Christmas Morning

It was a great Christmas morning—Elaina’s first, really, since she was a baby just arrived home with us for last year's Christmas. 

For those who couldn't join us, I thought I'd give you let you in on Elaina's (almost) first Christmas.

Heidi put Elaina down just outside the living room.  She knew something was up.  The tree, which had been gated off up until now, was wide open and had presents beneath it.  Her inflatable school bus / playhouse was out and ready for action.  She looked at the tree and the bus, kind of shyly, not knowing what to do, then reached back for Mommy’s hand, apparently not ready to go in alone.

Elaina quickly got over this initial shyness, though and went to her bus and then on to presents.  Here, she checks out a snap-together ice cream cone with the support of her omnipresent friend, Duck.

Elaina demonstrates her “unwrapping stance”.  This move is not for everyone.  It’s helpful if you have stretchy, comfy, pig PJs.

Driving the bus for the first time.  Elaina was a little tentative at first, but it didn’t take long for her to warm up to the bus.  This is a rare shot of the bus with its steering wheel on.  It detaches, and she always pulls it off and then says “ohh…”, sadly.  It’s hard to take her sad tone seriously, though, when every time I put the steering wheel back on, she just pulls it off again and says, “ohh…” like, “I can’t believe that happened again…that’s such a shame….”

As you can see, she enjoys the bus quite a bit.

Here's a picture of Elaina with her one of her favorite presents—an Aquadoodle. It's really the coolest thing. I don’t know what the mat is made of, but when you draw on it with water, it leaves a mark…and then the mark fades away when it dries.  It’s fantastic.  The pens and rollers that she can draw with just hold ordinary water, so if she uses them on something else, there’s no harm done.  And if she brushes up against the “wet paint”, she just gets water on herself, not paint.  She loves it.  She only tried “painting” with her tongue once, fortunately, but she did, of course, have to try it.

Here, Elaina is playing with another favorite—it’s a cookie-making set—basically a cookie sheet with velcro that the cookies stick to.  The cookies, in turn, have velcro that the icing sticks to.  So, she can arrange the cookies on the sheet, and mix and match icing.  I think it’s neat that she insists on using the spatula instead of her fingers.

I just like the pose in this one, as she checks out a stuffed Wubbzy.

Elaina has an almost unnatural gift for getting her hands on your cell phone.  I don’t know if getting her one of her own will help that or feed it, but it’s sure cute to watch her walk around with her phone to her ear—a little businesswoman in fuzzy PJs. Here she is just after unwrapping a Dora the Explorer (toy) cell phone.

Finally, here’s Elaina diligently reading the instructions to an electronic toy that Scot and Marni got for her.