Christmas Day

After a very looong Christmas eve filled with a very hysterical Jacie, Christmas day finally arrived. Jacie was having a hard time adjusting to being in a house with so many people and a different time zone. We tried nursing her to sleep, holding her, letting her cry it out with Uncle Doug and Aunt Lynette, Daddy rocking, and anything else we could think of. However, it was the Tylenol and hour long drive over the snow covered hill that did it. I had to hold her and rock her in the car while she cried herself to sleep. I could not figure out what was wrong! It was a heart wrenching end to a wonderful day. When Christmas morning finally arrived, Jacie slept through the gift opening extravaganza. I refused to wake the sleeping babe!! However, when she did finally wake up, she enjoyed her fun gifts from Santa, Mom and Dad, and Nana.

She sure seemd to enjoy the opening of the stocking! In her stocking, there was a set of stacker cups, little balls of different textures, a Reese's Peanut Butter Tree, Gerber Graduates Cherry Puffs, and something else I can't recall. Nana had stockings made for all of the kids, and hung them on her chimney. It looked awesome!
These little snacks are her favorite! She loves to pick them up and gobble them, and will cry if you take the container away.
Oh yes, she got a baby orange in her stocking!! I ate that, along with her peanut butter tree for her.
See the Christmas jammies? Nice and toasty...

Christmas Eve at Nana's House

Christmas time finally arrived! We spent a fun-filled day with Nana and all the Leonard cousins! Jacie got along really well with all of the kids, but especially loved the baby Eliza. She wanted to squish and squeeze her like she does her lamb. Christmas eve, we opened the gifts that were traded amongst families and kids (we draw names, so each kid has another kid and each adult couple has another couple). Jacie got a super fun fishbowl that makes noise when you drop the fish in. She especially loves to take things out of the fish bowl, so we fill it up with little balls and things for her to take out. We also opened up our Christmas jammies. It was fun to start a tradition as a family.



This is Jacie's cousin Hayley. Deryk can partially be seen to the left. Hayley was a big helper the week we were home!

Detroit Friends

For Ryan’s birthday, we drove down to Detroit to spend the day with our good friends Dave and Syd Young. They have two adorable kids, too. We had a good time as the kids played with Jacie, and went out to dinner. The next day, we got dressed up and went to church. The Young’s were all dressed to match, and I couldn’t resist a moment to take a picture of the kids! They are all so cute!! After church, they were very kind and drove us to the airport for our flight home. Thank goodness for good friends!
Jacie and Maddy playing together.

Jacie was having a hard time crawling on the wood floor, and slid herlsef into the corner and got stuck.

Here she is in her Christmas dress! She hated it, too fluffy for her liking. See the finger pointing? She just started doing that this last month. She points at everything and babbles. She pointed at a bird last night and said "do-daa". Why should she conform to our language when she has her own?

The Kleenex Box

Why is it that kids love to pull tissues out of the box, pull toilet paper from the roll or anything else they are not supposed to do? Look around her, she has toys, so why the kleenex?? She goes for that box every single time she sees is. I could have saved some money at Christmas and just bought her a box of tissue!

Christmas as a Family

We celebrated Christmas just a tad bit early this year. Since we were headed to Idaho for the big holiday, we decided to open our gifts to each other in Michigan. Jacie got a couple of new fun toys, and Ryan and I each got a cocoa machine. Yep, that’s right, we each bought the other the same gift. Thank goodness for hassle free returns! Jacie bought her Daddy a tie for Christmas…a tradition I think we will continue. It was so much fun watching her open gifts, and enjoying the wrapping paper. I had no idea watching someone else open gifts could be so much fun!

She didn't really care about her gifts, just the paper. She likes to eat it.

The Cocoa machine was really from Jacie.

Friends Friends Friends

Jacie had some friends over the other day. Aren’t they cute?! This is Violet Noel. She is becoming a lot more social, and hopefully will be a bit easier on her sitters this semester!

Violet wanted to copy Jacie, so they both laid on the floor. Silly girls!

Christmas Pictures Take One

I tried to take pictures the other night for our Christmas card (which has not gone out yet!). I should have been ready with the camera when I very first put the hat on her head. She wore it for a good long time. I could’ve gotten a great shot, but I was a little slow on the uptake. Instead, we got a lot of pictures with her pulling it off. Still, we managed to get one that will work.

Christmas Pictures Take Two

Trying to get those christmas shots!

The Crawl

Here is the almost crawl. She is smart, I tell ya. She won’t do it if she can see me or Ryan, but when she thinks she is alone she will do it a lot! We will stand in the kitchen and watch her, and she will go all over the place, hanging out on her knees. But if we are there, she insists on walking or sitting on her bum.

Friends

I tried to take pictures the other night for our Christmas card (which has not gone out yet!). I should have been ready with the camera when I very first put the hat on her head. She wore it for a good long time. I could’ve gotten a great shot, but I was a little slow on the uptake. Instead, we got a lot of pictures with her pulling it off. Still, we managed to get one that will work.

