I'm having a hard time believing Christmas is over. It came and went so fast this year. I fully enjoyed everything about it this year: the anticipation, the present hunting, the baking, the festivities. Annie is at an age where she doesn't fully understand what's going on, but she loved all of the get-togethers and present exchanges. And of course the toys that hung around after everything was over.
Annie had a wonderful Christmas. We had Christmas with Paul's Mom and Harvey on the 23rd, Christmas Eve with my family at our house, and then Christmas Day at my Mom & Dad's. She loved every minute of it. She needed a little help learning how to open the presents, but caught on pretty quickly that toys came out of that wrapping paper.
More Presents? 12.25.09 from porkchop on Vimeo.
She got some wonderful gifts. Favorites include a tea set, a dollhouse, a cool Scanimation book, a Magnadoodle, and a set of bristle blocks (that she loves to pour over her head for some reason). Oh, and several new DVDs, which make Mommy & Daddy happy for something a bit different after watching the same things over and over! 
Best of all, she got some great quality playtime in with her all of her grandparents, aunts, and uncles over the past week or so, which is pretty much her favorite thing right now. I love seeing her get so excited about family time. We're going to enjoy that as long as possible!
Right now we're nursing a post-Christmas cold (Annie & Paul) and enjoying my 2-week vacation to the fullest by holing up in our cozy living room during our coldest snowstorm of the year so far. We're reading lots of books, playing with our new toys, and watching our new movies. Paul's finishing up his last hour at work before coming home for the rest of the week. Yup, life's pretty great. It can stay this way a bit longer if it would like (well, except for the cold, of course!) :)
Christmas morning we woke up and opened our presents from Santa. She had a grand time helping rip the paper off. We made the rookie mistake of leaving her big gift in the box rather than assembling it before-hand, so we quickly put that together so she could check it out. A few weeks before Christmas I saw a commercial for a crawling/cruising/standing toy from Fisher Price. I had to have it, it was so damn cute. And she loves it, so yay! Paul stood her up to see the monkey at the top the first time she played with it, and within days she was crawling right over to pull herself up to play with him, and pulling herself up to stand on pretty much everything else too. We have a super baby, I'm telling you.
So after playing hard with her new toys, she promptly passed out and slept through present-opening at Grandma & Grandpa's. Luckily she woke up before my mom had to leave for work. She got lots of great presents from Grandma & Grandpa: a car/walker, a puzzle, a book about what snowmen do at night (one of Kev's old favorites), a stacker toy, her first baseball tee, a gloworm that she really loved and needed us to take it out of the package immediately, and her very favorite, a package of popping blocks. She hasn't let those out of her sight since! 
Christmas dinner was delicious as always, desserts were fabulous, and the game playing was so fun we ended up staying until 10! We played lots of Meg's Wii and lots of Apples to Apples, a gift from my parents. Annie took a mid-day nap for an hour or so (her Dad slept for 3 hours!!) and then took a 3-hour evening nap. We think she thought it was time for bed, because she doesn't usually sleep that late for evening nap.
New Year's Eve turned into a celebration of our first year of being parents: instead of our usual wild parties (not really), Annie and Griffin had a play date and the parents and Uncle Kris had some yummy pizza and Apples to Apples (an easy game to play in the living room while corralling crawling and toddling babies). Fin lasted until 9:45, which amazed all of us! Kris stayed on and played some Texas Hold Em with us after Kelly, Mike, and Griffin left. We all had a great time, and it was a nice, relaxing way to ring in the New Year as a family. 
So now our baby is 7 months old and she is crawling and standing all over the place. I am amazed and proud at how strong she is and how quickly she is learning how to do these things, but at the same time I'm hoping it all starts to slow down just a little bit. I don't want her baby-hood to pass by too fast, I'm enjoying it way too much! But at the same time every time I see her do something new I get a flash of all of the great stuff still to come, and I am so excited to watch it all play out. 
