Christmas has always been my favorite time of year, but now we have yet another reason to celebrate. A year ago we had our best Christmas present ever, Anya Noelle! She has added so much joy to our home. We just adore our little Anya. Christmas day Anya turned 1. It is amazing how much a baby can learn and develop in a year, to go from a tiny little baby in your arms to such a darling little firecracker is so fun. When Anya was born I thought she was going to be my petite child, but I sure was wrong. She is our big girl and we love every roll! To go along with that, she is a great eater. She will eat pretty much anything I put in front of her. She is also a lot taller than Isabelle was. Anya isn't walking yet, but that doesn't stop her from getting around where she wants to go. Right on her birthday Anya had a handful words in her vocabulary, but within a week of her birthday all of her jabbering started turning into real words. She has become our little parrot. Anya is a great sleeper, which she must get from me. My favorite is seeing her in the morning when she wakes up. She always wakes up happy and talking and when we go in her room she gets so excited. We just love and adore her to pieces.
We had such a wonderful Christmas season. It was so nice to have Charles home with us, unlike last year where he was in India for most of the Christmas season, returning just days before Anya was born. The girls' main present this year was big beanbag chairs from Pottery Barn Kids with their names on them. It was quite the task to get them, but we finally got what we wanted and they are a hit. The girls opened all of their presents Christmas morning while sitting in their new beanbags.
As tradition goes, we went over to my mom's house after spending Christmas morning at our house. Since we already had lots of pies for Christmas I decided against making a birthday cake for Anya and stuck a candle in one of the pies. I'm still trying to figure out how I'm going to make sure she feels special on her birthday as she grows up. Isabelle loved that it was Anya's birthday. To her, Christmas this year was "Anya's birthday." Throughout the whole Christmas season Isabelle thought everything was for Anya's birthday and she loved it. When I put the Christmas tree up she asked if Anya was going to blow out all the lights on the tree for her birthday. Anya loved the tree too and would do the sign for lights everyday to have me turn the lights on.
Enjoying her birthday pie!
Decorating Christmas cookies on Christmas Eve. This is one of Isabelle's favorite traditions.
The day after Christmas we went down to Vero for Ma's Christmas party. I was so glad to be able to go, since I had missed it last year. It was wonderful like always.
