Happy New Year!!

This year we got to celebrate the new year with lots of family. We met my dad's aunts Rose and Flora and some of their friends and family in Deland to rent pontoon boats. Since there were so many of us, we rented 2 boats and me, Amelie and Allen got to ride with Aunt Flora, Mary and her husband Paul and their 2 girls Madeline and Catherine. We cruised along the St. John River and docked at Blue Springs State Park to picnic and admire the manatees.

Amelie had a great time hanging with the older girls who took great care of her. She kept talking about her friends she met and she wanted to go with her friends. On our way home from the boat rental place, she told me she missed her friends. Amelie absolutely loves older girls and they dote on her so well.

Amelie was also quite the hostess when we stopped for a picnic lunch. She very graciously offered food (that others brought) and shared it with everyone on board.

Later, we met everyone at Aunt Rose's in Palm Coast for a fun New Year's Eve party complete with some crazy sparklers (by crazy, I mean really long flowy ones I have never seen before).

Merry Christmas

Christmas is getting more fun each year now with a child in the house. Amelie is more and more aware now of Christmas - the constant Christmas music for the whole month of December (which I now love), the lights, the decorations (hence the giant blowup snowman in our front yard when I never thought I'd be the type to have blowup Christmas decorations) and the impending arrival of Santa himself.

When you ask Amelie what she is going to ask Santa for Christmas, she pretty consistently says "A jack-in-the-box". Recently, we got to go the bookstore with Emerson and the 2 got a hold of some jack-in-the-boxes and could be heard giggling throughout the store. The 50th time of the freaky clown popping out of the box was just as funny as the first. One night when driving around looking at lights with Ging and Poppy, we drove past a city building with a lighted display of Santa pulling his sleigh and Amelie yells out "Santa! I want a jack-in-the-box!" Well, as usual, Santa delivers! Amelie got her jack-in-the-box. For some reason though, she had a very unusual reaction. We were all excited for her to open this present, but when she did, she threw it down and ran out of the room. We were all perplexed. Allen and I went in to talk to her, but never got a real answer. She did come back out and warmed up to it though and then really seemed to enjoy it.

All in all, we had a great time, made even better because Micah got to stay with us through Christmas. Micah and his fiance got Amelie a new "big girl" bike which is a pink and purple 12" bike with some pretty awesome streamers and training wheels. It's going to take her a while to warm up to it though since the feel is quite a bit different than her tricycle. It took her a while to warm up to her tricycle too, so we'll see how it goes.

Throughout the month, we got to celebrate by cooking (Amelie helps a lot actually - she's even very good at cracking eggs); looking at lights; singing Christmas songs; reading Christmas books and going to Disney for their Christmas celebration which was very fun!!

We spend Christmas Eve and Christmas morning at our house with Ging, Poppy, Nana, Papa, Miz and Micah to help get into the Christmas spirit and watch Amelie open presents in the morning. After a good breakfast, we head over to Granny Great's house in Orlando for Christmas with the rest of the family - aunts, uncles, cousins, etc.