Holiday Season, Part One

Let's start with the annual traditions...  

gingerbread-house-making at Gma K's

(my brother is missing, but we get the added bonus of extra special friends!):

Mia and Dad took their                            Me, our sweet Su, and our respective g.b. houses:
decorating very seriously:

Next tradition...

non-Relief Society craft day with R girls:

Our results were reminiscent of Cinderella, because, with Su as the exception,

 not one of the felt slippers we each made fit our chubby feet!

 Trimming the tree:

Our Santa experiences get better by a few degrees each year.  

No wailing like last time...just a little apprehension.

 (This guy also had a genuine Santa beard. Surely that helps!).

 Mia has entered the glamour phase.  

She anxiously awaits Sunday dress-up time and I revel in her photo-shoot cooperation!

I finally made a stocking for Mia.  Up to this point, overflowing stockings from grandmas have sufficed.

Here I am singing my heart out at our stake Christmas production/extravaganza.  This program was intense!

 And one of the more awkward moments of our lives...posing in a live nativity for the same production 

(live, that is, except for the red-headed doll I was holding.  We were, obviously, aiming for authenticity).

My sister, Arianna, is at13 years old one of the youngest members of our city's Youth Symphony.  They are incredible so I thought it was a good idea to record some of their Carol of the Bells...until my Mom gestured to me that filming is not allowed.  Therefore, the song abruptly ends just as it's getting good!

Mia's Top 10

1

Maple Leaf Rag:

2

Showing her sweet Great-Gma R how to get her groove on.  We all could use a few tips from Mia.  

She knows how to dance and can effortlessly move in ways that I can't even dream up

It is obviously an inherent gift.

3

Some more dancing-  a variation on tap:

4

Whipping up some "Reduced Guilt" brownies from TJ's:  

Mia is a fabulous kitchen helper.

5

She is rather possessive of her grandpa.  

When cousins get within a certain proximity,  Mia gets ready to stake out territory.

6

On the very day she was scheduled for her flu shot,  Mia woke up with a fever, wouldn't eat, and just wanted to be still-- an oddity because she has an immune system of steel, can always eat, is ON the move at all times, but most of all, because the illness lasted for approximately 4 hours.  The moment Dad walked in the door from work, Mia shed her resting apparatus and was ready for dinner.  

It was strange.  What type of illness does this?  

And I have to admit-as crummy as it feels to watch one's baby suffer through sickness, 

I was in raptures over her snuggliness. 

7

Mia likes her Dad.

8

Dancing again:

9

Mia gets so much hair time of her own that she is quick to dish it out.  

She usually implores, very sweetly, "Mommy, I will fix you, okaaay?" 

10

Izzy spends most of her time lately as a surprisingly tolerant body pillow.