Poppy and her Doll

My Poppy is becoming an expert smile-er, no? 

:)

Our first Christmas

Last Sunday Mr. Baker and I celebrated our first Christmas together! What a delight it was, too, to have it be the three of us, with our kleines madchen, Poppy. Mr. Baker and I opened our presents "aus Deutsch"--that is we opted to open them on Christmas Eve instead of Christmas Day. Our cozy little Christmas was the best of my life! It is such a joy to be a wife and mother--I think forever after my Christmases will be progressively better as we watch our children grow.

I did my best to try to emulate my mother's Christmas marathon of culinary masterpieces--but without a dishwasher, this domestic goddess pooped out after brunch on Christmas Eve. I was so worked up over having the best meals for Christmas Eve and Day and doing everything according to plan, that I was utterly stressed and missing out on just enjoying my holiday. So sometime Christmas Eve afternoon I realized that I did not want to be the Yuletide dictator I had been doing and just went with the flow.

Mr. Baker and I decided that, rather than have a traditional menu for the Christmas Holidays, we would get together as a family sometime prior to the holidays and decide what we would like to eat that year--be it pizza hut, chinese take out, or steak au poivre--that's what we're going to get! I think we might do the same with planning our Christmas activities.

We also decided that we liked the German tradition of opening gifts on Christmas Eve, so in the future we just might have the kids open their wrapped gifts on Christmas Eve, but Santa will still deliver his gifts on Christmas morning.

Mr Baker did very well this Christmas, receiving a fair amount of nice clothes from, me, his mother and my mom. One of my favorite gifts was the robe and slippers my mother sent me--I cannot tell you how much easier it is to take care of Poppy in the middle of the night now that I have a snuggly warm robe and slippers! Danke schone, Mutti!

Poppy with the "special" gift from Uncle Kyle and a fish rattle from Oma

Poppy was also highly favored in the gift department! I loved the pop up book her Lolly and Pa sent her, as well as the mary-jane socks not Bebella and Grandpa sent her. I crocheted her a "mohawk beanie" which had her grandparents and uncles in stitches when they saw her in it--she is positively adorable and I must get a picture of her wearing it! She also got her vary own baby doll (which is about as big as her)

I promise she loves her doll ;)