Christmas Bears

Stuffed animals have a way of amassing until they eventually take over the toy shelf/room/home. So I am a fan of hiding stuffed animals away and rotating them. This is especially easy to do with any stuffed animals that are remotely holiday themed, for example, hiding the stuffed bunnies or ducks and then only bringing them out to play when you dig out the Easter decorations. Or hiding the stuffed turkey puppet until Thanksgiving time (yes, we are the proud owners of the most awesome turkey puppet). Ahem, I digress. Back to bears: Pictured here are some of our stuffed bears. My Great Aunt Sher collected bears, and when she passed away last year, we all got to pick a bear from her collection. Jerry and I both chose Christmas bears, so they get boxed away until the holiday comes around. On the couch there in the above photo is brownie bear, whom I chose from Aunt Sher's collection. Pictured below is polar bear, whom Jerry chose. Lo Lo especially likes to wrestle with the polar bear. =) And yes, that is a smile in the photo below, but he was scrunching up his face anticipating the camera flash.

Ready for more bears? Last Christmas that Lo was just a little guy. Here he is in his "first Christmas" outfit, and it has a wittow bear on the front. Can it get any cuter? Well, yes. Keep reading. =) We took photos of him last year next to his "Baby's First Christmas" teddy, and it was almost as big as him. This Christmas, I brought out the same old bear and could not even get our big boy to pose with it. He was having too much fun wrestling the stuffed animal. I had a "my baby is all grown up" moment. *sniffle*

I think it will become a new Christmas tradition to take photos of Lo next to his first Christmas bear and track his growth that way. Fun!