MERRY CHRISTMAS!

In just a few hours, we're going to be leaving on a travel adventure with this little elf...

Can you tell how excited she is to see BOTH sets of grandparents and aunts, uncles, and cousins galore?

Since we aren't going to be home for Christmas, Olive got her present early:

A JUMPEROO!! She loves playing with all the toys and looking in the mirror.  She's too light to reach the ground so we have to put boxes under her feet.  She doesn't mind, though!

We'd been talking for months about doing a Christmas card and then all of a sudden it was the weekend before Christmas and we hadn't taken photos.  We threw together a quick photo shoot and then fired off the best pictures to Costco (thanks for the quick turnaround Costco!) many of you should be getting your cards in the mail any minute!  Here are some pictures that didn't quite make the cut, but are still adorable, obviously, because of their subjects.

Olive posing with her new Yeti.  I got him at a craft fair from a guy in town who makes monsters. She squealed with delight when she saw him and we had to take him home.  She LOVES him.

We're still not quite there with the whole sitting up thing.

Which resulted in some disastrous images.

We tried to get Ripley in on the fun, too, but he doesn't like posing with her!

I also tried some pictures by the tree (we took the plunge and got a fake one! It actually looks pretty good.)  This was the best picture I could get of her "sitting" by the tree.  She just wants to grab it.

We hope you all have a Merry Christmas!! Wish us luck on the flight today!!

5 Months Old!

Can you believe she's already five months old?  Just look at that face! I can't handle how cute she is. Even on the rare occasions when she's driving us crazy.

I had brilliant plans to do this month's photo in the chair in her room because she's getting pretty good at sitting up (especially if she's leaning on something...don't judge - her head is SO BIG!), but the plan quickly dissolved:

Sliding...

Sliding...

Flip! and going for the light!

I love lamp!

This all happened in the span of about 8 seconds.

So then I thought - oh! we can prop her up against the poof in her room.  It worked well for the Halloween pictures!

This is the look of a baby planning something big...

Sliding...

Sliding...

Flip!

And so, in the end, we went back to what we know.  Lying on the floor next to bunny.  Of course, she didn't hardly hold still.  I think she learned this pose from all the yoga I did when I was pregnant.

We didn't do an official five month appointment at the doctor's this month, so I don't really know her stats.  I'm sure she's taller and her head is bigger.  When we went in for her ear infections she was just under 12 pounds (a slow weight gain from her four month appointment, but with her being sick, she hasn't been eating normally).  She's now pretty much out of her three month clothes completely and, as you can tell, NEVER HOLDS STILL.  She's developing quite the personality - laughing a lot, especially at us (like when I shout "OUCH" when she bites me...or if I swear when I stub my toe on something).  She has fully grown out of her hatred of the car (thank God!) and loves looking out the window when we drive places.  She's at such a fun age, especially because, aside from the sliding and the flipping, she isn't quite mobile yet.

Check out the progression!

 

See how she's rubbing her toes together? She uses them like hands and even grabs things with them.  Funny enough, someone else in this house also does this with their feet.  One hint - it's not me!