Archive for December 25th, 2009
After a long, long nap we all bundled up in our raingear and headed out for the 2nd Annual New Family Tradition Chinese Christmas Dinner. The restaurant (complete with life size replicas of the Terracotta Warriors) that we went to was packed but we were able to get a seat in short order and dove right in to the buffet.
Food was good, Ava did great as always, we ate a lot…yadda, yadda, yadda.
As y’all now know, Ava isn’t much on sweets. We don’t really keep many in the house since I have no innate willpower and it’s rare that we ever eat dessert at a restaurant. Well, unless there’s a soft serve ice cream machine anywhere around J. He’s like an addict when confronted with soft serve – gotta get his fix. Me? I don’t really like ice cream (I know, sacrilege) so I’ll have it about once a year, if that.
We’ve (mostly J) offered it to her in the past and she would usually take one bite, make a face, and spit it out before refusing to try it again.
So – what was up with this kid? Everybody (except me) likes ice cream, right? So what were we missing?
Ahem. Sprinkles, obviously.
Apparently sprinkles make the difference. J dished it up and she, well – you can see for yourself.
(Bad picture quality courtesy of my iPhone in a dark restaurant but the cuteness still shows, I think.)
As you can tell, she’s now gone to the dark side of soft serve-itude and J has a co-dependent to assist in supporting the ice cream habit. And boy, was she screaming for (more) ice cream once that bowl was gone. Kudos to Daddy for saying no and distracting her with a trip to an as yet unvisited potty before our mad dash out into the rain once again.
A quick change out of soaking clothes and into new pajamas, courtesy of our friend, and she was back to the drawing board as soon as we got home.
So glad Christmas is finally over. Oh wait, it’s not. There’s still more. Visit to my family (and more gifts!) coming up in the next installments.
I must admit I was a little worried about the big Santa gift – the 40+ inch Winnie the Pooh. I mean, really, you should have seen the box he came in. It was about the size of my car and was so big that we literally ‘hid’ the box in full sight in the dining room because there was no where else that it would fit. I figured it would either scare her witless or she would love, love, love it.
Chalk one up for Mama. It was a home run. She more than loved it. She ADORED it.
All day long she loved on him, she kissed him, she hugged him, she sat on him.
“My Pooh, Mama?”
“Yes, baby.”
“Ohhhhhh. THANK you.”
She even ate sugar cookies with him.
Yeah, they had red icing. How’d you guess?
Mickey and Minnie got their share of attention, too.
As did the easel and accessories from Grandma and Grandpa. Even though this wasn’t technically a Santa gift it ended up being gifted on Christmas morning since we kind of forgot that it needed to be assembled. Twice, since J refused to read the instructions the first time.
Look…a tender moment between dad and daughter. One in which he gives a 2 year old a whiteboard marker and then turns her loose.
Which, on further reflection, was not a good idea at all. If you look closely at the pictures you can see the progression of marker on clothes, skin, and brand new stuffed animals. FYI: baby wipes will remove most fresh dry-erase marker from clothing and Disney characters. Trust me on this.
There were also stickers and stampers, of course.
The morning ended in something resembling the aftermath of a really successful keg party what with Mickey passed out on the side, Pooh somewhat askew, a shoe hanging from the fireplace, and Minnie in a less than ladylike pose.
Yeah, we all needed a nap after this Christmas morning.
