Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year (12 months, 1 week)

Lots of kids go to the zoo or Chuck E. Cheese for their birthday but how many 1 year olds can say they got to meet Santa on their birthday? Grandma and Grandpa Vance along with my parents and me went to Macys to visit the 8th floor auditorium to see "A Day in the Life of an Elf." As luck would have it, Santa was there for a visit and I got to sit on his lap and tell him what I wanted for Christmas. Mommy and Daddy were worried that I'd be afraid of Santa since I'm a bit afraid of most strangers but I wasn't. Ok maybe I was a bit afraid but I didn't cry!

This is me learning all about what elves do all day. I thought they just made toys but it turns out they eat, sleep, and go to school as well.

After we got home from Macys and I had my nap I got to open the rest of my birthday presents. I was sooooo excited to get musical instruments! If you didn't know, I LOVE music. I like singing, dancing, and playing music. So this was a perfect gift for me!

Mommy and Daddy got me a baby doll and a stroller. I had lots of fun pushing around my baby. I think I'll be a good Mommy some day!

I also ate some of my cake on my actual birthday. It was pretty tasty. Now I wish I had eaten some more when I had the chance!

On Tuesday Grandma and Grandpa Vance had to go back to Texas. I sure had a lot of fun with them! We tried to get a good picture of the three of us but I'm a bit squirmy these days!

One of my new favorite things to eat is banana slices that are coated in crushed Cheerios. I wouldn't self feed bananas before because I thought they were too sticky...BUT if Mommy crushes some Cheerios in a Ziplock bag and then shakes the slices to coat them....YUMMY! They are MUCH easier to pick up and soooo delicious. I was having so much fun shoveling them in my mouth that I missed and a banana/cheerio piece got stuck on my nose! This is me giving my "not impressed" look at Dad for taking a picture of this incident. It's very similar to the look Mommy gives Daddy when he takes a picture of her eating.

We ended up going to Grandma and Grandpa Dalton's house early for Christmas because a snow storm was coming! The snow storm ended up not being as bad as predicted but it still left us snowed in. The best part of this storm was that even though we got a lot of snow, the weather was warm and we got to play outside in the snow! This is me getting ready to go outside in the snow for the first time.

This is me on my new sled that Santa brought me. Santa came to our house early since we were going to Grandma's. I really liked the sled until it started moving and I tipped over. Then I did not like sledding at all!

The best thing about snow? SNOWBALLS! I thought snowballs were hilarious and tasty. Mommy and Daddy threw snowballs at each other and it cracked me up!

After our snowfight we came inside and I talked on the phone with my Great Aunt Bernadette. Well she talked and I mostly listened.

On Christmas Eve I got to open some of my presents. I was getting so used to opening presents everyday since Sunday that I just started helping myself to presents under the tree. On Sunday at my birthday party I wasn't very good at opening presents but by Christmas I became an expert. If someone tore a little piece off the present I could get the rest off by myself.

I started helping Grandma open her gifts when I ran out of presents. She had this really pretty bow that I liked a lot.

Grandma had these really fun bell ornaments on her tree. She let me take them off and ring them. I collected quite a few of these and made some beautiful music.

This is me on Christmas morning opening more presents. Everyone else got to open presents too. It's really more fun to open presents than to watch other people. Luckily Grandma always lets me help open hers.

Whew! All done with presents! Next week is going to be pretty boring!

After opening presents we went outside and made a snowman. Well, Daddy made a snowman and Mommy and I watched and threw more snowballs. This time Grandma, Grandpa and Uncle Steve were outside with us so we had more people to throw snowballs at. The wet snow was perfect for snowmen and snowball fights. We had a lot of fun!

After all of that excitement I was so tired I fell asleep sitting up. I hate when I do that. It's not the most restful sleep. Today we came back home and I must say--it is good to be home. I missed my toys, my kitties, the stairs, my crib, etc. This week my Daddy is off from work so we are going to have lots of fun!

This is my last blog of 2009! I hope everyone has a safe and happy new year! I'm not sure what we are doing to celebrate yet but Mommy has already told me that I cannot stay up until midnight like I did last year. It's not really fair because I don't even remember last New Year's Eve but apparently I was up.

I'll leave you a video of me dancing to the music on my new Pooh car.

Bye bye!