Holiday Cheer

Normally I am a huge Scrooge over the holidays. The whole gift giving process that Christmas has turned into really makes me cringe. I would truthfully much rather get together with my family and friends, eat delicious food and play fun games the whole time. However, this year is my daughters first Christmas. I keep thinking that this is the year that we establish what our traditions will be. This is when I get to start something that future generations will remember me for. For my Grandma it was baking. We always got together the night before Christmas Eve to make cookies and desserts for everyone. Though she's been gone for 10 years now I still get excited for that part of the Holidays. My mother and I have since turned her tradition into what we call "Cookie Madness". We get all of our girlfriends together and have a baking frenzy and then exchange cookies that we package up as gifts for other family members. It truly is Madness!

So this year I am trying to decide what I want my special tradition to be. What special thing I can do with Ella each year that she can get excited about? I have a little list started but I haven't quite made any decisions yet. I know she's too young to know whats going on this year but I want to be able to tell her "you've been doing this every Christmas since you were born". I'm sentimental and silly I know. Any suggestions?

On another note Ella has 3 teeth now. I found this out the hard way because I was nursing her and she bit me. OUCH!!! She is soo close to walking too! So far she has only taken one step in between Sean and I but she will stand up in the middle of the room and just look around like she's going to just take off running. The bigger my sweet little baby gets, the more I feel the baby bug starting to creep up on me. I really miss being pregnant. Watching my belly shake and jump. We always said we wanted our kids to be 2 years apart... we will just have to wait and see what 2012 has in store for us :) For now i'm enjoying all the one on one time I've been getting with this precious little face...