It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

Preparing for Christmas has been a whole new adventure for our family this year. Every step of the way has been filled with wonder and excitement. Last year, it was fun to spend our first Christmas season with Abby, but this year it has fun in a new way.

Last weekend, we got our tree and spent the evening decorating together. At the tree farm, after Joe inspected EVERY tree to find our "perfect" one, Abby and I went inside to get our special treat.


The tree was fun, but add an apple cider donut and smiles abound! She had no idea it would get even better.

When Abby woke up from her nap, she ran into the living room and shouted excitedly, "ABBY TREE!" She has reminded us exactly whose tree it is everyday since.

Opening the boxes of ornaments was so much fun. Every box literally brought a new gasp of amazement from Abby. "Oooooooo! Mommy PEEEEEEEAS! Abby do."

We were wondering what it would be like to have a tree full of sparkly, enticing, breakable ornaments+ lots of candy canes + a curious toddler, but the result has been pretty typically Abby. When it comes down to it, she is such a good listener. She doesn't touch it! That's not to say she isn't tempted. We have actually caught her multiple times pacing in front of the tree and pointing at ornaments. We started telling her to look with her eyes and not with her hands. I wasn't sure how much of it she really understood until the next day when I saw her pacing again. This time, she stopped in front of her favorite, untouchable ornament, stuck her little butt out and got her nose up really close to the tree and started saying "eyes! eyes!". What can I say? She was listening to her Mommy and looking with her eyes!

Decorating our new home for Christmas has been really special. It's so cozy and festive.

Some other funny highlights from the past week:

Abby is such a little mommy. She carries her babies everywhere. I walk into her room when she is in there playing alone to find her rocking her baby to sleep (saying "Shhh shhh shhhh" and kissing her on the forehead). She brings babies to me with a changing pad, wipes and a diaper and asks me to help her change them. When we tell Abby it's time for dinner, she runs to find a baby and bring her to the table to eat. She even insists her baby prays with us. She really wants to take her baby into the bathtub, but I'm thinking her talking baby doll wouldn't survive playtime in the water. There are some days when Abby just wants to be the baby again. So, the other day she brought out her baby's cradle and her baby's blanket and showed me who the baby was!

One afternoon, Abby woke up startled (and early) from her nap. I think she had a bad dream. When I got her out of her crib, she fell back to sleep immediately on my shoulder. This was my sweet view for the rest of her nap. There is nothing better I could have been doing that afternoon.

Abby has taken a new extreme liking to the sea otter stuffed animal Grammy and G-Diddy brought her back from Alaska this summer. The thing is Abby is convinced her sea otter is actually a mouse, also known as "MOUF". She takes him everywhere and now sleeps with him every night. When Joe goes in to get Abby from her crib in the morning, every other stuffed animal and blanket has been thrown out onto the floor, but Abby is holding onto Mouse nice and tight. The other night, Abby decided Mouse needed some dinner too. What she really wanted was for his face to be right in her macaroni and cheese, but I convinced her that would make him pretty dirty and smelly. So, we got Mouse a bowl of his own food (cheerios) and he munched away by Abby's side!

Enjoying every minute of this sweet blessing God has given us!