bowl full of jelly

I love Christmas! Love the songs, the tree and all of its ornaments, love all the extra baking, the Christmas stories, buying and wrapping gifts...literally everything Christmas related. I'm finding this year that I love something else as well...Sofia's excitement to it all.

Two and a half is a great age for the holidays, Christmas in particular. Sofia is eating up everything from the decorations all over the house to the chocolate in our Advent Calendar (thanks Mom). I have Christmas music on pretty much all day at this point and I'm just glad that she hasn't asked me to turn it off yet...or for me to stop singing. We're watching Christmas shows on tv and best of all reading all of our Christmas books. I read "The Night Before Christmas" a record 15 times just yesterday.

When we've read something to Sofia a few times you can let her finish sentences for you which is the cutest thing. She had Goodnight Moon memorized at an alarmingly early age because of the number of times we read it to her before going to bed. So, reading this Christmas book to her lately, I decided to let her begin finishing some of the lines for me to see how much she's really enjoying this book. She completed most of the ones I began for her but the best reaction was "He had a broad face and a round little belly That shook when he laughed, like a bowl full of jelly." She laughs and says "That's so funny, he has jelly in his belly!" I was crying I was laughing so hard! Olivia just looked at the both of us laughing like hyenas and probably thought we were crazy.