Clippity, Clop

One last picture, and the Addie show will be over for a few days!

Addie got a rocking horse from my Aunt and Uncle. She seemed to really like it this morning when she got to ride it! It sings a majorly addicting song - "I'm a little pony. Clippity, clop, clippity, clop!" Ask anyone in my family, and they would be happy to sing the WHOLE song to you!

Addie's Throne

We spent Christmas morning at my Grandma's house having breakfast and opening presents and then spent the afternoon at my Aunt and Uncle's having dinner and playing Andy's Xbox Kinect.

My Grandma got Addie this cute princess chair for Christmas! We realized this morning that when we sat her in her chair, she didn't know how to get out! You could see the wheel's turning in her head - if I do that, I'm going to faceplant on the floor...maybe I should try doing it this way. It only took her a few minutes to figure it out, but it sure was cute to watch! :-)

I LOVE this picture of Addie crawling at my Aunt and Uncle's. Those are Andy and Wil's legs behind her.

She spent most of Christmas with her tongue sticking out like that - she just re-discovered her tongue at the end of last week.

Nerf Guns

After acting out the nativity on Christmas Eve, Hazel dressed up like Santa and passed out the presents! Several of the girls dressed up like elves to help her.

Waldo bought all of the kids (except Addie, of course) nerf guns for Christmas. They had a BLAST! Even Addie got in on the action, by sporting a nerf bullet on her forehead!

She's wearing her cool new bib, too. Thanks, Lili!

Christmas Eve Cow

Wil's family reenacts the nativity every Christmas Eve. There are beautiful homemade costumes, a script, songs and lots of laughing as the now adult children tease each other while their own children get into the acting out the parts.

It's a cool tradition - but I enjoyed it so much more this year. Probably because I saw it through the eyes of a mom wanting to teach her child about the true meaning of Christmas.

Our little family - Addie was a cow, Wil was a wise man and I was a shepherd.

The older girls get super excited when it's their turn to be Mary. While we were taking our costumes off and putting them away, even Junior asked if he could be Mary next year. :-)

The Family Mechanic

I should preface this post by saying that one of the things I LOVE about Wil is how handy he is. He knows how to fix stuff...and I like that a lot!

His car has been leaking power steering fluid for a while, and it finally got bad enough that he decided it was time to change out the power steering fluid hose something or other (yes, I'm pretty sure that IS the technical term, thank you for asking.)

He had Friday off work for the holiday and it seemed like the perfect time to fix the car. Fast forward several hours into fixing the car and he was frustrated that he couldn't get a tiny screw in a tiny hole in a difficult to reach and hard to see part of the car. Addie was taking a nap, and I was in an excessively good mood, so I willingly went to help him. I had the very important job of holding the flashlight and supervising the work of getting the aforementioned tiny screw into the tiny hole.

Fast forward 20 minutes or so to Wil being even more frustrated and me being in an even more obnoxiously good mood.

"Let me try...my fingers are smaller...maybe I can get it!"

So, down I went, under the car with my tiny screw.

Where's Jessica? A view from the top of the car.

I've never been under a car before...it's an entirely different world lying on your back under a car and having to trust the plastic ramp thingamabobs that are holding the car up don't break (I think I asked Wil if he was sure they wouldn't break about five times!).

For the record...my fingers are smaller and I FIXED the car! Okay, so there were lots of other things Wil had to do before the car was completely fixed, but I would like to take credit for my impressive mechanic skills!

Laundry Helper

Addie makes a great laundry helper!

My Little Pony

Christmas time is so much more fun when you have a baby to take to Christmas-y events!

My grandma's church had a Christmas party a few weeks ago. It was great! They had a hay ride, sledding, karaoke, pictures with Santa, bouncy castles and...pony rides!

Yes, Addie might be a little young for a pony ride, but Wil and I were too excited to wait until next year! She seemed to like it...and I think it was totally worth it, if only for the picture!

***A picture of her on Santa's lap will be coming as soon as I figure out how to work our scanner.