So much holiday hoopla and some not-so-fun flooding aftermath at our place that I'll cover later, so blogging's going to continue to be sparse for a bit. But Christmas itself was lovely.
We had breakfast with J.'s family and Ava and Dylan got to run around with their passel of cousins.
Merry Christmas, from the Joneses!
We asked Ava to take a break from the fun to take this picture. Hence her Bob Cratchit-worthy expression.
But her frown turned upside down later when she opened her gifts, which included this new doll, to replace the one that went AWOL somewhere out in the world while she was traveling with us or the grandparents.
As mentioned
before, we do the babywearing thing at our house and
we Santa did spring for a new ErgoBaby carrier for Ava, in her favorite color. She squealed with delight when we snapped it together for her and loves wearing her doll and playing out elaborate scenarios filled with lots of baby changing, burping, and nursing ("Dolly needs some boobie milk 'cause she's sleepy. See? She's rubbing her eyes.") Ah, the simple joys of childhood.
And thankfully, Dylan still doesn't understand what all the hoopla's about, so he busied himself with a kiddie laptop in the playroom. He was thoroughly underwhelmed by the big truck
we Santa got for him, but loved his waffle. Again: simple pleasures.
Next to the doll and carrier, Ava's other favorite gift was these Dorothy-goes-to-Oz-worthy glittery pink shoes from Grandma. They've been worn almost every day since. Luckily they go with almost everything in her wardrobe.
Despite the challenges of this past year, we are all incredibly blessed, especially to have all these lovely, smiling faces to call family.
Merry Christmas!
