Narration to accompany selected photos.
Even though we spent most of the Christmas break in Utah, I insisted that we have a tree of our own at home for the 2 weeks we'd be in Corvallis; accordingly, early in December we trekked out to a local tree farm and picked out our four-foot Douglas Fir.
I cut it, and then Maeby kicked it over. We tried to get her to yell "timber" but she only laughed at us.
Jurgens: 1
Tree: 0
At the close of the term I decided to forego sanity and time management and spend an entire evening making 80 sugar cookies for my students. Maeby helped.
Her favorite part was eating the dough. Figures.
Getting ready to decorate the tree.
We let Maeby put the star on. It only took eighty times before she got it on there and I snapped a photo at the right time.
Apparently, Maeby hates Santa. Also, I'm pretty sure Santa hated Mama and Papa.
Her first candy cane - the only part of the Santa ordeal that elicited a smile.
Getting ready to open gifts with Chris and Sara's family.
And now we've shifted the action to Utah, where Maeby awoke on her first morning of the trip to find a surprise in Grandma's living room.
Oh. Yeah.
She doesn't like to sit on the horse a lot, but she loves to give it hugs and kisses.
Cuddling up and watching a film with her cousin Jayna. Jayna, you see, is one of Maeby's most favorite people (she loves all her cousins a lot), and while they were in Utah together, they were inseparable.
And now we come to the bucket. We're not sure who taught her to put it on her head, or if she just figured it out on her own, but out of the two weeks we spent at Grandma's house, this bucket was on her head a good 75% of the time.
Yeah - like that.
Mae + the snow = ecstatic joy. She doesn't like it when her face gets wet, but other than that give this girl a sled and some powder and then get out of her way.
At first, we always went down with her. But then she started grabbing the sled and pushing off on her own, yelling "whheeeeeeeeeee!" down the hill. Seriously.
Mae doing her "fishies" dance with Grandma.
Ah - ring around the rosie. Jayna taught her this on the first night, and since then our daughter walks around saying "ashes ashes" and falling over, recruiting partners for the activity at every opportunity. She'll just walk over, grab your hand, and then say "ashes."
Decorating Grandma's tree. We ended up having to put all the ornaments and candy canes on the top half of the tree, because a little trouble-maker kept pulling them all off and hiding them.
Just a couple of girls loving on those candy canes.
We made gingerbread houses - this is what the inside of Jayna's looked like.
Grandma with her three girls.
Great-Grandma and the trio.
Hayliegh and Mae also got a wagon from Grandma, which they exulted in.
Now - as you can see, someone has been kicked out. Hmmm - I wonder who did that?
Opening up some jewelry mama made her.
She likes opening presents, but loses patience with the unwrapping pretty quick. Mostly, she just wants to wear the bows on her head.
The sweet helicopter Nana and Grandpa gave her.
She can't quite figure out that the sled has to go on the snow for it to work.
Yeah - not liking the wet face.
That's better.
Hayliegh is not as enthusiastic about winter wonderlands as her older cousin.
The whole bunch.
Feeding Mama snow.
Sheer joy.
