Christmas

Our Christmas festivities began on Christmas eve. I spent the morning running around finishing some last minute errands while Blair and Nick were in bed. Later in the afternoon, I made a cheesecake for Christmas dessert. I also made some spritz cookie dough to make cookies. My mom came over to help with the baking. Mom and I made a tortellini casserole to take to Kelly and Karl's that night. After the casserole was finished, we made our first batch of yummy spritz cookies to take to Kelly and Karl. After we were finished with the food, Nick and Blair got dressed up to go to church. All 4 of us headed over to Kelly and Karl's to give them dinner and presents as well as to say Hi to Sadie and new baby Gabby, who was born on Monday, the 22nd. Sadie is so excited to be a new big sister and was just bouncing off of the walls when we got there! Baby Gabby is so tiny and adorable! After our very quick visit, we headed over to Nick's parents so that Nick and Blair could go to church with them. While Nick and Blair were at church, mom and I looked at some lights on the way home. We finished up the Christmas tree shaped cookies for Santa and wrapped all of Blair's presents. Boy, did she have a lot of presents! Just as we were finishing wrapping, Nick and Blair got home. After we settled down, Blair went to sleep and I put out Santa's cookies and milk and went to bed.

Christmas morning was pretty quite. I got up and started baking the ham for dinner as well as starting on the garlic cheese grits. While I was making the grits, I looked out of the front window and saw that my neighbor had gotten a yellow lab puppy for Christmas. I couldn't help myself and had to go and see the little guy. He is so adorable and I cannot wait for him to get a little bigger so that Hunter can play with him! I finished up the ham and then started on the turkey and apple salad. My mom and Doug came over early afternoon and we all hung out until Nick's parents arrived. We had a fantastic dinner of ham, turkey, stuffing, grits, sweet potatoes in 2 different ways, german potato salad, 3 bean salad, cucumber salad, apple salad, and corn. Our desserts were pumpkin pie, cheesecake, spice cake, jello, pound cake, cookies and ice cream. What a feast!!! After we finished eating, we put Blair in front of the tree and let her at her presents. She did better than I expected with presents. She did grab at several and when Nick tore the paper, she pulled on it. Of course all she wanted to do was to put it in her mouth! Blair got so many wonderful gifts from Santa, me and Nick, Noma and Uncle Doug, Grandma and Pop pop, Kelly and Karl and Aunt Megan. Blair is such a lucky girl to be so loved by everyone! Thanks for the wonderful gifts! We had such a fantastic first Christmas with Blair!

Nick putting together Blair's big gift

Blair and her big present from Santa

Uncle Doug and Blair playing

Noma and Blair

Grandma and Blair

The boys and Blair watching "A Christmas Story"

For me?

Yum! Paper!

Huh? What's this shiny thing?

Yay! Busy Balls!

Family Picture

Uncle Doug and Blair

Hunter and his Christmas bone

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas from Nick, Michelle, Blair, Hunter and Sasha!

For you Santa!

Waiting for Santa! Yum! Yum! Yum!

Christmas Eve fun

Sasha is not happy with me!

First Bath in the sink!

I decided to try to give Blair a bath in the sink without the tub this week. I'm so sick of having to have the tub clutter up the kitchen. Blair had a great time playing on the sink. She even got to play with her rubber ducky!

First Playdate

Last Friday, Blair had her first playdate. We went over to our friend, Megan's house, so that Blair could play with Brenna. Brenna is 3 weeks younger than Blair. The girls had "met" when they were just a few weeks old but this was the first time that they had seen each other since then. Brenna was excited to see another baby and was very outgoing because she also goes to daycare so she is used to being around other kids. Blair wasn't quite sure of what to think at first. After a while, we put the girls on the floor and the were grabbing at each other and rolling around on the floor. Brenna has a bouncer that hangs from the door so Blair tried it out. She LOVED it. Megan had an extra bouncer that she did not like so she offered it to Blair. We now have the bouncer thing up and Blair loves to bounce in it and also swing in it. Thanks Megan!

