December 25. Two holidays in one: Christmas and Elsa’s birthday all wrapped up in one exhausting, fun-filled day!
The morning was devoted to celebrating Christmas.
Lynne’s parents, sister, and grandma are in town, and they came over to the house around 10, just as Elsa woke up from her morning nap. Elsa went over to the Christmas tree and played Santa, grabbing presents and bows and learning to rip open wrapping paper. She had a great time opening presents and playing with her new toys! Among the presents she received were shape sorters, pull toys, and musical instruments. At the end, she opened her stocking and found jumbo-sized crayons to go with her new drawing paper!
Elsa has been walking everywhere for the last month; she seems to love the freedom (and speed) it gives her. So, all morning she was darting around the room, playing with wrapping materials, presents, and people. She knows how to say a couple dozen words now, and was eager to show them off to the family, including done, yes, up, down, book, duck, lights, keys, hat, home, and milk. She also learned that pigs say oink and was wandering around saying “oink, oink, oink.” (She is also getting great at imitating the words people say to her.) All in all, Elsa seemed to have a great time!
Then, Elsa went down for an early afternoon nap, and when she woke up, it was the beginning of the birthday part of the day! She immediately noticed the pink birthday balloon upstairs, and ran over to play with it, dragging it all around the room and batting it around.
We had a birthday/Christmas dinner of lamb, brussels sprouts, salad, carrots, and zucchini, and Elsa tried a little bit of each of the vegetables.
After dinner, we presented Elsa with her birthday cake: carrot cake with cream cheese frosting and a single candle on top. Of course, the first thing she did was to plunge her hand into the cake. I will also reveal that Elsa successfully extinguished the candle by herself, but I will leave the “how” up to your imagination until I have time to post the video. 
We finished up with her birthday presents and cards, including a tractor that actually drives, a few books, and a few very beautiful pieces of jewelry.
Overall, everyone had a lot of fun, and Elsa was a trooper through all the excitement. Below are some pictures from the day; the first pictures are from the morning (Christmas) celebration, and the later pictures are from the more birthday-centric part of the day.
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| Christmas and Elsa’s Birthday 2009 |
Hope that everyone had a great holiday. We are looking forward to 2010!
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