Last Pre-Christmas post

I'm getting so behind, because December was so full of fun. 

Willow has almost been in our arms for seven months!!

Six Flags fun with the Robinsons!

As we were leaving, it started 'snowing' on us!  Of course, the merry-go-round and the train ride were huge highlights as well!!

We also made a glass ornament in December with most of the James'!  Willow got to ride these little cars and tricycles while we were on Main St., which she loved!

She loved the huge Christmas tree and pretty gazebo.

Willow picked which broken glass colors to tap her ornament in, and we spun the stick and tapped it together.

The final product that we picked up the next day:

I also have to include our fun evening of watching White Christmas!  On Christmas Eve Eve last year, we started a tradition of eating yummy Chinese food since we were so heartsick for our baby girl in China!  

During the last scene of the movie, as Willow let us hold her and sing White Christmas with her, I cried.  I'm so thankful and so in love with this family God has formed that I get to be a part of.  That was my sappiest moment of the season!

Willow's stocking and Santa pic...

Willow loved this snowman and could talk to him during her whole meal!  It is a door hanger that waves from when I was a kid in Sunday school.  :)

Pre-Christmas Part 2

First off, this happened yesterday...

Willow is constantly growing, and we enjoy it so much!  She will be so much fun as a kid, a teen, and an adult, so we don't want to freeze time now or anything.  We love it!  She's just grown so much in six months!  We are blessed to get to see her grow.

This was at 5:15am after our daughter refused to sleep for over two hours one night a few weeks before Christmas.  I gave up and we just hung out across the hall with the dogs until she literally fell down with exhaustion.  

Pretending to be asleep, the other end of the spectrum...

Santa visit!  

The animals around Bass Pro were a perfect distraction from the pressure of seeing Santa!  She was really excited to see him, but when it came time for us to get close, she would not leave Daddy's arms.

So, we just all stayed in the photo.  And then as we walked off, the tears came.

The big fish amazed her.  She kept saying, "Oh, gosh!"  I realized that I'm saying,"Oh, my gosh!" too often, because it sounds weird coming from her.  It's adorable though!

We got to see both fish and tents at Bass, which helped us prepare her for Christmas gifts we had waiting!  That was very convenient!

Pre-Christmas Fun

Kyle took a couple of days off work for us to kick start the Christmas season with our baby girl!  What a blessing to have time for just the three of us as we celebrate our first Christmas together.  Hopefully this was the start of a new Christmas tradition.

December 6th was an especially sentimental day, as it was the anniversary of the day we first heard about Willow and saw an email with her tiny, blurry photo.  What an incredible memory with God's handprint all over it!  

We got coffee and a Christmas tree one evening, as is our tradition.

Willow was very excited to paint at a pottery place.  She loved making wreath plates for her grandparents.  She was so careful!  We planned on making three plates, but when she started getting tired of painting handprints we just let her paint a reindeer for us.

Probably our most tiring outing was going to Ice at the Gaylord.  Willow got really into Frosty from a library book and then the short movie, so of course we had to go!  We noticed the cold much more than previous times we've gone, because we felt bad for Willow being so cold.  She didn't understand where we had taken her!  Of course, she still loved seeing Frosty and baby Jesus.  It was great fun!  Part of the event this year was seeing Chinese ice sculptors at work, so we got to say 'ni hao' to a very kind artist.

She's looking at the frosty sign here...

Saying hello to the fish!  Little did she know she would be getting one for Christmas.  :)

We were all amazed by the beautiful lobby.  Willow was especially delighted by the loud fountain behind us here...

Willow pointed to all of the snowflakes that led us to the exhibit.

Brrrr!  The jacket sleeves were super long on her.  She did NOT want to go down a slide made of ice all by herself, so a few quick tears were shed.  I don't blame her!!

At the very end, they have a beautiful nativity scene (that I didn't get in this picture unfortunately).  Willow was saying 'Cold!' 

We went to Northpark mall to see their train exhibit and also Santa!  When we realized at 11:00am that we wouldn't see Santa until 5:30pm, we gave up on that part of the day.  The trains were very cool, but Willow's favorite thing had to be the turtles in a pond (below) in the middle of the mall.

The miniature merry-go-round was appreciated by our girl!

Because it was in the middle of the school day, we heard a band playing and then later a choir singing!  Willow quietly 'sang' along with the choir; it was so cute.

Home again!  We all love the feeling of pulling into our driveway.  Kyle did a great job of putting up lights; we helped very little!

Sensory play is the best!  Willow always asks for sand or rice.  Lately we've been burying our hands a lot!

Willow and Mama visited Nash farm when Daddy had to go back to work.  She loved seeing the chickens most of all.

Finally, we took Willow to Aggieland for a weekend.  We went when there was no game to just introduce her to the beauty of our second home!

It was a beautiful day to go to Wolf Pen Creek to see my cousin's sweet kids dance.  We went to many concerts here in our day!

Willow would watch the dancers and would try to emulate them!

Fun with Uncle Kade and Michelle!

My cousins kids are so sweet...

Photography by Willow.  Research park holds precious memories of falling in love for Kyle and me.  

This memory right here is now my new favorite!  We watched the many ducks fly over to the water near us as they wanted to be fed, and their landing on the water was really neat. 

Our tour of campus occurred during naptime, a sacred time!

Our second post office visit together was more successful than our first, because I had this handy sucker!

This rice is red and smells like cinnamon!

Here we have the first tooth that we've actually seen her cut!  What a privilege, as odd as it sounds!

Our local library is smart...

So proud of Aunt Kenda, the nurse!

Childhood friends...

Reading!

Pumped that the dogs woke her up!

Painting trees...

Lastly, this was probably my favorite year to bake ever.  Willow and I on three or four different days baked various sweets together.  She stayed in the carrier and we did a lot of dancing, singing, and mixing it up!  Here she is shaking up the cinnamon and sugar for snicker doodle cookies.

Santa post coming soon!