Christmas Eve

Yesterday Dodah gave Amelia a little baking set complete with an apron and a mini-muffin tin so we HAD to make muffins today. Amelia adores baking and I am so glad - because I do, too! My mother let me help cook and bake beginning at an early age and she used to let me fill up my little mini tins with the regular batter and serve tiny cakes and muffins for dessert along with whatever else we had made. (And my Dad would act like they were better than Betty Crocker's so that helped, too!) Here is Amelia in her new apron and her mouth has some batter on it because of course she gets to lick the beaters and spatula!

We went to the candlight service tonight for Christmas Eve and I loved her dress but she wouldn't cooperate for a good picture. At the church, they have battery powered lights for little ones and I was so sure Amelia would be thrilled to have her own candle. Nope!

She had been so good the entire service. During the children's moment she and her friend Livia went down and sat so nicely on the floor listening to Tommy tell them about the nativity and about shepherds and how their staffs are shaped like candy canes, which he then handed out. We went back to our seats and she was still really good. (Okay, so a coloring book and crayons goes a long way but this is a church where silence is a virtue ... not our normal church.) Then at the end we lined up along the edges of the sanctuary and the lights go out and everyone's candles were being lighted. As everyone else began singing "Silent Night" Amelia started complaining loudly that she didn't have a real candle and how she wished she were older so she could have a real candle. I couldn't hush her so I couldn't sing. This is the same child who at 3 months wailed during "Silent Night" and at 15 months and 27 months ran up and down the aisle. (We didn't go last year.) I wonder what next year will hold?

When we got home I wanted to get a picture of her hanging her stocking and I managed to back up and step on Daddy's train. I broke a coupling that is irreplaceable because it's an unusual scale and made by a company that doesn't sell couplers separately.

I did manage to get Amelia's picture and then we set cookies out for Santa. Amelia was totally into it - I am amazed at how well she's been indoctrinated (by everyone but me). She told me in great detail about how Santa was going to come down the chimney and everything. So off to bed she went and the wrapping began!

[pictures dated 12/24/09]