As is my tradition, we put out luminarias at our house on Christmas Eve. Katy's still not quite bit enough to help fold the bags (meaning, I still don't have any slave labor for the hard part yet!) but she was certainly excited to help with the rest. She eagerly filled each bag with a tiny dab of kitty litter, threw a candle in and wanted to help place them.

Admiring all our hard work. They looked very pretty all lit up after dark.

Santa Cookies

On Christmas Eve morning Katy and I woke up with the objective of making cookies for Santa. Since I was more than a little "cookied out" from my great bake-off of previous weeks, we endeavored to keep it simple. A few slice and bakes and a tube of pre-made cookie frosting later and we were on our way.





Katy kept insisting that I needed to take her picture. "More picture, Mommy!" was her common refrain.



Of course, when I reminded her to smile when I was taking her picture, this is what I got.





So back to decorating it was...





Santa will be so pleased!

Trier Christmas Market, part 2

Katy and I took our friends Dragonfly and Little Mister to the Trier Christmas market. I'm not sure what else we did besides eat, but it was GOOD. Sausages, mushrooms, chocolate covered apples, chocolate covered pineapple and a waffle later we were all fully satisfied. But, what trip is complete without the obligatory carousel pictures?

Katy and Little Mister together. Katy was pleased as punch to ride with him.

She was so pleased that when they went around the next time and were not able to ride again she threw a full out raging, snot-nose, hissy, screaming temper tantrum. It was quite the spectacle. Of course, 5 minutes later when they were able to ride together again, all was right with the world.

Hold hands! she commands...



Katy loves being the big kid; she's really starting to relish the role so it was fun to have our friends around to let Katy practice.

In an attempt to teach Katy about the true meaning and spirit of Christmas, we volunteered as a family to ring the bell for a local fundraising effort (think the Salvation Army bell ringers and you'll have the right visual). They raise money each year to make sure that the junior enlisted troops who might be struggling have enough food on their tables, especially at Christmas.

We employed Katy's newly found skill at yelling "Merry Mistmas" and off we went for our two hour shift. She was actually a useful fundraiser. People who obviously had no intention of stopping would stop and struggle for their wallets when confronted by a three foot child brandishing a bell and yelling Merry Christmas at them.

The Big Christmas Party

Ryan and I have been going to so many Christmas parties that we had to find one for Katy, too. Luckily, one found us by way of his unit's annual kid's Christmas party (which, I suppose we had to attend since I helped put together some of the stuff for it).

We started off by finding the perfect party dress! Katy obliged nicely by posing by the tree all on her own. Of course, my camera did NOT oblige and I missed an entire series of her smiling the best smile I've ever seen.





After I fiddled for my camera for too long it became more fun to sit in an empty box in front of the tree....





Then off to the party! We showed up to help set up and Katy was adorable. She's at that stage where she always wants to be helpful. She was trying to help me unload and set up tables; not such a good idea. So Ryan found a project she could handle; she was to put out confetti on all the tables. I didn't get a picture because I was busy, but she was walking up and down all the tables with her little bag quietly saying "Sprinkle, sprinkle!!" to herself. Adorable.

Finally the main event started and I could relax and grab my camera. Some arts and crafts to start us off. Frosty is now living on our tree.



Then some pin the nose on the snowman!





And "snow shoveling."



Then came the big event. Santa showed up. We've been talking up Santa all season but Katy hasn't had a chance to "officially" meet him yet. All she knows is to shout "Bike!" whenever Santa is mentioned to get her request in. Apparently we talked him up much more than we thought. Katy was wild with excitement. She wouldn't leave Santa alone (luckily it was a small enough party that it wasn't a huge deal). She followed him everywhere he went, dancing and prancing. At a few points she got herself so keyed up that she would just take off at a dead run, run a lap around the entire place and end up right back at Santa and start dancing and prancing again. Every once in a while she'd dart in and touch his pants; I guess she was checking to see if he was real or not. Ryan and I were laughing so hard we were almost crying. When he finally looked down she offered him her bag of goodies she'd been collecting from the party.

Look at that excitement. She got to say hi!



Of course, the getting to sit on his lap was a little more scary than she'd imagined (and she was really worked up). No tears, but definitely some moist eyes and Daddy was standing right there. Of course, my camera chose that moment to stop behaving, again. But, we did catch a little bit of the moment. She managed to very quietly tell Santa that she wanted a bike, so the official request was made.



No bike today, only a small gift. We explained that Santa would come back again in a few days with some more things.



The gift was exciting anyway and I think she was relieved to finally be able to open something (she's been asking every time we come into the house if she can open presents. She doesn't care who opens them - she tells us to open them. She just wants them open. She is my child and the suspense is killing her)



She still couldn't stand to be away from Santa for long, so she hung out under the tree with the remaining gifts to be given out.



Driving home after the party we suddenly heard a small voice pipe up from the back seat: "Merry Mistmas!" She'd figured out how to say Merry Christmas with almost no prompting. See my Christmas miracle post from yesterday and know that I cried.

Mannheim Christmas Market (I promise that I'm almost caught up and that real Christmas pictures will come soon)

Ryan had an unexpected Friday off as a gift from his Commander. It was to be used as a "shopping day" so we decided to head to a Christmas market. What better place to go shopping, right? (and I did buy a lovely German Christmas decoration and a spice that I'd never seen before - so we did shop some, too!)

