December with a 2 year old

It is so fun having a 2 year old around Christmas time.  She is so cute and gets so excited for all the Christmas fun.  She loves Christmas Trees, Christmas lights, Ho Hos (Santas), Singing "rum pa pa pum" from The Little Drummer Boy and all the excitement.  Watching her enjoy it makes me enjoy it even more.

Allyson and I stayed at my parents house for a few days while Steve helped his grandparents move.  One night I ended up putting their tree skirt on Ally as a dress. It was so cute and funny.  We pretended it was her Christmas Dress (not to worry I did buy her an actual Christmas dress) and she danced around.

Here she is giving Ho Ho a kiss.

Dancing around with Ho Ho.  Sometimes it is just fun to be silly.

Ward Christmas Party

This year Steve got to be in charge of the Ward Christmas Party.  It turned out great, but I am so glad it is over (not as glad as Steve is though!).  I am not sure how fair it is to put the Elders Quorum in charge of such a big activity, while I know they prefer planning the BBQ type activities they put on a great party.

Allyson looking cute.  She has started putting her hands in her mouth all the time, it started when she was teething a few weeks ago but now I think she does it just for fun.  

I love that they had a coloring table for the kids.  When Allyson was going stir crazy and starting to get wild it was nice to sit her down and let her color.  

Last year Allyson loved Santa, she sat on his lap and checked out his beard.  This year she started crying as soon as he entered the room.  We slowly worked our way closer to Santa to help her get used to the idea.  She was hesitant, but she really wanted to get the candy he had.  She wasn't really happy that I put her on his lap, but she was still ok.

Then I asked her to give Santa a hug, she did but as you can tell she didn't want to.  She ended up crying and I rescued her.  We had been talking about seeing Santa all day and she was so excited until Santa came into the room.  

Here she is recovering from the Santa trauma and enjoying her candy cane.

The Nutcracker

Ally and I went with my mom and Beth to see The Nutcracker put on a local dance studio.  We met my Aunt Kathryn and my cousin Sherry there too.  It was so much fun to see all the kids.  Their costumes were beautiful and they all danced so well.  Allyson loved the whole performance.  She got so excited seeing the dancers and even started to try and dance like them.  She would wave her arms around and spin around.

Allyson with Alixe Olson who preformed the Rose dance.  I used to babysit Alixe when she was really little and now she can't wait until she gets to babysit Allyson.  Allyson was a little distracted by all the other people in the room, as you can tell.

Allyson and the little girl that sat in front of us with The Snow Queen.

We are having so much fun with all of the Holiday Festivities and there are still quite a few more to come.  I love the Christmas season with all its traditions, and I love sharing them with Allyson.