Decorating Her Tree

Here is Autumn's Tree.  It is first up and last down (stretching until the end of January even).





The next day doing some tweaking.




And after these pictures I "lost" all the blue/purple dum-dum lollipops.


Dec 2010 - Decorating Her Tree from Deb on Vimeo.

Last year's tree decorating

Christmas Day

Merry Christmas, Autumn!

This year we went up to Gram and Grandpa's house for Christmas. Everyone had some sort of sickness at some point in the week we were there. But we managed to have a great time. Santa brought Autumn a dollhouse!

December - Stocking! from Deb on Vimeo.

Autumn enjoyed passing out gifts to everyone. Richard would gather up a round of presents for everyone and she'd take them to all of us. She seemed to like doing that rather than opening presents. But she did get the hang of opening her presents after a bit. After awhile she started refusing to open any more presents. She still had a few to go, so Gram sat down with her and they opened them together.




The next day she helped Gram stir some soup.

Christmas Eve Snow

On Christmas Eve day it started snowing! Here is Autumn outside when it first started. Nothing was sticking, but it was COLD!

She only spent enough time out there for Richard to get his jacket and shoes on before she was ready to come back inside. Here they are warming up by the fire.

Later in the day

23 Months

Dear Autumn,

One more month until you turn 2! With the holidays and sickness and travel it has been rather hectic around here. Things have been progressing the same as the past few months. You love "school", Christmas decorations and FROSTY THE SNOWMAN!!! We sing it all the time, read the book all the time, and you play with your Frosty mechanical dancing/statue thing all the time.

December - Frosty the Snowman! from Deb on Vimeo.

December - A Christmas Medley from Deb on Vimeo.

Teeth count is still the same, though sometimes you stick your fingers in your mouth and I wonder, but when we brush them I don't see any new ones. A few months back I bought a ladybug that you stick on the mirror and it holds your toothbrush. This has made brushing your teeth a joy! So much fun to get the toothbrush out of the ladybug and use it. You say, "ladybug in the toothbrush!" Backwards, but so cute!

Still going to eating therapy, and we have added occupational therapy to try to strengthen your core. Still filing it away under "can't hurt, can only help". We'll see how much you weigh at your 2 year appt. It seems like you are getting bigger, but are still small compared to other kids. We went to a birthday party where most of the kids were older and you looked so tiny!

Here are my notes from this month:

December 5
We'll say, "frosty the snowman, was a" and you say, "joldy-happee-stol"

December 9
Baby Chee! (Baby Jesus)

December 10
Cute, Pretty

December 12
You sing, "frosty snowman" and then we say, "was a" and then you say, "joldy-happee-stol, corncob-pie-button-nose-two-eye-coat!" all very fast.

December 14
I cute!
Is snugging (snuggling)














Retrospective Perspective:
One Year Ago

Love,

Momma and Daddy

Christmas at MDO

Here is our decorated Christmas tree. The next morning we woke up to find that it had fallen over (or was helped by Phoebe).



On December 8th we had a Christmas craft evening at Autumn's Mother's Day Out. It was a foggy night, and really HOT in the sanctuary, so when I turned on my camera the lens fogged up. That is why there is a certain glow to these pictures. Autumn seemed to enjoy it, but it was so hot and crowded that we got in and got out really fast.



These pictures are from December 16th. Her class had their Christmas party and got to see Santa. I showed up just in time to see her class standing up with Santa. One of her teachers was holding Autumn and another little boy, both on the verge of tears. At one point the teacher had to put Autumn down because the other little boy really started crying. They got their picture with Santa, but there wasn't much joy! When Autumn saw me she was a little weepy and I had to hold her for awhile once we got back to her classroom. But if you ask her about Santa, she'll say, "Autumna sit Santa lap!" Which couldn't be further from the truth!

Christmas Tree Farm

We took Autumn back to the same Christmas Tree Farm we went last year. But this year it was COLD! Autumn's little hands were turning blue. I think it was about 47 degrees with some wind. She enjoyed walking among the trees while we looked for the perfect tree. We might have overlooked a few and overstayed our welcome because the sun started to go down and that is when we noticed her hands. Back on the second to last row was "Our Tree". Richard got to work cutting it down (with a very dull saw).






This is the result of Autumn running all over the tree farm. A tired girl:

Last year's photo

December - Christmas Tree Farm from Deb on Vimeo.

Christmas Decorations at Home

During Autumn's nap I went outside and wrapped a tree with lights and set up a 3' fake tree I bought for her to decorate (so she would leave the real tree alone once we got that set up). I also finished what my mom calls our "Open for Business" lights for the window upstairs. I made them back when I was living at my parents' house for their window over the front door and mom thought that when we turned it on, it looked like we had turned on our "open" sign. Anyway, they gave it to me when I moved out and this year I had to replace the string of lights (after 8 years). Autumn loves it!

December - First Look! from Deb on Vimeo.

Christmas

Christmas morning:

The above present was the culprit in her first major bruising incident. She had a hold of the squiggly wires on top when she fell over and planted her cheek into the edge of the wood. Poor thing. She was only a little hurt when it actually happened, the bruise just really made it look like she hurt herself pretty badly. This happened Christmas night.


Christmas afternoon:


December 28th - the bruise

December 29th, looking better, no longer as purple


It is doing a nice job healing and it no longer looks like she has a dirty spot on her cheek we need to clean up.