Elf Yourself... Enjoy!

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

6 Month Checkup

We just got back from Blair's 6 month check up. She now weighs 15 pounds 7.5 ounces and is 26 inches long. Both are the 50th percentile. The visit went well. She had to get 4 shots. We have to go back in a month to get her flu shot booster but she does not have another well baby check until she is 9 months. Here are a few pictures of her from the last few days.

6 Months!

Ok, so I'm always doing the monthly update late... Someday I'll get it done on the right day....

Once again, I am amazed to look back on the past months and see how much Blair has changed. 6 months ago, she was a little blob that ate, slept, and pooped. Now she has a wonderful personality and is so active. She now sleeps through the night for the most part. She sits up so well and can grab things and also flail them around without falling over. She rolls around like crazy so I really have to keep my eye on her at all times. She is eating homemade, solid foods; apples, pears, peaches, bananas, peas, green beans, squash, and sweet potatoes. I think that apples are her favorite and green beans are her least favorite. Blair loves Hunter and Sasha. Blair squeals at Hunter to get his attention. Hunter is so good with her. He lets Blair do anything that she wants to him, even stick her fingers in his eyes and mouth. Sasha on the other hand, stays JUST out of reach and gives Blair funny looks all of the time. Sasha is really going to love it when Blair starts to crawl! Blair is still wearing size 3-6 months in clothes and size 2 diapers but will be in 6-9 month sleepers soon. She is still spitting up, which is so annoying, and I am so ready to be done with it. It is getting a little better now that she is sitting up and eating solid foods. She is much better with the car seat so car rides are much better. Her favorite song still is the Itsy Bitsy Spider. She loves getting baths and splashing in the water. She still loves her pacifier but I am going to start to wean her from it so that hopefully she is done with it by 1 year. We just started to learn how to drink from a sippy cup yesterday but she can already drink from a normal glass. We have her 6 month well baby check on Wednesday so we will see how much she has grown in the last 2 months. We have had an amazing first 6 months with the love of our lives and we cannot wait to see what the next 6 will bring! I'll post some pictures with her appointment update.

Santa, Here we come!

Today was Blair's first encounter with Santa. Our HOA has a little Christmas party every year and this was our first visit. Nick and I dressed up (just in case we needed to be in the picture to get a good one) and then got Blair all dressed in her holiday outfit. We got to the clubhouse and stood in line to get a picture of Blair on Santa's lap. Since Blair is not a fan of most people, (gotta love this stage of screaming when anyone other than a select few hold her) our plan was to quickly give her to Santa and then scoot out of the way before she realized what was going on. The plan worked! Nick was able to get several good pictures before Blair looked to see who was holding her. She turned, gave Santa a look of confusion, and then started screaming. Yay for Santa! Just a few more weeks until Christmas!

Here are a few pictures that we took by Diana's Christmas tree last weekend. I'm saving the Santa pictures for later. Sorry!

Diana's Baby Shower

Last weekend my mom, Blair and I headed up to Northern Virginia for Diana's baby shower. Courtney rode with us so we were able to see her engagement ring and talk wedding planning. The ride up was pretty good. Blair slept for most of it and then woke up about 30 minutes or so before we got to Diana's moms house. We all sang "Itsy Bitsy Spider" about 100 times to get Blair to calm down until we were able to get out of the car. Seeing Diana with her super cute belly was the highlight of the day. (You look gorgeous!) Blair had a great time at the shower. We even tried to get a few holiday pictures of Blair by the Christmas tree but she was not cooperating with my plan. After all of the festivities, we got back in the car and headed home. We cannot wait for Miss Emma's arrival in January! Sorry the pictures are so dark... Someone does not like to have her picture taken so I had to do it without the flash. (Diana if you want any of these, let me know and I'll email them to you.)