Christmas, Family, Love

We had a beautiful Christmas. We went to 4:00 PM Christmas Eve Mass, which went really well, considering the fact that when Mass started we had been sitting in Church for as long as Mass normally lasts (it's quite crowded, hence we got there early so we didn't have to sit 3 1/2 miles from the altar). Gemma got a bit noisy around the homily, but other than that she was a real champ! I was proud of her.

She was very excited to open her present from Santa on Christmas morning. We filmed her when we went in to get her up and then she crawled out and saw her present. It was pretty cute. I got some great pics, I'll post a few of them below.

Pretty Gemma in her Christmas dress (a $5 pick-up from a consignment sale, I might add!!!)
Our family after Mass at St. Elizabeth's
Mommy and her baby girl
Playing with cousin Cooper
This was the wrapping paper from one of Aaron's aunt's presents...she seriously goes all out. The presents were wrapped like Mr. and Mrs. Claus. My bro and sis-in-law John and Alyssa are modeling the remnants of the packaging.
Reading her new book (Polar Bear, Polar Bear, What Do You Hear) with Daddy on Christmas morning
Opening a present...she was pretty good at it!
"Sisters"
Grandma and Grandpa with their grand-kiddos Ira and Gemma
Siblings...Drew, Mandy, Michelle and Monica
Ready to call it a day!
Putting Baby Jesus in the manger before going to bed on Christmas night
In her bed the morning after Christmas...she really likes her glow-seahorse that Santa brought her.
Christ the Savior is born...Merry Christmas to ALL!!

More pigtails, and the ultimate bed-head

Can you tell that I think my daughter just looks too stinkin' precious with her piggy-tails?!!
However, this recent spurt of hair-doing at our house does have it's drawbacks...such as hair like this when you wake up from your nap!

Brown Bear, Brown Bear, what do you see?

Recently, Gemma has had a huge affinity for reading. She just loves her books. And she just started doing the cutest thing. She'll crawl back to her bedroom and over to the book basket, and then she'll dig through it, sorting her books out on the floor, until she comes across "Brown Bear". She will then squeal, say "Brown Bear" (as best as she can) crawl over to me, hand me the book, and pull up on the chair beside me so I can pick her up. We read along happily until we get to the end, at which point she gets agitated so we read it again. And again. And sometimes again. The other night I listened to Aaron read it to her four times in a row. It is soooo precious, and I am just thrilled that my baby girl has such a love for books at this young age.

Here it is, I found it!
See, "Brown Bear"
Turning the pages for mommy
I see a yellow duck looking at me
And a blue horse...and a green frog. She loves tapping the book to the rhythm of the words, and pointing at the pictures.
We love story-time.

Pigtails

The weekend

I thought this picture was sweet!
We've had a nice weekend so far. Last night we had Aaron's secretary Marcia and her husband Bruce over for the "office Christmas party". It was nice, Aaron baked some salmon and we had lots of fancy side dishes and some good wine. Well, I had wine. Aaron and Bruce drank Guinness, and Marcia had, like, a tablespoon of wine mixed in with some Ginger-Ale. Oh well, I have this handy-dandy little deal that re-corks the bottles, so I'm sure I'll get to it in the near future...and in the meantime it will stay nice and fresh. Anyways, back to our evening... after dinner we played Phase 10 and called it a fairly early night (story of our life!) I enjoyed having it at our place because I was able to give Gemma a bath and put her to bed at the normal time, in her bed, etc. Oh and for the record, her nights have gotten tons better. And I think I've discovered the culprit to the rough nights earlier in the week: hunger. I had been trying to do more finger-foods with her, and I think she just wasn't getting enough. We're back to pureed stuff now and that's just fine!

Had a cold front blow through this morning and my what a change in the weather. Went from mid-fifties to lower-thirties in the matter of an hour. That hour just happened to be while we were at Mass, so I was really regretting not bringing any coats when we walked out into about a 40mph north wind. Brrrrrrrrr... The puppy dog was supposed to have a bath this AM, but that obviously didn't happen.