Oh yeah, and in other news: our bathroom sink broke on Christmas Eve, so everyone had to wash their hands in the kitchen sink all night. This past Friday, Paul's muffler fell off in the intersection before our house on his way home from work. Then the same Friday night we came home from celebrating Paul & Kaggie's birthday and our furnace was not working. So there are our 3 things, that's enough for us, okay universe? Counting our blessings: Paul got a beautiful new bathroom sink installed in time for our New Year's Eve gathering, we were able to get a new furnace installed in just a few hours the day after it broke by some very nice men from Crossfield (who saw we had a baby and made sure we had heat again as soon as possible and for no payments/zero interest for 9 months, thank god), and Paul rarely drives his car, so it's not an emergency to get that fixed. But still, hopefully that will be the end of it for us for a while!
She is healthy, happy, beautiful, amazing, and has shown us what true unconditional love feels like. Her smile melts my heart. I've never felt this kind of grateful in my life.
On our way up to find Niagara-on-the-Lake, we saw a sign for the butterfly conservatory and decided to check it out. I'm glad we did, we really enjoyed ourselves. Plus, it was fitting that we visit there: we released butterflies at our wedding as a tribute to my grandmother (the one Annie is named for). She loved butterflies. The butterfly house was huge and had a million butterflies (I don't really know how many they have, it just seemed like a whole lot), and the Niagara botanical gardens surrounded the house. Gorgeous. We saw lots of flowers and trees that we want for our yard. Annie was enthralled with the butterflies when we first walked in. So cute!
On our way out of the conservatory, I got a phone call from my sister Megan. I didn't answer right away because we were packing up the car, so when we got in the car to start driving to the falls, I listened to her message. She said to call her back when I got a chance, she had exciting news. I said, "She is so engaged." Paul got all excited. I haven't been wondering when they were going to get engaged or anything, so I don't know why I thought that right away. She and Tim have been together for 7 years and there was no doubt in my mind that they would be married someday. He is wonderful to her, and they are perfect for each other. They are both in grad school, and have a lot going on, so it made sense for them to wait a few years before getting married. But as soon as I heard that message I was so excited. I'm glad I turned out to be right, I might have been disappointed! ;) Paul was like, "call her back, call her back!!" Sure enough, Tim proposed that morning at a cider mill near their apartment in Michigan. Yay!! And too cool that they got engaged on our 5-year anniversary. Tim had no idea, but was pretty pleased with himself when Meg told him. How perfect is that?? So now we're all thrilled and excited for their wedding, which should be the summer after next. Can't wait! 
So after that excitement, we checked into our hotel right around the corner from Clifton Hill, and took a walk down to the falls. It was getting dark, the falls were beautiful. After our walk, we stopped by the restaurant that shares a parking lot with our hotel. We ate on the patio because it was beautiful out. I had spinach gnocchi and Paul had some sort of meat (I'm pretty sure it was steak). :) Their bread was fabulous. The staff was really nice and loved Annie. We got free dessert to go because they screwed up our ticket in the kitchen so it took a while for our food to arrive. Which figured because Annie was happy for the amount of time it would have taken us to get our dinner if they had brought it out on time. She got cranky when we were waiting and I had to hold her while I was eating. Which is what we end up doing at home a lot of the time anyway! She has a knack for getting fussy right when we want to eat. She's such a good baby otherwise though, I really can't complain about that one thing!
We never did end up going to Niagara-on-the-Lake, we spent too much time walking along the falls. We wanted to go down to the barge stuck at the top of the falls to read the plaque about it because Paul had never seen it, and all I could remember was that two guys were stuck there overnight. I told him I thought it happened in the 30's, but he couldn't believe that it would be stuck there that long. Turns out it happened in 1918! They saved themselves by opening the bottom doors which wedged into the rocks. It's amazing that they survived. Plus they probably had no idea how close they were since it was dark. Terrifying!
Anyway, it was a really long walk, but we enjoyed it. I fed Annie in the little park by the barge and Paul took a little nap on our blanket. On our walk back the sun came out full force and we saw rainbows over the falls. 
