Holiday - Round One

The weekend before Christmas we celebrated with the Kautz and Keach families.  Friday JM and I packed up a bunch of stuff and headed south.  Samantha was of course a doll and played with Grandpa and Grandma.  Saturday Grandma Keach came down and Aunt Nancy came over.  We cooked a nice Christmas lunch and Samantha was able to play with her Great Grandma and her Aunt Nancy.  Of course there were toys everywhere for Miss Samee.  Nancy gave Samee her first baby doll and it was the Baby Alive.  So it slurps on a "bottle"  and then will giggle, babble, or "blow a raspberry".  Grandma gave Samee her First Christmas ornament and an extremely cute fleece onesie that is a deep blue with a pink heart on it and a horse.  It was from Boot City and Grandma said she can't have ALL tractors! =) 
On Sunday we headed over to Nano and Papo's for the Kautz Christmas.  All the family was there except Greg and his family.  They weren't able to make the trip out due to the poor miliatry scheduling for miliatry flights into St. Louis.  We are hoping for a spring trip. The meal was fantastic, as normal.  After the meal, we waited for Uncle Alan to arrive and then it was PRESENT TIME. At some point, Wes and Jackson were playing on Wes's I-Pad and Samantha wanted in on the action.

Ok.  If you won't let me touch the screen, I'll go for your ear! Wet Willy.... just kidding. I don't think she knows how to do that, or at least not intentionally.

Aunt Elaine... I WANT TO TOUCH IT!!

She thought it was pretty cool, but I don't think she helped out Jackson's score any.



 Since Jackson was the youngest child that could walk, he passed out the presents.  Samantha couldn't get enough of him.  I thought her little head was going to spin off her neck.  Samantha also couldn't get enough of cousin Wes.  He would "drum" on the chair's arm rest and she wanted to mimic him and she would also search him out in a room full of faces.  It was pretty cute. 
Samantha received all kinds of great gifts.  From the Lans-Kautz family she opened up a HUGE farm set.  And you really can't conceive of how HUGE I am talking.  Thousands of pieces.  Of course, we were all aware that it might not be age appropriate but the set originates in Great Britain (I believe) and only found in Cost-Co's so they couldn't pass up the opportunity.  So it will be one of those things were we can put together the combine and tractors and she can play with them and then we can bring out other pieces as she gets older.  There are little doves to put in the hayloft and little pieces of food.  It is insane.





Aunt Elaine gave Samantha several B toys.  The B brand is so awesome and you can find them at Target.  One set was a set of keys that have a "remote start" piece to it.  It makes all kinds of fun sounds and even had a flashlight on it.

The Phillips family gave samantha an interactive fishbowl toy.  Every button makes a noise and even lights up and we had to hide it so she would open up the other gifts!

From Nano and Papo's money JM and I bought an American Girl set of Samantha books and a small doll that went with it.  It will be great fun for later.

After Christmas present time, it was time for the December Birthday kids to open their gifts.  Melinda and Jim opened their Christmas gifts and then shortly after we headed out the door for Mom & Dad's to pack up and head home.  That next day, Monday, JM had to be in Champaign at 8 o'clock so we really wanted to be on the road early in the evening.  We weren't too far off. At Mom & Dad's we ran through the house trying to grab everything we could think of.  Unfortunately not all of our stuff was in plain sight so of course we missed some stuff.  Fortunately Marisa was coming up to Kansas early in the week and she dropped some items off.

While we were down at Mom & Dad's, Friday night I think, we opened up a few of Samantha's gifts from Grandma & Grandpa.  One was a little car-thingy that she can sit on and use her feet to push around.  Then it can be switched around to be something she can walk behind.  What is SO funny is that when she sits on it, she bounces which propels her backwards.  We all get giggley when we watch her because she just drops her butt onto that seat SO hard.  Someday she will find forward, just not today....or this week. =)