Katniss POV- (Chrismas Eve)
"Yeah, you're almost there. Come on!" Peeta says as Willow finally begins to take her first couple of steps.
My heart races as does hers and Peeta's too.
I let her go and she tumbles into his arms.
"Yay, Willow!" Peeta and I cheer in unison and he turns her around and she walks her two steps towards me now.
We do this back and forth until she tuckers herself out and just sits on her bedroom floor, playing with the carpet.
"Let's put on these Christmas pajamas that Daddy bought you last year." I say, getting into her closet and finding the adorable little Christmas leggings and grey shirt, along with a huge matching red and white headband.
"Momma will even put the headband on you until bedtime." I say to her as I change her diaper and dress her all up.
Peeta went downstairs to make some food or something.
This Christmas-time has literally been so magical.
We've gotten to do every tradition Peeta and I have had and even made a few more and Willow has made them all that much more fun.
The only downside to having a baby at Christmas, is that she's always trying to give me a heart attack with the Christmas tree. So far, she's tried to stand herself up using the bottom limbs or pulled the bulbs off or chew on the lights but she hasn't knocked it down so far, I'll give her that much but Buttercup has.
At night, he goes crazy.
He knocked it over a few nights ago while we were all asleep. Peeta and I both jumped up and Peeta went downstairs to see what the terrifying racket was.
Turns out, it was just our stupid cat.
"You look adorable." I say, standing her up in front of me and pressing a kiss to her cheek.
She smiles and I stand up and let her 'walk' us downstairs.
Lately, she's been trying to crawl up them but Peeta and I are too afraid to let her do that for a long while, so we haven't.
She has also tried petting Buttercup.
And by 'petting' I mean pulling his tail and ticking him off pretty badly.
"Say 'Daddy, my pajamas fit perfect!'" I tell Willow as we walk into the kitchen, finding Peeta preparing him and I some snacks.
"They look good, Willow." He tells her, kneeling in front of her. She let's go of my hands out of confidence and falls into his arms.
Peeta picks her up and kisses her cheek lovingly.
She mumbles some gibberish to him, with her big blue eyes wide. Even though we have not a clue what she is saying, we just go along with it.
"Really, baby?" I ask her as if I understood every thing she said.
Her blue eyes grow wider and she says some more.
Peeta smiles, "I can't believe that." He says to her.
She just gives him a look like; 'I know.'
Peeta hands her off to me while he gives me a cookie for her.
Since it's Christmas-time, I've been allowing her to have a little more junk food than I usually do. She surprisingly still doesn't like it all that much, usually she would rather be offered actual healthy food which is good.
I hand her a tiny piece of cookie and she eats it, somehow managing to get green icing all over her face in the process.
"That reminds me! We have to do our frosting stuff and take a picture, especially since Willow is here now." Peeta says, all jumpy.
I smile, "I don't think she's going to like that much." I tell him with a laugh.
He grabs some frosting from the counter top where all his baking stuff lies from baking earlier today.
He wipes Willow's chubby cheeks clean and then says, "Me first, then you and Willow last so she won't have much time to mess it all up." Peeta says, handing me the bag.
My husband is a literal child.
I laugh and start piping stuff on his face, Willow stays on my hip, watching us like we are crazy.
She makes a face and points at him, blabbering about what I'm doing to him.
"It's okay, Willow. Daddy did this to my belly with you in it last year." I say to her and Peeta smiles.
I fix Peeta all up, looking lovely and then he does me and then Willow. She tries wiping it off her face, "Wait, baby." I tell her and hold her chunky hands in mine.
She just looks at Peeta and I, absolutely clueless to what's happening and why we are getting all messy.
"We all three have mustaches, don't we?" Peeta laughs adorably.
I nod and we both laugh.
"Let's go take a picture." I say to him.
"We gotta see what we look like first." He says and I nod.
We go into the downstairs bathroom and let Willow look in the mirror-which we discovered a while back, she's very interested in. She loves looking at her reflection along with both Peeta and I's too.
