Christmas!

We had such a great Christmas, Sophia had so much fun playing with her family and friends. Our Christmas celebrations started a week ago. We went over to Grammy and Grandpa Skalsky's for our Skalsky Christmas, it was a wonderful whirlwind of presents and fun. Sophia had a great time playing with her very energetic three cousins and even had enough time left over for some good cuddles with her Uncle Jeremy. We had a blast opening presents, napping and having lots of wonderful food to eat. Sophia feels so at home over at her Grammy and Grandpa's, she loves them so much!

That weekend we also went to visit our Pelner family (my side) to celebrate the holiday. Sophia reveled in being the only little person there that got to soak up all the attention, just for herself :) She was so comfortable there that she rolled in all of the wrapping paper and bows, took a self-guided tour of my Aunt & Uncles house and played with a bag full of purses. Sophia was so excited to see my Aunt Ann's shoes in their walk in closet, that she went to find me, held my hand and guided me to go see the shoe collection - our little lady LOVES shoes!

Christmas Eve was simply beautiful. We had a great family day together, relaxed and played. Then we got all dressed up for Christmas Eve mass with Grammy, Grandpa & Nana Skalsky. The service was lovely, although Sophia found the water fountains in the foyer much more fascinating, so Daddy, Grandpa and Sophia spent most of the service exploring the church. She wasn't alone though, she made lots of little friends out in the hall and was the most social of the bunch! Right before mass started she saw the priest, who happened to have a white beard, and excitedly exclaimed "Santa" and pointed right at him. We all giggled and Sophia had a wonderful, precious smile.

Sophia must have been a very good girl this year because Santa came and left her lots of wonderful presents. She had a great time going through her stocking and ripping corners off of her presents. The overwhelming amount of gifts took all day to open. Carefully opening up each gift and playing with it for a time, until Mommy and Daddy reminded Sophia that there were even more gifts to open. A lot of the time the packaging won her attention. The big winners were of course Santa gifts, her play kitchen and her keyboard with microphone. She'll bounce between the two, frying up a hamburger patty at the kitchen, then taking a break to put her mouth all over the microphone and grunt or say a word or two, to her brilliant amusement. She loves to hear her voice loud and clear! It makes Jason and I laugh every time, then she beams a huge toothy grin, it's priceless.

Today we had our wonderful Christmas get-together with my folks, Grammy & Pa Magnuson. Sophia charged in with excitement as she analyzed each Christmas decoration, careful to find the Mickey Mouse ornaments, move and chew on most of the nativity figurines and describe many ornaments to the closest person. She was a delight and had so much fun playing with Grammy and Pa. She was pretty eager to go to both this time around, she just loves her grandparents. We opened presents, Sophia was very amused with her Mickey Mouse ears with Santa hat attached and spent most of the time looking at that in the mirror. When we could tear her away from all of the other exciting toys, we would open present one by one. She has had a blast with all of her presents, but I know that she enjoyed the quality time the most.

Merry Christmas everyone, may you have a wonderful new year. 2011, here we come!