It has since become tradition that all the kids in my family have to memorize the poem and take turns repeating it every year. It doesn't matter how many times I read it to Amelia, I still hear my dad's voice as I say each of the words. She didn't have to memorize it this year, but we'll see about next year.

Opening gifts Christmas morning. Amelia got a band in a box and decided to play with the maracas while eating chocolate. That's not a parenting decision I would recommend to anyone else.

With her purple shades for beach time on both coasts.

In a hoodie from memere and pepere.

We went to my Aunt Elin and Uncle Mike's house (I still haven't killed his plants and they're even getting new growth!) for Christmas dinner. Amelia had fun running around. She and her cousin Erik (who's a little over 2) are very unsure of each other and would not get within 10 feet of each other. She was fascinated by Erik's little brother Alex, who's 5 months old. She came into the room while I was holding him, and after tweaking out for a few minutes, she actually came up and played with him a little. He smiled and cooed at her and she was just amazed by him. She kept wanting to put her finger in his eye, like she does with her dolls, but was ok when I nixed that idea.

We hope you all had a Merry Christmas and have a Happy New Year!