Are these really my parents?

Ryan is always putting toys on his head to entertain kids. This time, he thought he would try it out with the toy on Jacie’s head. She didn’t care for that so much. Then again, she was tired. Sunday’s are hard days for her.

Wiped out and ready for bed!!

Come in Star Command, do you read me?

I bought her these ear-phones to go with the portable DVD player for the trip to Idaho. She hated them at first, but after several attempts with them plugged in to the DVD and she realizes sound comes out, she is ok with them. However, if I try to put them on myself, she cries when she looks at me. Must look kinda scary. I showed her what she looked like with them on in the mirror and she had a serious meltdown.

Destructo Baby

Ryan calls her Destructo-baby. Judging by this picture, she sure is!! I clean up her toys every day…several times every day. I will put them all in her bin after she goes down for her morning nap, after she goes down for her afternoon nap, and then after she goes to bed. She loves to make a mess, and its ok by me, because she enjoys doing it.

Giggling Girl

This video just shows Jacie giggling, so if that kind of stuff bores you, skip right over it! This is especially for my niece Challis who LOVES that the sound works on her computer, now! Love you, Challis!!

Have I posted this giggling girl lately? We have this habit I’ve mentioned before. Its of me making the bed and placing her up by my pillow and making the bed around her. Its become a play time for us and as soon as I put her up there, she gets so excited. This particular time, I was fluffing the blanket up into the air to straighten it out and she fell into a fit of giggles. After a couple of times, she started to fluff the blanket herself. I love this stage of babies. She totally wants to play and knows when it is play time! On the other hand, she has really developed that “stranger danger” thing and will not go to anyone that is not Mom or Dad or the Ross boys.

New Developments

Jacie has several new developments. First, she is crawling (yeah!!!), though only about one or two knee movements, but its crawling! Next, when she flops onto her belly from being on her knees, she will push up and sit back on her bum. She’s never done this before, and so the first time she did it I second guessed myself. She was on her belly, and then all of a sudden she was sitting up. I thought, “hmmm…I guess I imagined her being on her belly”. Then a few minutes later she did it again, and I actually saw her do it. Pretty clever girl. Next, as this picture illustrates, she loves to sit with her legs up on whatever is in front of her. That’s her preferred method for sitting in her highchair. In fact, she can pull herself all the way up and over the front rail. So…we have now initiated the buckle. Oh , and she is on to people food now. We are running through the last bit of baby food so it doesn’t go to waist, but she is getting really good at gumming down almost anything we give her.

Busy Ball Popper

We broke out one of the new Christmas gifts for Jacie. I’m still going to wrap the empty box and let her pull off the paper. It was the Busy Ball Popper toy and at first, she had no idea what was going on. I think she was a little freaked out by it, actually. Soon enough, she figured out that when the music stops, you push the red button down and it will go again. She loved it!! The Ross boys are with us this weekend (Kris and Nathanial), and they had a blast playing with it with her. She sure knows how to make boys jump through hoops for her!

Not So Happy Princess

Today Jacie had a bunch of friends over for a play date. It was actually play group and I took a turn hosting it at my house. It was really fun. We get together every Friday morning and have breakfast and the kids run around and play. Today, there were six kids, plus Jacie. We ate some yummy but very overcooked cinnamon rolls and the Moms chatted about Mom stuff. How nice it was to not think of school for a couple of hours!! Jacie and I played the rest of the day. It was really nice to focus on just her and not papers. I think she appreciated it, too.
Apparently, she didn't want to be the Princess today.

Its Christmas Time

We decorated for Christmas the other night. Well, at least part way. We got the tree up and some ornaments on it before the game came on (Steelers, of course) and all decorating stopped. However, we put up the baby’s first Christmas ornaments and it was so exciting for us to actually have a reason to put these up! Jacie loved it. We have a LOT of singing frogs, and she enjoyed playing with them. I’m sure we will go through a lot of batteries this Christmas season!

Anyone up for a good story? I wanted to get matching stockings this year, it being our first Christmas together and all. I went to this super cool craft store and couldn't find anything I liked, so I decided to find stockings that fit our personalities instead. I let Jacie pick out her own by holding up a few different ones and whatever one she picked would be it. Can you believe she didn't want the pink one?! Anyway, I found the fishing wader stocking and thought of Ryan. Next up, me. I found a big stocking and it said "I've been very very very nice". I thought that was a great one for me. Working hard, trying my best yada yada yada. When Ryan got home that night, I decided to show him the stockings. I held mine up to him and said "Nice, huh?" He had this very odd look on his face. I tried to explain that is was the biggest stocking we have, and I picked it out for me as a joke...whatever. Come to find out, the side Ryan saw (that I didn't see while I was in the store) said "I've been very very very naughty". Needless to say, I have my 'Judy' stocking hanging up instead. Playing with the Bead roller after the beads were put on the tree.
Whose turn is it now? Who, who? Which one is gonna make some noise??