Overall, a wonderful way to celebrate 5 years of marriage, and the next phase of our marriage as parents. Yesterday a woman at the outlet mall was telling me how cute Annie is, and then said, "you are so lucky." She was so right. 
Saturday night we went over to play Wiii with our friends Kris & Kelly. We had a really fun time eating junk and playing Wii sports games. That boxing game is quite the workout! I also discovered that I royally suck at Guitar Hero. Like, really bad. It's pretty hopeless. I had fun anyway, and they all had fun laughing at me. :) Annie had a good time watching and playing with her toys. Kris gave her a pink stuffed dolphin that he had, and she is mesmerized by it. It's very cute! 
Sunday was State Fair day! It was so nice out, but it was super crowded at the fair. We hid out at the draft competitions for a while and then ventured out into the crowd. (And what a crowd it was. People watching at the fair is...um...interesting, to say the least!) Annie slept for most of the day. When she woke up she was happy walking around for a few hours. We went back to the horse building to watch another competition while we fed her a bottle. I brought pumped milk and a thermos full of hot water to heat up the bottle, and it worked out perfectly. A relief since it would have been nearly impossible to find a spot to nurse her discreetly in that crowd! Rascal Flatts and Taylor Swift were playing that night, so when people started heading to the concert, it cleared out considerably. We had a lot of fun visiting all of the animals (the bunnies, guinea pigs, and goats are my favorites, Paul loves the pigs) and walking around the buildings. We got our milk from the dairy bar (only 2 little cups for me, since I still have to lay off too much dairy!) and headed home around 9:30. It was a fun day, we love the fair. 
Monday we headed to the beach for a picnic lunch. Annie and Paul snoozed the day away while I read a magazine. When she woke up we took her to the water to dip her toes in. She looked really confused and concerned, but overall she seemed like she didn't hate it. I'm excited for next year when she'll be old enough to wear sunscreen so we can take her all the way in!
So that was our first week with Mommy back at work. Not too bad, and a great weekend to cap it off!
We had her one month checkup on Saturday morning. She's doing really well. She is up to 10 lbs, 11 oz, and 23 and a half inches. Everything looks great developmentally. Sad news for me though: I have to give up all dairy for the next two weeks. She's had a few episodes of projectile vomiting over the past few weeks, and since it happens at the end of the day each time, and since so much comes out, the doctor thinks it might have something to do with my diet. She said when she was breastfeeding she had the same experience and it worked for them. I really, really hope that it's not a dairy thing, that's the staple of my diet. I don't know what I'd do without milk and cheese. At the same time, it would be a relatively simple solution. If she has another episode she wants to take some 
Fourth of July weekend was great. The weather was absolutely beautiful, and we took advantage of it. Paul was home Friday and Saturday, so we had some nice family time. Friday we had my sister Kathryn and a few friends over for a small cookout and campfire. Paul was disappointed we can't go to the fireworks for a few years because of little ears, but we heard all of the shows while we were sitting around the campfire, so that was kind of fun. Saturday we had her doctor's appointment at 9, and then went to the public market and grocery shopping afterwards. That afternoon both sets of grandparents, Uncle Kevin, and Aunt Kathryn came by for another cookout. Everyone really enjoyed visiting with Annie, and she was very happy snuggling up and sleeping on everyone. Sunday Paul conquered his fear of heights and cleaned out the gutters while Annie and I supervised. Well, I supervised and held the ladder, Annie slept the day away on my lap and in her rocker. She's sleepy again today--I've got her strapped on in the Baby Bjorn as I'm typing this. These things are great, I have two hands again!
Oh, other news: Annie is wearing a 3 month sized outfit today and it is not huge on her like it was before, so her wardrobe is going to be that much bigger now. She still fits into most of her 0-3 outfits too, I only had to put away a few things so far. Out of all of the different sized clothing we got, 3-6 months was the most popular size. I'm really excited to dig into those! I'm sure there will be more photo sessions now too. ;0)
