'Tis the Season

I am so excited about Christmas this year!! Ava is already having so much fun. She loves looking at the lights on the houses in the neighborhood, gazing at the giant inflatable polar bear riding the three wheeler across the street (while lamenting, again, that the chicken hat is taking a nap), and dancing to her Christmas tunes. Last weekend we got out the Christmas decorations and picked out and decorated our tree. I have completed my Christmas shopping and (thanks to my Mom!!) have finished my wrapping. I think we're going to hold off on putting the gifts under the tree until closer to Christmas, unless you all want your gifts to have been torn open and re-taped about 7 times each.

Picking out our tree. Ava really got into it - we would ask her if she liked one, and she would wrinkle her nose and say "No..." and then point to another one that she liked better. Here we are with the lucky tree!



"Cheese!!!" Ava has recently learned to say "cheese" when you are taking her photo. It's pretty cute.



Ava really likes to smell the tree, which is pretty funny. She usually ends up poking herself in the eye or something comparable, and then will have to tell you a story about it. She also likes to kiss all of the ornaments, because the one she is holding below has a magnetic nose and kisses another bear ornament. We told her that the bears kiss, and then she decided that she needed to kiss all of the ornaments. Once again, pretty cute.

Last year I spent an undisclosed amount of money on completely re-doing our Christmas tree with kid friendly ornaments. It was TOTALLY worth it. I mean, I was already in love with them last year, but Ava really loves them too. And I have no worries when she takes them off and rearranges them all!

Putting an ornament on the tree:

Hanging up a bell ornament: