Christmas Celebration #1

at Nana and Papaw's house! She was lucky everyone let her open their presents since she wasn't so fortunate at the following night's celebration with her cousins.








This was the second of about 15 different types of lip gloss/chapstick that she got over the days of the first 3 Christmas celebrations. At first, she was so precise about how to apply it!
It was a great night!

She's her Daddy's girl.

She even LOVES to eat deer meat!

Snuggle Bug

This family has some moves...

Click here to see!

A Few from Aunt Brooke's Camera

Here is proof that a 2 year old shouldn't have a marker unsupervised.


Jocelyn loved having breakfast for dinner at Aunt Brooke's. We don't do that too often at our house since Daddy isn't the biggest fan of eggs.


Who needs siblings when you have cousins and your cousins' cousins?! This was chili night one day back in October. The kids had to eat in the craft room.
Can you tell we like it when Brooke invites us over for dinner?

Be Very Afraid Gingerbread Man!

Trip to Santa Claus, IN

First, we drove to Jasper to play with Jocelyn's little buddy, Colin. They play so well together. He even gave her a present, a super cute pink polka dot frame with her name on it!




Next, we all went to Santa Claus, IN to mail a letter to Santa.


They have a little museum and a nice Christmas store there so we took lots of pictures to remember...





See her little head peeking out by his knee? That was a BIG santa!


Lastly, the kids got to meet the most realistic santa I've ever met! Jocelyn wasn't comfortable enough to smile, but she did tell me later that she liked how his belly shook when he proclaimed, "Ho Ho Ho". It really did!

The Tree is Up!

Oh boy, are we in the Christmas spirit around here! We are recording Christmas shows, Jocelyn has already learned the words to Jingle Bells, and she wakes up every morning and runs out to the tree and exclaims, "Happy Christmas lights!"

I am extremely impressed with how Jocelyn handled the ornaments and placed them on the tree without any instructions. And I'm even more impressed with how she leaves them alone now that we are down decorating. She even knows that there are presents under the tree for her and doesn't ask to open them.

She says she wants a baby and a backpack for Christmas and she already knows that Mimi is getting her the baby she wants and Aunt Brooke has the backpack covered. I guess we underestimated what she understands when listening to us discuss these things!


I love that our ornaments are more fun than fancy. And I love the older ones that my Dad handed down to me...the Purdue one always gets a front spot. Jocelyn has 4 or 5 "Babies 1st Christmas" ones, and I have a few handmade ones from my previous students that I will always cherish.

It's special to me that I have the nativity set that both myself and my Dad decades before me used to lay in front of on our bellys and look at as a children. And now look who is doing the same thing...

"HAPPY CHRISTMAS LIGHTS!"