Another Memorable Christmas!

Our daycare provider, Mary, throws a holiday cookie party for the kids and families every year. And every year Santa stops by to visit the kids. We figured that Zoey would enjoy this since she has really latched on to Santa, i.e. yelling "Ho! Ho! Ho!" whenever she would pass the santa statue on our stairway or see a picture of Santa in a book. Of course we also figured that she would be too shy to sit on Santa's lap. She proved us wrong. When Santa came into the room, her face just lit up! It was priceless. Then when Santa asked who wanted to come up and talk to him, Zoey was the first volunteer. She went right up to him and sat on his lap. Thanks Mary for the fun evening!

Zoey is taking after Grandpa Livingston--doing a little yard work in December.

I know that Nana already posted a picture of Zoey on her Tricycle, but I thought this one was cute. Zoey was much more aware of gifts this year--she knew exactly how to open them and wanted to play with everything that she got right away. We wanted to thank everyone for all the wonderful gifts that they gave her this year--she truly was blessed. And now we are trying to fit it all into our house--yikes!

Auntie Tammy colors with Zoey for awhile after all the gifts had been opened.

Eric gets caught playing the piano.

On Christmas Eve we drove up to Grand Forks to spend a few days with the Nyhlens. We went to Christmas Eve service with my parents and it was fabulous! My parents have a theory (and I have to admit it has worked so far) that kids who sit up in front of the church behave better because they can see everything and when they look back they can see all the faces of people. So there we were in the very front row. The piano and organ played beautiful christmas music and everytime they stopped inbetween songs, Zoey would yell out, "More! More!" Then the service started and the special music came. The singer finished and Zoey yells out, "Yeah!" and starts clapping. During the reading of the lessons, the pastors talked about how Mary and Joseph were in the stable with baby Jesus. Zoey yells out, "Mary! Yeah!" It was so magical to watch Zoey just take in the service. Her eyes were so wide during the candlelit singing of Silent Night. She ended the service by dancing her heart out to Joy to the World--causing the pastors to start giggling--we think.

When we got home that night Zoey and Grandma decorated Christmas cookies.

Just before bedtime, Grandma read us "Twas the Night Before Christmas." Zoey went off to bed to dream of opening the gifts the next morning.

The next morning Zoey was bright eyed and ready to go. . . we just had to wait for cousin Kylie and Rob and Nicole to come,

One of Zoey's gifts was an AquaDoodle. She has been having fun drawing on the mat. What a cool idea!

Cousin Kylie was a lot of fun this year. She is so smiley! Here she is with Misty, Gracie, and Grandma.