Holiday Time and a bit of randomness

I love the holidays - especially being able to experience them through Callie's eyes. I have learned more about the area we live in these past few months than I ever have. We have been trying to take advantage of as much as we can and this weekend we stayed very busy.
We started out at the reindeer festival at a local zoo - which was SO much fun. I think Preston and I enjoyed it as much as Callie did. Since it is a local zoo, it is very small and never crowded. We were able to get up close to the animals and let the reindeer sniff our fingers. What a great experience!

We were a bit tentative at first when she realized that they were able to work their antlers through the gate but very soon she didn't mind at all (I think that one was Rudolph)

Letting them sniff her hand

We then took a tour of the rest of the zoo to see what other animals we could find. We were able to see the tigers pretty close up, which she loved! The cougars also came over to us to say hello (I think it was their feeding time)

Hanging with papa

Sunday morning I headed over to my mom and dad's house to do our annual Christmas cookie bake-athon. This year we decided to leave all the kids with the husbands so we could actually get something done. So we baked all morning (the ultimate goal was to get everything done quickly so we could sit down and drink wine while they cooked - it was a success) and then all the husbands and kids came over to decorate some of the cookies and celebrate some birthdays.

Cookies, check! (that was the halfway point - much more cookies at the end!)

Maya made some great looking sugar cookies, and Laurel....well....ate some sugar cookies :-)

I was surprised at how focused Callie was with putting the candy on the cookies - surprisingly, not too much tasting on her part.

Bennett had some great looking creations

Afterwards, the line up to wash hands - look at those beautiful cookies!

Afterwards, Callie quickly taught Clara how to turn the washing machine and dryer on. They make fun music when they turn on - eventually the girls were locked out of this room.

Enjoying some books together

I'm sorry, but this picture is priceless! Who would have known that Clara had spent most of the night before at the hospital getting stitches on her head

The three little girls

And, there was one, VERY unsuccessful attempt at a shot with Grandpa

Decorating the tree was very fun with Callie this year. She couldn't quite get the ornaments to stay on the tree by herself but she sure tried.

Figuring out how to get it to stick

She was very disappointed when we ran out of ornaments. She kept going back to the boxes and digging inside them to find more

And when she couldn't find them in the box, she went to look for more in the storage container. She never found any but don't fear, every morning she takes a few off the tree just so she can put them back on.

And for a bit of randomness, I knew having a daughter there would be a time when I would just have to give up on dressing her and let her pick her own outfits and not worry about it. I wasn't quite prepared that that would come at 16 months....

Not much I can say about it....

She loves to climb up on the big chairs - she is so proud of herself. I think she feels like she is taking one of our seats and she thinks it is hilarious

She's found a new love for her train, although the passengers vary - today the conductor was a snowman, the kangaroo and elephant were the passengers.

I've finally given up on the holiday decoration argument we've been having - yup, she won! She has four decorations that she has adopted, they are moved from one place to another, to another, to another (for example, the snowman was driving the train above). She will move one at a time and once they are all in a line, she will count them...two...two....two...two (It's the only number we have down so far). And yes, I know she's not wearing pants, didn't I mention I've already given up on the clothing battle as well.