'Tis the season!

Let the Christmaspalooza photo fest commence.

First gift: a super-rad coloring board from Aunt Amy and Uncle Kyle that sings when you color on it -- and sings faster and faster the faster you color!

Posing in front of the (very dead) Christmas tree in her very pretty Christmas dress...

...and very fancy clippity-cloppity shoes!

This is one of those accidental photos that will totally embarrass the snot out of her in a decade or so. Hence why it is posted to the blog instead of deleted. Hehe.

Me: "Shae, please look at the camera! Say cheese! Please look at the camera just once for me, honey! Please?"

Shae: "La la laaaaa.... [I can't hear you, mommy]"

"...still can't hear you... and I'm not going to look at that darn camera again..."

"I will, however, steal your phone and play with it. I don't even care that you don't have the keyboard locked. Hello? Who is this that I just called? Hi! I'm Shae Lily Bennigsdorf!"

At least I can take one side photo of the whole ensemble. Better than nuthin'.

Shae swiped the camera when I wasn't looking. Figured we should give some credit to her artistic abilities.

(I never really realized how bulbous my nose is...)

Nothing delights the little elf more than taking a self-photo and then letting her see the results on the camera. Simple pleasures.

A little snack and more color time before church.

"...I'm still not going to look at your darn camera, mommy. Get over it."

Time for Christmas Eve at Gramma and Baba's house! All sorts of different group poses in front of the Christmas tree before we could get to opening those presents. Tease!

Chris' professional-grade camera flashed at the same time as my little rinky-dink camera. The overexposure is funny, but the picture itself is lovely!

One Wrabetz family...

Two Wrabetz family...

Plus Uncle Tom!

Now let's get on with those presents!

Taking a picture of Brian taking a picture of Mom taking a picture of me. Classic.

More presents! Shae helped Keeley play Santa.

Santa Claus found Thornton! Thank goodness!

Thank you, Uncle Joe, for the incredibly awesome handmade wooden puzzle. Shae loves squirrels and thinks this is so much fun!

Let Christmas morning begin! I suspect this is the last time for many years that we had a reasonable wake-up time and managed to get Shae to eat her breakfast before heading over to open presents.

Plumb tuckered out from all those presents! Whew!

The Tinkerbell chair is a coveted item.

Pulling around her "blue pool" in the aftermath of presents.

Taking a break from all the madness. The chair is portable!

What? More presents! Why yes, thank you, I think I will!

Making an exquisite delicacy in her new play kitchen.

Merry Christmas to all! We hope that Santa Claus found your house, was generous to you and yours, and that your day was filled with special delights, and the warmth of family and friends. Many hugs from the Bennigsdorf family!

'Tis the season for tasty treats

Shae helps make chocolate-covered pretzel rods.
And by "help" I mean that she just ate the red sprinkles.

Please note: no pretzels were decorated with red sprinkles.

Shae helps make sugar cookies!

Shae figures out how to open every container of decorative sprinkles.

Shae was in charge of sprinkling the cookies on the top left. She also didn't entirely comprehend why we don't immediately eat the fruits of our labor. (Come to think of it, neither do I...)

Work, work, work!

Again with the red sprinkles!

A fun project, all in all.

Is winter ever coming to Denver?

I shouldn't rock the boat. The Midwest got plastered this weekend with snow, and Florida is ridiculously chilly. I'm not actually complaining about the sunny, 60-degree weather, but a sprinkling of snow would certainly help it feel a little more Christmassy!

Spaghetti night on Lafayette Street!

Shae's friend, Parker, hosted his 2nd birthday party on Friday night. Shae was semi-interested during the gift opening part of the evening.

She was, however, very interested in the cupcake eating part of the evening.

Dressed for church. Not only did we finally figure out how to put on her boots (thank you Sarah and Carson!), but she decided on the red-and-blue theme because she wanted to look like Superman.

Completing the red-and-blue theme with her Bucky Badger jacket. "It has pockets!"

Santa, meet Shae. Shae, meet Santa.

First, let's start with some skiing. Remember when Jody and I used to ski all the time throughout the winter months? Well parenthood and unemployment has changed that significantly. LOL. But when it's a Tuesday and the ticket is free, I say let's go skiing! (And by "let's" I mean me, Mom and Dad -- Jody still needs to get his knee fixed.)

Really? These are prime conditions? Mmmkay...
Mom & Dad at the top of Copper.

Me. Same place.

So it turns out there is a little speck of green crayon on the lens of my camera. Wonder how that got there?

No more speck!

Santa Day at Jody's office. Round 1 was Shae going solo. We visualized the scenario for two days in advance: she would see Santa; she might be nervous because she doesn't know him, but it was okay for her to go sit on his lap; she would give him a hug; she would tell him that we would leave cookies for him when he comes to visit our house in a couple weeks; and she would tell him what she wants for Christmas (blue dishes -- ?). That is now how things shook out. But once Keeley and Taylor arrived, she would at least be in the same room as Mr. Claus.

Great picture just in terms of the look on Taylor's face and the look on Santa's face. Speaks volumes (on both sides! ha).

We joined the Wrabetz family for the Parade of Lights. Not gonna lie: it was COLD!

Enraptured by the parade.

Lights!

Horses!

This photo will forever commemorate the moment we learned that Shae does NOT like parade floats. It was quite traumatic!