Christmas

We had such a great Christmas this year!
Above is Evy sporting some reindeer antlers.
Evy has recently begun smiling and posing for pictures. This is her favorite smile to use. After we take the picture she likes to see it (the joys of digital cameras) and she seems to find herself quite entertaining. We agree, of course.

This strainer makes a great hat. And Evy thinks this picture is hilarious.

One of the most special parts of our Christmas this year was telling Evy the Christmas story. Her favorite books were the ones about Baby Jesus. In fact, she sang her first words, "Jesus, Jesus" while reading a favorite Christmas book.
She spent a lot of time playing w/ our Nativity set, which is actually ceramic, so we had to keep a close eye on her, but she was really careful and took good care of all the pieces. Jesus was her favorite piece. It was not uncommon for Jesus to be missing from the rest of the set because He was off "ministering" somewhere else in the house.
Below, she's carefully playing w/ the Nativity. We're not exactly sure how the Nutcracker got in there, but we figured Evy is an evangelist. More about that later.

Here she is enjoying our church's kids program on Grandma's lap, sitting beside her great grandparents.

Her favorite part was watching her cousins dance and sing as angels announcing Jesus' birth to the shepherds.

As I mentioned before, Evy is an evangelist. Our church has life size nativity in the sanctuary during the advent season and Evy LOVES it. Lately, every time we go to church we say, "Let's go see Jesus!" The morning of this kids' program, when we walked into the sanctuary, we realized that Jesus was missing from the nativity because He's going to be in the kids' program that night. Evy was a little confused about it and spent a little time looking for Him as well as "talking" about how He wasn't there.

After the service, Grandma (Josh's mom) took Evy up on stage and showed her that Jesus was just hiding behind the inn set, in preparation for His big show. As soon as Evy saw that Jesus was there, she turned right around, with much "rejoicing," and hurried off to tell Grandpa and bring him over to see for himself! Then of course, she had to tell Daddy too! Daddy even took Jesus out of the manger so she could give him a hug and a pat.

It reminded me of when the shepherds found Jesus and were so excited that they had to "go tell it on the mountain!"

Here we are celebrating w/ Daddy's side. Aunt Sarah and Aunt Jenny taught Evy how to eat olives.

Evy had a special snuggle with her Great Grandma Berg (and Evy's wearing an outfit from her Great Grandparents on Mom's Wilkinson side)

Here's Mom with her cousin in law Laura. Laura's son Nathan was born on Jan. 5th. Our daughter is due April 9th.

Dad's side

Evy and her cousins

Uncle Tad put lots of time and love into making these beautiful blocks for Evy. She liked them so much, she climbed right into the box. She hasn't figured out how to build anything yet, but she's great at demolishing everything others try to build.

One of my favorite parts of Christmas is acting out the Christmas story as a family. We even had costumes this year! Last year, Evy played the part of Jesus and was quite content to lay in the manger while we acted out the story around her. This year, she brought her favorite baby doll to play the part of Jesus. Here she is, carefully laying baby in the manger and helping Mary and Joseph (Megan and Grandpa) with childcare . Though she was a sheep for the scene w/ the shepherds, we're not exactly sure what part Evy is playing here. Maybe the holy nanny?

The cast

On Christmas morning we gave Evy a big toy for the yard (a hand - me - down from her cousins). It's a slide w/ a fort underneath. Here she is trying it out. Yes, she tasted some dirt and frosty tomatoes a few minutes before.

She likes it!
(And you can see in the background that we're having another great year with our orange tree)

Here we are with Mom's side. The 3 Es (Evy, Eden, and Elly) enjoyed playing together in their matching panda pajamas. It's great that they're all so close in age and share interest in toys.

Snow time! Evy seems to really enjoy the snow. Mom made her this took for Christmas.

Little footprints in the fresh snow.

We enjoyed several sled runs down Nana and Grandpa's drive way. I posted a video at the end.

Evy and Eden going for a ride.

Back inside, Evy got a broom for Christmas! (She wanted one, mine was too tall for her)...

... and a Dora potty seat from her cousins ....

.... and a Little People Nativity Set from Nana and Grandpa! Now she can play with it all by herself, and she does! As you can see, Jesus is her favorite piece again. This set also plays Evy's favorite song, Away in the Manger.

Back outside for more snow play.

Mom made matching tooks for Eden and Elly too. Here are Elly and Evy in the sled.

Eden and Nana are pulling Evy and Elly while Uncle Ken helps out.

Snow bunny

Here's a fun video of Evy and Daddy enjoying a sled ride together. Latte tries to play chicken with them at first but jumps out of the way just in time.

More fun pictures

Above: Here's just a little preview of some Christmas fun.

Below: A crown she decorated at her friend Ellie's b-day party. She's very proud of it and likes to wear it.

Reading books with her cousins Maddie and Joel.

Enjoying the snow w/ Grandpa N.

This one just speaks for itself.

Halloween

Here's our little ladybug! Evy's friend Rylan loaned her this adorable ladybug costume that Evy was delighted to wear for Halloween this year. Here she is trick or treating (so Mom and Dad could eat all her candy).

Below, Mom dressed up as a mechanic (an old Drama Club costume that could accommodate a small baby belly) and in case you can't tell, Dad is Mr. T.

Here's another trick or treating action shot, but notice the beautiful black cat in the background that so conveniently posed for a Halloween picture. See the end of the post for the story on this cat.

Mr. T and the Ladybug at our church's annual Fall Family Festival. Mom was painting faces.

Evy's cousins were all dressed in very fun, home made costumes too.
From left, Cade (an Ewok from Star Wars), Megan (a TV), Ashley (a duck), Joel (a scientist), Evy (a very grouchy ladybug), and Maddie (an artist).

The Black Cat Story:

We've been seeing this cat in our neighborhood for months! I've always thought black cats are beautiful, but this one really got our attention because it kept popping up everywhere! For example, our neighbors went for a walk one day. They saw it as they left their house on one end of the street, and a few minutes later, saw it on the opposite end of the street. They thought, "Wow! What a fast cat to have moved so far in such a short time."
Stories like this started emerging from other neighbors too. One day the cat was wearing a pink collar, the next a purple, the next, no collar at all. In the course of an afternoon, it had sunbathed in all of our yards. She drove our dogs nuts all day!
We started calling her Aretha. And we began to believe Aretha was either very active, or amazing at time management. How did she manage to get so much done each day?
Some time later, one of our neighbors got to talking to a woman who'd moved to the neighborhood a few months before and had a hard time keeping track of her 2 cats.
"What do they look like?" asked our neighbor.
"Oh, they're twin males, maybe you've seen them around, they're both all black."
Ha! That explained everything. Needless to say, many of us still call them "Aretha."