Mannheim was the most "kid friendly" Christmas market we've been to this year. We started off right away with the ICE train.





Afters some wandering a little lunch we convinced Katy that maybe it would be an acceptable substitute for ice skating if she went horseback riding instead. She was giddy with excitement (although later still wanted to go skating - such is the trouble with being 2).















After a few times of riding she just wanted to stop and play with the horses. Since no one else was riding, they stayed stopped for a long time and were happy to oblige her.



The obligatory kiss.



Then we found the place where the horses were being kept that weren't currently giving rides. Of course we needed to stop and feed them.

The sun poked through and we found some wide open space to run and play.



Of course, we all came home and crashed from exhaustion. This is a first; Will is finally getting used to Katy enough (and she's calming down enough) that he was willing to stay on Ryan's lap when Katy crawled up too.



In our own version of a Christmas miracle, Katy has really started talking withing the past 6 weeks or so. She was tested for her verbal skills about 8 weeks ago and came up as delayed, as usual. No surprises there so it wasn't worth mentioning. Because of the sudden increase in skills, her speech therapist and I were curious how much of a jump she'd made in just a few weeks. It truly is a miracle. Katy tests as completely "normal" for a 3 year old's speech. Not just barely squeaking into the normal range either, she is smack in the middle. It's been incredible fun to actually get to hear her thoughts on things. Of course, she still has trouble making certain sounds (the quality of her speech, not the quantity) so we'll keep her in speech therapy as long as insurance will allow, but it really is a miracle!

Here's hoping that Santa brought you everything your heart desires and that you are filled with the joy of the Christmas Season.



Merry Christmas!

More gingerbread houses!

We headed up to Shannon's house to make the large scale production of gingerbread houses. Katy was an old pro!

Four kids and three adults later and we were all tired out!

But, boy, was it ever a tasty project!

The little girls were so tuckered out afterwards that they crashed, of their own accord, on the floor with blankets. Of course, 5 minutes later it was a pig-pile of 4 kids screaming and giggling with no one resting.....

Metz and Nancy

A few weekends ago we loaded up Ryan's new car and headed off for Metz and Nancy, France. We'd been to both cities in the summer and loved them, so we decided to check out their Christmas markets.

Metz was disappointing. So disappointing that I didn't even pull out my camera. We had been to Metz the year before and it was nice. This year most of the good stuff was missing for some reason. Katy was especially unhappy because there was no ice skating. We promised to move on to Nancy and look for skating there for her....

Nancy is a gorgeous city. Stanislaus Plaza is surrounded by wrought iron gates that are gilded in gold. We thought it would be the perfect backdrop for a phenomenal Christmas market. It certainly was very pretty - if you were an adult. From Katy's perspective it wasn't nearly as exciting as we'd hoped. That, and apparently the German Christmas Market is, well, um, a German thing. So we wandered around Stanislas Plaza....



And found Katy a carousel to at least give her something fun to do.



She became especially excited about the idea that she could hold her own ticket and hand it to the man. She spent a lot of time trying to hand the ticket to anyone that would take it just because giving it away was that much fun.



Some characters showed up, so we went to play with them.



Katy was entranced and didn't want to leave or let other kids play with them.



There was ice sculpting going on. They were exquisite.



And a small "Christmas forest" full of moving mechanized animals.



We wandered around well into the evening (or, as well into the evening as we can with a toddler in tow) and ended up back at Stanislas Plaza after dark. I couldn't get a picture, but the tree was simple spectacular all lit up. As we were standing there trying to decide what to do with ourselves, who should appear but St. Nikolas! He was mobbed, so we got to see him from afar. Santa Clause also showed up (yes, they really are two separate entities), so we were able to see him as well. Katy finally got close enough and was able to yell out "Bike! Bike!", her familiar refrain whenever she sees a man in a red suit (or robe, as St. Nikolas was) and was rewarded for her efforts with a package of gummies. She was smitten.

We had booked a hotel for the night (thinking that the Christmas market would be less disappointing) so the next morning we headed out to brave the rest of the city in the cold. We found a nice cafe and ordered coffee and orange juice and Ryan went to a nearby bakery and brought us in some fresh made quiche (they didn't serve food in the cafe, but seemed to have no problem with us bringing some in) for breakfast. I do have to admit that nowhere int eh world are croissants as good as they are anywhere in France. Mine was slightly burnt and it was still phenomenal.

Nancy has a huge public park and we enjoyed wandering through and playing.

Racing in the big pavilion.





It also has a small public zoo inside the park (no admission - literally a public zoo). Katy chased the peacocks.





And then went on to feed the horse some grass she insisted that Ryan pick for her.



I love the instinct to open your mouth when you want someone to eat something; she does this all the time.



And finally off to the playground portion.





We all started to get cold and Katy's cries for skating became more insistent so we decided to head back towards home. On a whim we stopped at the Saarbrucken Christmas market, which we'd also never been to before. Lo and behold, they had an ice skating rink. What Katy had been looking for all along. After last week's incident where I was plowed into the ice I decided to stay safely outside the rink and headed into town to check out the market instead. I came back just in time for a snack.



And then, joy of joys, there was a carousel with a BIKE on it. I couldn't get the perfect shot, but trust me when I tell you that Katy was over the moon about getting to ride a bike around in circles.



I have a feeling that the rest of Christmas is going to pale compared to Santa's offering of a bike this year. It's all downhill from that point on....