Merry Christmas!

Before we get to the Christmas pics, here is a funny picture of Joanna -- 10 months old!!

I think she is tasting the wind. She LOVES the cold weather.

Last week Mamma and Pop got their track all set up and started loading the trains. Joanna likes watching them go around and around. She doesn't totally grasp the moving out of the way part, but she's bright; she'll get it soon enough.

Okay, so here's the basic run-down of our Christmas activites before you take a look at the pictures: Christmas Eve Matt, Joanna, and I went to the 5:00 service at church. We came home and put Joanna to bed and set up our train and tree in the living room, complete with presents and stockings. Christmas morning, I slept in (yea!) while Matt and Joanna hung out, then we opened presents and played in tissue paper and ribbon. After a while we eventually got out of our pajamas and headed to Uncle Mark's house for "lunner" and more presents! And tomorrow, we're headed to Aunt Mindy's for more dinner and even more presents!! Joanna isn't spoiled... really.

Mommy and Joanna by the tree. Joanna: "You lookin' at me?"

Daddy and Joanna in the Sanctuary at church.

Don't get me wrong, I love the candlelight part of the service, but I've always thought it a bit silly to have that much fire at 5:00, a service so full of children. But, as far as I know, there were no injuries!

Our Christmas morning set-up. I love it!

Here's a shot of the same part of our house last year on Christmas Day.

We had just closed on the house, and Christmas Eve was the first night we slept there (on a mattress in the living room!) I think it definitely looks "homey-er" this year!

Opening presents -- what a pro!

Two of Joanna's favorite gifts, a gold bow and a blue bow.

After the mass destruction of opening presents -- yea!!

Joanna and Aunt Missy

Joanna and Kurt

Joanna and Jenny (Joanna was exploring Jenny's stocking.)

I just think this one's cute:

After more present destruction!

Joanna's cousin Kurt got a Wii for Christmas, and everyone had a blast playing. Here are everybody's Mii's (players).

Joanna is the tiny one in the back!

We had such an incredible Christmas and were so blessed to get to spend time with family. Merry Christmas everyone!

Sweet Joanna, Baking, and The Children's Museum

Shopping!

We finally got around to getting a cart cover (thanks, Gran!), and it really makes our shopping trips very cushy for Joanna. She likes it.

Baking!

This year for Matt's co-workers and Joanna's teachers, I decided to bake them something for Christmas (that's right, I said bake)... from scratch. Here's what I came up with. Of course there's a chocolate theme, although the cookies actually have raisins in them!

Have a closer look:

Yummmmm.

Kitchen Fun!

We're discovering more finger foods lately. Joanna likes to feed herself and make a mess. A new favorite is shredded cheese -- yum!

I finally got around to clearing out a cabinet for Joanna to play in in the kitchen. She LOVES it! We've got empty plastic containers and stuff to play with in there -- very fun.

Play Group at the Children's Museum
Today for a change, we went to the children's museum with the little ones. Joanna's friends Abby, Anna, and Caleb were there with their mommies.

The kiddos before all the fun.

They have this fantastic room for little ones at the museum full of stairs, switches, balls, soft toys, music, and all kinds of other things. Joanna enjoyed it very much!

This picture is blurry, but I think it looks cool. She's pulling up on a little wall.

Sliding! Oh boy!

We played for a little while then had lunch, and got ready to go home.

The kiddos after all the fun.

Looking a little more dazed, now.

We took a picture of a choo-choo train for Daddy on our way out. We'll have to bring you back with us, Daddy!

The kiddos were all getting pretty tired, but we decided to walk on over to Herman Park for a few minutes -- it was such a beautiful day! Of course I had to take a picture of Joanna Rose by some roses.

Christmas stuff and other cute Joanna things

Joanna is so cute! Although this week she has been a little rotten. Sometimes it seemed like she was just bored, other times it seemed as though she might not be feeling a hundred percent. Of course, I could just be paranoid because all of Joanna's friends have been getting sick lately! She's also teething like a champ. She had the one on the bottom; now she's cut two on top. The first one she cut on top was the one to the right of the "middle" two teeth. Not the usual second tooth, but Joanna's special. :) She just cut the right middle tooth, so I'm sure getting all these teeth is not the most fun ever for her. I'm certainly more careful about where I put my fingers.

Joanna got her picture made with Santa last week at Christmas in the Park at Town Center. She did fine; she liked playing with Santa's fluffy beard. I think she was curious about all the fuss. Matt and I went to Bed Bath and Beyond yesterday, and Joanna fell asleep on the way there. She actually stayed asleep in her carseat for a bit while we shopped! Since Joanna was dressed in a cute red holiday-ish dress today, we tried to take a few pics by the Christmas tree. It's kind of like trying to get a really fast baby kitten to do what you want. I think a few came out pretty sweet, though. Tonight was "Advent Workshop" at the church. It's really intended for older kiddos. They're crafts and pizza and cookie decorating. We really had fun, though. I'm looking forward to enjoying it as Joanna gets older. I'm really impressed with Joanna's crafting. Here she is playing with part of the Nativity.

Here is she looking at her completed work -- Amazing!

Seriously, though, she's great at supervising. :)