"Oh man." I laugh as I realize we do in fact all have mustaches. Peeta traced Willow's eyebrows in bright yellow icing and gave her a mustache too.
"Are you gonna let me kiss your mustache off this year?" Peeta asks, wrapping his arms around my lower waist, I look up at him and Willow stares at us both.
"Only if you let me kiss yours off." I say with a smirk.
"Fabulous." Peeta mumbles softly and smiles.
"Let's go take the picture."
So we do.
I think it turned out good.
I clean Willow up, letting her lick frosting off her fingers and then put her in her high chair with some toys that she loves.
Then I turn to Peeta.
"Hello, there." I say with a wet washcloth in hand.
He laughs, "You gotta kiss me before you can clean off my face."
I scoff, "Who said I was cleaning your face? You can do it yourself." I shove the towel in his hands.
He just laughs and then pulls me to him, "You're such a brat."
I smile and kiss his cheek, "I know, but you love me."
Peeta chuckles and kisses my lips, ultimately messing up both of our frosting mustaches.
"I do love you." He confirms.
I snort, "I love you too."
"Good." Peeta says and we have at it.
It's so passionate and fun. We rarely ever get times to ourselves and when we do it's usually spent talking, not doing this.
Eventually, we stop and force ourselves back into reality.
"How about we open Christmas Eve presents first?" Peeta suggests.
I agree and we head into the living room and Willow sits in my lap as Peeta grabs a big bag with us all something in it, I'm sure.
"You already know what we have." He says to me.
I smile, "That's okay, I still love seeing what you picked out." I tell him truthfully.
"Here, Willow. Since you've been anxiously wanting to mess with the tissue on all these presents you open it." I say, standing her up in front of me, holding her upright. She looks at Peeta to make sure she won't get scolded for touching the present and he nods and she has at it.
"Here's Willow some new clothes since she's growing so much." Peeta says, handing them to me.
There's a few cute outfits inside. Willow sits back in my lap and I show her what she has. She seems interested until Peeta pulls out a few other things.
"Mommy and Daddy's pajamas from two years ago." He laughs, kind of embarrassed.
"I thought it was kind of silly to just keep buying new ones, I mean I know I bought them last year but it was because you weren't gonna be able to fit into the old ones and-"
"This is perfectly fine, Peeta. I still have those others so we have two sets in case we need them." I say.
He sighs a breath of relief.
"I got her books from upstairs."
"The Christmas ones you bought her last year?" I ask him.
He nods.
"I bet she will love looking at them." I say truthfully.
Thankfully, she loves examining everything.
Toys, books, our phones, the television.
She's interested in most everything and will listen to us talking to her for hours.
I think she's gonna be so much like Peeta when she's older.
She's already got great listening skills and the ability to comfort people in her own way because somehow she knows what they feel and I think that is very special.
"Hopefully."
We have a really great Christmas Eve.
Willow listened to Peeta reading to her for a long while before she fell asleep in his arms.
"Are you ready for bed?" He asks in a whisper.
"Are you?"
"If you're not tired we can finish whatever we made to eat and watch a movie and then go to bed or something." He suggests.
I nod and carefully take Willow out of his arms. He gets up off the couch and we go put her in her bedroom together.
We started letting her sleep in there a few weeks ago and she's done perfectly fine, even though Peeta and I both get up to check on her at least 10 times a night. We leave both bedroom doors open too but some nights she still manages to end up in between us, by the hands of Peeta and I.
Peeta and I pig out in the kitchen together, just talking and before we know it, the time is well past midnight and we decide we better head to bed but his sweetness doesn't allow it just yet.
We lay on the couch together, side by side since we can do that again and Peeta reads me the same story he's read me the last 2 Christmases.
I fall asleep, feeling his warmth and steadiness of breaths beside me, making me feel so completely safe.
As he carefully lays me in our bed, I hear him whisper, "Goodnight." And he kisses my forehead. I'm too tired to say anything back so when he crawls into bed next to me, I scoot into his arms, only for them to be wrapped around my waist and my body being pulled against his. His lips gently resting on my forehead.