December 27, 2011

Merry Christmas! The last few weeks have been filled with holiday fun. We kicked off the holiday season the weekend of December 10 by making cookies with Grandma Distad.

Charlotte's favorite part was rubbing the flour around and brushing a little (ok, a lot) onto the floor.

Merry Christmas! We celebrated early with Charlotte and she is now a culinary queen. Here she is posing next to her kitchen with her chef hat.

Charlotte proceeded to get sick the week before Christmas. She was coughing, vomiting, and sleeping in excess. I stayed home with her on Monday, on Tuesday she went to bed at 5 p.m., and on Wednesday she fell asleep at daycare while all the kids played loudly (they called us to pick her up). Luckily she slept until 2 p.m. on Wednesday and woke up with enough energy to travel to Eau Claire for the traditional dinner with Santa (and, most importantly, Grandma and Grandpa Russell).

The holiday excitement escalated when she got to see the big guy. This was as close as she'd get. At least she thanked Santa for the cookie!

Posing in front of the Fanny Hill Christmas Tree. Everyone is looking at the camera and even smiling!

Charlotte got to try her hand at cookie cutting and decorating again with Grandma Russell. A messy, but fun, venture.

Christmas Eve! Grandpa Russell hand-crafted this barn for Charlotte. The trip to Michaels: $5.26, Popsicle sticks: $4.99, hot glue gun: $8.99, this picture: priceless (please note: prices are completely made up).

Charlotte now poses for pictures and then runs to see herself on the camera screen. She rarely poses long enough for the picture to be taken, however, and you can see here she's just starting to run toward me.

Christmas morning came awfully early, so that Charlotte could open her gifts from Santa before we headed off to Grandma and Grandpa Distad's. Love the bed head! Here she is with the magnifying glass she received. She thought it was hilarious.

A tractor for Christmas! She may live in the big city, but at least she'll know what a tractor looks like.

And no Distad family Christmas would be complete without a child playing piano. We enjoyed being serenaded by Charlotte's playing and singing this year.

Here, Charlotte is posing with her new Bitty Baby. There is no need for us to by extra outfits, however, since it appears that Charlotte's preemie clothes fit just fine. It's hard to imagine, but the above outfit was too big for Charlotte at one point. Look for Charlotte in the next People's "Who Wore It Better?"