Our Christmas...

Christmas at our house this year was a very laid back restful event. We tried to selectively pick what we would do outside the home to keep stress to a minimum. I got out voted on the candlelight service but we did many other fun and meaningful things to celebrate. 

Christmas morning is the most exciting when you have a kiddo in the house and this year Goobie understood what was going on and her excitement level grew with the days. By Christmas Eve she was so excited it was hard to get her to nap and nearly impossible to get her to go to bed. 

We didn't take a ton of pictures but I will share the ones we took. 

Here is Goobie after opening most of her gifts. She is actually posing for this picture and the next few... This is a big step for her. Like many toddlers on the autism spectrum she does not speak but her understanding of what we are saying is above average. That being said, she is somewhat decent at eye contact if she knows you and is fully rested but she is not great at looking at the camera so we usually have to try to catch her looking at it so these "cheese" pics are very special to us! 

She was VERY excited for about the blocks and Allie told her to "Say Cheese" and even though she didn't say the word you can see she knows what we meant by it. 

Just because she currently struggles to communicate verbally she is incredibly effective at non-verbal communication if you take time to get to know her and her quirky ways you can have whole conversations with her. 

Goobie has very specific like and dislikes. Many of which we discovered before we knew why she interacted with toys differently. She does not "pretend" play but likes items like blocks, stacking toys,  "spiky" (or sensory) balls and books... ESPECIALLY books. We didn't even notice until later in the day she had not received any electronic toys for Christmas. I even bought batteries in advance this year! 

On a side note how cute are her Christmas pjs? I love new pjs on Christmas! 

We did something new (to us) this year and Paul & I bought each person just 4 gifts. The now Pinterest famous "Something you want, something you need, something to wear and something to read" and the girlies and my mother were asked to buy Paul and myself and each other just one gift each. We did not do stockings (although we will add one in the future for Goobie) and kept to our budgets. After all was said and done we all agreed we liked it much better. Since we were limited in the number of gifts we could buy we all put a lot more thought into the ones we bought and we all had plenty to unwrap and truly loved each item.

Allie got the rain boots she has wanted for about a year now and opening them she gave that same squeal she did as a kiddo and didn't stop smiling for at least an hour. I wonder if she will ever take them off! 

Katy hates this picture and I will admit it's not her best angle but Allie surprised her with some earrings from the shop where she works and they got a "full dimple" smile. 

Here is my mom with the special Swedish lotion she loves. She is IMPOSSIBLE to shop for! 

Santa brought Goobie a mini trampoline. She jumps and bounces all the time and had a tiny one when she was smaller so she was/is thrilled with this gift. As a note about when she was smaller, these pjs are a bit big but also a SIZE FIVE! Yikes!! Yes she is super tall for a 2 year old. 

She also got a tee pee and the abacus she saw at the store and her eyes lit up. She had the same reaction on Christmas morning seeing it and can sit there and play with it for LONG periods of time. 

But what she liked best were her books. She must have 250+ board books in her growing collection. She spends hours everyday "reading" and will let you read her a new one once or twice (maybe more if you are lucky) but she does not want you to read them to her after that. We have become convinced she remembers the story after that. She is ver specific about the books she likes too and it is best to take her with you book shopping if you don't know exactly what she likes in a book. I admit we do indulge this habit with a new book or two frequently. 

These are "spiky" balls (aka sensory balls). She had several and loves them all. I do not understand it but I don't have to I guess. 

These four are her newest spiky balls and this is the order she always lines them up in. Paul took them out of the package in this order and for two days now this is the order they get lined up in. See what I mean about quirky... We love her fun, quirky ways and if you take time to get to know her and talk to her she appreciates it and you. 

Her least favorite thing about Christmas? Unwrapping gifts. She loves the gifts but the unwrapping is not pleasant and she does not like to tear paper or make messes with it. Her favorite thing hands down... The tree! She spent hours looking at each detail and she was in charge of lighting up the tree every morning. A task she took very seriously and did as soon as she came out of her room. (We have a little light up remote thingy she just had to push.) 

Look at that excitement...

Here's the thing, that pose below and the next photo are of her "stems" and I will explain more in a later post but suffice it to say it's something she does when she is feeling a lot of emotion (good, bad or otherwise) but as you can see by her face, this was a very happy Goobie! 

Speaking of happy... Here are the girlies...

Ahh Sisters! It is hard to believe Allie is headed back to school in about two weeks. As much as we get on each other's nerves I can't imagine going back to not seeing her every day. 

Well that's it for this year...

How was your Christmas? 

Thanks for listening,