Oh, and I've got to talk about little miss Gemma and the Christmas tree. She's really done great with it all-in-all. At first I think it intimidated her and she didn't go near it. Then, there was this one ornament that she was constantly going for. Well, now she crawls up to the tree, sits in front of it, points and says "pretty", then shakes her head "no". It's pretty cute!!

Hmmmmm, not a whole lot else going on. Getting ready to eat lunch, but I will cease from boring you with any more of the mundane. So, until next time... Later-gators!

Eleven months

Yep, that's right. My precious little girl is eleven months old today. One month from today she will be one year. It brings tears to my eyes just thinking about it...not because I'm sad, but because I'm just so amazed at this past year. Being a mom is the best ever. I won't gush too much, though, I'll save that for the "One Year" post, teehee. Here's the obligatory pic-o-the-day. Did this one in her jammies because I think she looks sweet in them.
In other news, the girl seems to do something new every day. Yesterday morning Aaron went in to get her up, and he hollered for me to come. This is what we found.
First time she had done that!!! She's not much for rolling over from her back, so we usually find her right where we left her. Well, unless she's been awake for awhile, in which case we find her with her little head all crammed up in the corner of the bed. "One baby, corner pocket", we say.

Last night was a verrrrry rough night...after a rather rough day (at least in the nap dept.) Not sure what is going on...I think it's either teething or gas but really am not sure. Poor girl. And I try so hard to be pateint, but doggone sometimes it's just frustrating. We both had "happy-nappies" this morning though, and that put a much brighter outlook on the day. We'll see how tonight goes, I'm not holding my breath. BUT, whatever will be will be. I have many blessings, and many things for which to be thankful. This is just one of those little bumps in the road, and in the big picture not a very big deal. Easier to believe at 2PM, though, than 2AM. Ahhh well, such is life.

On to something else, the Christmas letters/pics are finished and ready to mail so YAY for that. It was quite the undertaking. Shopping and wrapping is another story, but hey, it's only the 11th, right??? Yeah, there's always tomorrow.

Well, I think I'll wrap this up. Thanks for checking in.

Good St. Nick

Gemma had the opportunity to meet St. Nick this weekend at our parish pancake and sausage feed. She thought he was pretty interesting from afar. I won't waste words on what she thought of sitting on his lap, the picture speaks for itself.

Checking in

Hello! Just not a whole lot going on around here. Thought I'd update though, as it's been almost a week. Gemma has recently started pulling herself up on furniture. It's pretty cute, she looks so tall. She seems to be frustrated that she can't actually crawl up onto the furniture though, and she hasn't quite figured out how to sit back down on her own. Seems she figures something new out every day. As I've mentioned before, she's in the process of dropping her AM nap, and it's actually been working out quite well. However, the poor girl is wiped-OUT by lunch time. I've started moving her lunch up a bit earlier, too, since one day I went over to the counter to mash some banananas (yes, I know I misspelled that, that's how we spell it at our house) for her, and when I turned around this is what I saw. Pretty precious, but I prefer her to sleep in her bed, so off we went. Suffice it to say there weren't many banananas eaten at that lunch!
We tried something a little new for dinner Tuesday evening: squid and bacon pizza. Pizza is kind of our traditional Tuesday PM dinner...and we typically have more traditional toppings, but we both like squid (we fix it in stir-fry once in awhile), and thought it would be fun to try. Well, it was OK. I don't think we'll make it again. It was fair, Aaron just wasn't a huge fan overall, said it was too salty among other things (this coming from the world's UNpickiest eater), and my biggest issue was actually the bacon. The taste just seemed to overpower everything else. OH well, it was fun to try, and here's a picture to commemorate the event. Yep, that's a squid in my hand. Next time I think we'll leave the squid for stir-fry.
And here's a sweet pic of Gemma-goo after her bath last night. The towel is the one I made for her about a month ago. It was a fun and EASY little sewing project. And if I say it was easy, then that most definitely means it was easy. I'm not exactly known for my patience when it comes to little projects like that.
My latest project is getting our Christmas mailing together and out. Yeeeesh, methinks we know too many people. I'm not even going to say how many we're mailing out, I'll just tell you that I have 33 finished, and many many more to go. Well, TTFN folks. Have a great weekend!!