Baby Bookworm

Lately Morgan has been very into her books. She can often be found sitting on the floor paging through them, forward, then backwards...sometimes looking at them upside down. In the picture below she is looking at her "Good Night San Francisco" book given to her by her Aunt Ali. Can you see the page with Lombard Street?

Tonight when we were doing the bedtime routine Morgan was sitting on my lap and David was reading the stories. He didn't always hold up the book for her to see. This annoyed her a bit because she'd stop drinking her sippy cup of milk and lean over to see the book. Whenever we finish the stories she always looks at the pile of books as if to say "read another one!"

When I read to her before naps she likes to turn the pages. I have to be stealthy about it though and not actually make the page "available" to turn until I'm almost done with the words. If I hook my finger in the next page too soon she'll grab it and turn it before I'm ready.

We're glad she is enjoying the stories and hope she continues to develop a love for reading.

My Bottle-less Baby

Tonight we quit the bottle...hopefully for good. For a few weeks now, Morgan has been down to one bottle a day, before bed. I dragged my feet on this for a few weeks after her Dr. appointment. It just breaks my heart to know my baby is so big she doesn't need a bottle anymore. Sniff sniff.

I decided it was going to be harder on me than her so I set a deadline for tonight to change the routine. We did her normal bath time routine. After we put on her jammies, we turned down the lights and I sat with her in the glider. I gave her a sippy cup with her milk instead of the bottle. While she sipped David read her a few stories, then we sang a few Christmas songs. Finally we turned the lights all the way off, had kisses and prayers and in the crib she went. She took a little while longer than usual to fall asleep, but she wasn't upset. Possibly it was because she had a late nap today.

Eventually the sippy cup will go too, but we thought it was a good transition from the bottle (as suggested by the doctor). One more hurdle jumped...we hope, as I hear her stirring in the other room. Sleep baby sleep...

Let it Snow!

We have had quite the snowfall in the past two days! David was out of town in the Tri-Cities, so I tackled the driveway the first night. I think we had about 8-12 inches at that time. It took me about an hour to clear the driveway and sidewalk. Luckily Morgan was napping during this time. I was pretty proud of myself for getting it done! Luckily the snow was pretty dry and fluffy.

The next day I woke up and driveway was covered again and then some. Our nice neighbors/friends offered to use their snow blower on the driveway that day since they knew David was out of town. I was keeping David in the loop on the storm throughout his trip. He'd managed to avoid a lot of it, but he set off for home a little earlier than planned to make sure he could get home yesterday. At about 3:00 pm he walked in the front door (note: he usually comes in the door from the garage)with his suitcase, announcing that he'd made it within 3 blocks, then the car got stuck, even with 4WD. A few hours later another neighbor with a truck/snowplow contraption plowed a lane through the neighborhood so we could get in and out again. Yay! David was then able to dig out the car and get it home. Whew!

These are a few shots of the neighborhood this morning. The sun is out and it's beautiful, but we hear there's another storm coming on Sunday. Here's David snow blowing the driveway:

A view the other direction down the street:

Here are a few shots I tried to get of the back slider door in the kitchen that leads to the backyard. I hope you can make them out. The "shadow" at the bottom of the door is actually how high the snow was blown up the back of the house. If you look further out in the backyard you can see big snowdrifts. The snow is pretty deep throughout the yard. Crazy, huh?

The blob to the left is our Weber grill...oops! It didn't make it into the garage before the storm hit.

I guess we're pretty much guaranteed a white Christmas this year! I heard we set a record for snowfall in the area, about 20 inches within 24 hours. Some areas got up to 37 inches!

Wordless Wednesday: Soooo Big (again)

Random

It didn't turn out to be quite as cold as we thought it would be, so we ventured out for some errands today. Morgan enjoyed rides through both Costco and Target, our favorites. Other than that we did some playing and "practiced" walking...she's not holding quite so tight to our hands and sometimes even sort of takes off without us having to pull her. It still may be a while though.

In honor of some of Morgan's favorite birthday gifts, here are a few pictures to show them in use!

Thank you for my cute outfit Grandma and Grandpa B! We love the colors!

Morgan's new "car" from Gramma and Grampa A was a hit at the birthday party! Most of the little kids took a turn.

Hunkering Down

Morgan and Mommy are hunkering down at home for a few days. It's COLD here! Now, I know it's not Minnesota or North Dakota cold, but not too far off. The high today is supposed to be 6 and the low -2. The next two days will be colder, with lows to 10 below. This cold snap is going to last a week, but the next few days will be the coldest. The worst part is the wind...the newscast just said, depending where you are, it can feel up to -20 degrees! The wind at night makes me feel like one of the three pigs who are waiting for the big bad wolf to blow their house down.

It was cold yesterday too. We went to church and then did a few errands. At one store we took a quick walk from the car into the store and Morgan's face was blotchy red by the time we got inside. That's when we decided to stay put at home for a bit. I'm sure I'll be stir crazy by Wednesday, though. Maybe a quick walk a few houses down to the neighbor's house will be a good outing?

We got our Christmas tree on Saturday! Actually David braved the cold tree lot to pick it out. It's a sweet little noble fir. We have the lights on and are working on the ornaments...pictures to come.

Here are a few shots of Morgan from her bath time last night. Instead of the bathroom "fly-by" we've been letting her stand by the tub and watch it fill up. We think she had enough of the fly-by because lately she's become kind of impatient with it. She's so cute as she bangs her hands on the side of the tub and bends her knees in anticipation.

Priorities

The following is a story I got from an Adventures in Motherhood group at church. It is worth reading...often. It's also especially good for this time of year:

A group of alumni, highly established in their careers, got together to visit their old university professor. Conversation soon turned into complaints about stress in work and life.

Offering his guests coffee, the professor went to the kitchen and returned with a large pot of coffee and an assortment of cups - porcelain, plastic, glass, crystal, some plain looking, some expensive, some exquisite - telling them to help themselves to coffee.

When all the former students had a cup of coffee in hand, the professor said, "If you notice, all the nice-looking, expensive cups were taken up, leaving behind the plain and cheap ones. While it's normal for you to want only the best for yourselves, that is the source of your problems and stress. Be assured that the cup itself adds no quality to the coffee. In most cases it is just more expensive and in some cases even hides what we drink. What all of you really wanted was coffee, not the cup, but you consciously went for the best cups...and then you began eyeing each other's cups.

Consider this: Life is the coffee, the jobs, money and position in society are the cups. They are just tools to hold and contain Life, and the type of cup we have does not define, nor change the quality of the life we live.

Sometimes by concentrating only on the cup, we fail to enjoy the coffee.

The happiest people don't have the best of everything. They just make the best of everything."