Creston and Ivy: Holidays 2011

Ah, what a holiday. It was long and luxurious.

Before we headed North for Christmas festivities, we opened up some gifts from Gran Leah. Here are some sweet photos of Creston and Ivy enjoying their very first dolls. Creston immediately insisted that his doll be clothes-free, and he's never looked back. Great Grandfather Amory would approve.

When we got to Vermont there was a little bit of snow, just enough for some excellent sledding. Here's cousin Cora in the sledding mix.

'Twas the night before Christmas, and Ivy sewed her own stocking with Grandma Robin. Ivy also wore some sort of Brownie beanie for awhile, and every time it slipped a bit shouts of, "My Hat!" could be heard throughout the house.

Handsome cousin Arthur, days away from turning ONE.

The merriment continued over on the New Hampshire side of the river. Readers may recognize this famous horse, still very much in action.

Cute cousins in the snowy cold.

Grandma Carola's road is closed due to a storm that happened quite awhile ago, and no government agency wants to foot the bill for doing the work to re-open it. People are mad enough about it that you can buy bumper stickers at the village store demanding, "Preserve Lyme's History: Open River Road." But its closure sure does make for a safe and quiet winter walk with toddlers.

We walked down to the Tullar's dairy farm, where Creston was able to satisfy his tractor obsession. We counted many tractors.

And, as is the holiday tradition at this point, Paphanh came to visit bearing crazy amounts of delicious Laotian food. We stuffed ourselves silly.

We even went out to dinner, which is extremely rare for the Lea-Simons clan. In fact, have we ever done it? I am not sure. But here is Creston practicing his penmanship while Grandma decides to order veal. It was a great meal.

Ivy really likes Grandma Carola's puppy, Mai. Now that we have returned home, Ivy tells a lot of stories about Mai - usually they involve letting Mai lick peanut butter off of her fingers, which is something that Grandma taught her how to do.