Christmas this year was fantastic. We had a long stretch of family and friends and great events. Frankly I'm amazed we made it through. Zoolights, Jackys and the Garcia-Cabales, a HUGE Scheuer Family Christmas (we did it a day early so everyone could come...and boy did they), a Minnie-Irving-McEvoy Christmas Eve, and a very long and relaxing Christmas day at Grandma and Grandpa's.
The Wizard of Oz loomed large this year. Somewhere around October or so Anya got the Oz bug, which gave Amy enough time to make her a Dorothy dress giving us two months of explaining why there were little scraps of gingim fabric being tracked around the house and eaten by the dogs. And since Grandma Lodwig has managed to make it to 2012 without ever having seen the Wizard of Oz, we bought the DVD and sat around at their house watching it Christmas day. The crowning achievement had to have been when we checked on Anya last night we was cuddled up and sleeping on her Dorothy Dress like it was her new lovey.
Anya was into all things stuffed this year, asking for a stuffed cat (received) stuffed dragon (received) stuffed angel (asked for too late - not received). She theorized that the reason her new dragon's nose was shorter than her old dragon's nose was that she asked for it late and Santa didn't have time to make a longer nose. That made us chuckle. She also got a veritable driftnet of stuffed sea life from her uncle Matt which she adored.
Her other favorite was the Ant farm. She kept jumping up from the dinner table, "I need to check on my ants!" We had to remove it from her room last night so she would sleep. She's also convinced that the direction of their tunnels are guided by their desire to be close to her, so that if she turns the farm around they will switch directions and start burrowing back toward her.
We told everyone that she was into dragons and cats this year, Danielle managed to find a book about a dragon and a cat which was awesome.
Anya looking forward to digging into the gingerbread house her and Amy made.
Zoolights at Woodland Park Zoo.
The best part about Zoolights was the indoor snow ball fight at the Zoomaseum. This short video gives you a tiny taste of the chaos that ensued.
We bought the Dogs some new Elk Antlers, an "indestructible" chew toy (which Copper has already destroyed) and a dog cookie. Anya wanted to write the "to:" and "from:". Seems Dogs ends with an S, and Humans with a Z.
She was really into Peter (her Elf on the Shelf) this year, going so far as to talk to him and leave him notes to bring to Santa. She cried when he went home to Santa and she told us this morning that she misses him. Here we see him whiling away the time hitting on a mermaid.
The big hit of the year was of course The Dorothy Dress Amy made.
Dorothy at Grandma and Grandpa's.
And last but not least Grandpa trying not to cry while reading "The Carpenter's Gift." He did better than I would have expected. I think he took strategic breaks to point out pictures to Anya when his eyes welled up. Well played Grandpa...well played.
