Santa Baby

Christmas this year has been a much needed time of doing nothing and spending quality time with family and friends. Cooper is enjoying her first time to the northwest, although we are constantly fighting the cold, trying to keep our little thin blooded babe warm, and as a constantly cold person myself, I sometimes maybe over bundle her when we leave the house, which means she passes out in her car seat pretty much any time we go anywhere. She loves Poppa and Gigi's kitty, Zeke, and he, along with Emmie and Avery, seem to be the motivation she needed to figure out this crawling thing. She is rolling and scooting and pushing and straining all over the place, she is into everything she can get her little hands on. She can pretty easily get onto her hands and knees, but from there she has a little trouble controlling her limbs and weight, and she usually ends up in pushup position until she throws her weight in a certain direction. She also has gotten to try out a walker, which just in two weeks she has figured out how to control and she now cruises all over and is able to get into even more stuff! She cruises by the coffee table and picks stuff up, goes into the kitchen and pulls the towels off the oven, and tries to get to anyone that is paying attention to her (which is of course, most of us most of the time ;) ). As far as her first Christmas goes, she was thrilled with her stocking, pulling all kinds of interesting stuff out of this big thing, but she really wasn't too excited about the rest of the opening. We thought she would love the wrapping paper, since she loves to crinkle and rip paper, but she didn't seem to want it when we wanted her to rip it! She also had to take a nap during some of present opening, but it didn't matter since she didn't care too much about it anyway. She got some new stuffed animals and a baby and a couple books, which she has loved, but the really exciting part for her has been to be around animals and other little ones. She adores her cousins and they are so sweet to her, it is really fun to watch them. Anyway, here are a couple more pics of her in her first Christmas hat. But be warned of nudity.

Hair update!

Here is a good picture that shows off my little baldy baby!


She is actually getting a little more hair coming in, and it is looking strawberry (sometimes...in bright light is still looks light blond...I'm going for the official color as light strawberry blond) and you can kinda tell now in pictures!


Another picture to show that it's actually pretty uniform around her head, too!


I had to add this one because it is such a funny looking face, this is her "yayayayayayaya" face, where she stretches her mouth really wide and squinshed her eyes and says ya over and over. And note: if you look really close you can see those bottom teeth poking through!


And finally I loved this picture because she is defining "chill" here. "I think I'll just lounge around here in my robe and let Mom bring me some food and massage my back!"

And so it begins

The constant monitoring that a mobile munchkin that doesn't understand the word "no" needs, that is. So our little crazy bug is starting to get the urge to move, she is starting to get frustrated about not being able to get to things she wants to explore (ie, the neighbors dog, other little kids, whatever Mom has taken away and set out of reach). So Jesse has been demonstrating for her how it will feel to crawl, and I keep telling her that if she would roll from back to tummy, which she should have been able to do several months ago, she could probably propell herself around. However, she is too impatient to try any of those, she wants to move now, and when she can't she gets mad and melts down. All that to say, little miss immobile was sitting in her usual play spot in the living room and she full out face dove and rolled to get to the entertainment center. Like literally lunged belly first and then rolled onto her back (the way that she does already roll). And of course, I had my camera handy. Now lets just hope she doesn't figure out she can actually move around the house that way!


She started out sitting in her boppy, that pillow thing on the floor on the blanket, and the next thing I know she was over there.


And "over there" has lots of good things to play with! I'm just glad she can't pull up yet!

The stockings are hung by the chimney with care

Well it is officially Christmastime, and we got into the spirit this weekend and decked our halls (mostly just our mantel and rooftop, actually ;) ). Jesse crawled around on the roof both Saturday and Sunday (we decided after it got dark Saturday night that we didn't have enough lights...I said we got into the spirit!) and made our house all pretty. Really all I did was hang the stockings, and Cooper slept, ate, and played with her toys. She is really enjoying her first Christmas! Seriously though, we have walked her down the street to look at the lights, and she is loving them, and fires in the fireplace. And she likes to dance around to Christmas music, but she likes to dance around to any music. Or I guess be danced around is more like it. Anyway, we are excited about making it feel more like Christmas, since it still feels like early fall here, with chilly nights, but daytime highs into the 60s and 70s. I cannot believe Christmas is so close (and I haven't started shopping yet!) but I can't wait to head home where I hear it definitely feels like winter, and we can spend this special time of year with people that we love. Oh, and the weather was just on tv, and our high for today is 52! Yeeks! Maybe we won't have to go home for cold weather!


I bet you aren't used to seeing people hang Christmas lights in t-shirts!


We had a beautiful sunset Saturday night, which was the perfect start to going inside and lighting a fire and drinking cocoa


Our little polar bear, with her favorite new toy, her sippy cup. She actually has drunk out of it, but only on accident.

We've achieved teeth!

Cooper has had symptoms of teething for many months now, and I was pretty convinced they were never going to come, but several days ago she suddenly became quite vocal about letting me know that she was not feeling her very best. After trying to cram various other objects into her mouth to help her subside the noise (aka, shutup) I finally crammed my finger in and was surprised by a sharp little jab into my finger tip. A tooth had appeared! And actually, upon further investigation, it is not just one tooth, but two! Alas, there are no pictures yet, we all know that there is nothing I would rather do than take pictures of the munchkin, as there is nothing yet to see. Well, when she is hollering, you can actually see where they are coming through, and we have gotten ample opportunity to check that out, but you wouldn't be able to tell in pictures yet. But just to keep all the picture people happy, here are some others that I took the other day that will definitely make you smile.