Christmas morning video

'Tis the season with friends

'Tis the season with family

Isla's First Christmas

We journeyed to Holly for most of this past week to celebrate the season. Wednesday night my mom hosted the Hammes family for dinner. Thursday night we had the Allens over for dinner, and all the Hammes and Allen kids stayed for drinks and laughs. Friday night we had the Salisburys and Eatons over for Christmas Eve. Christmas Day we headed to Monica's, and Isla quickly learned the art of ripping wrapping paper off her presents. We made it home safely early this afternoon, though we still have much unpacking to do. Isla has been a busy bee playing with her activity table, Zany Zoo cube, Violet puppy, Busy Ball Popper, Mickey Mouse airplane and some other new toys. We still have a wrapped present under the tree for her, but we've decided to wait a few days to give that to her. I need to get her 'baby' toys in storage to make room for the new ones!

10 months old

It's really hard for us to comprehend that our little Isla is already 10 months old. She's a wild and funny little lady. She's still not crawling, but she rolls and rolls to get wherever she wants to be. She's eating pretty much everything that we eat, and she really enjoyed all the rich food over the holiday season (we think her belly certainly shows that!). She's still a champion sleeper, and we comfortably left her with her first real babysitter, Lauren, a couple of weeks ago. She took her third plane ride when we traveled to Minneapolis earlier this month and was a champion traveler, and her next trip will be to San Diego in early February. She has a new little fake laugh and fake cough now, and she knows that doing certain things will make us laugh. She loved seeing so many family and friends over the holidays and having so many people around. Her top two teeth broke through this past week without too much trauma, so we're anxious to see what her smile will look like when they are fully through. We just feel so blessed to have such a happy and fun and healthy baby in our lives!

Visit from the Eastmans

We were so happy that the Eastmans were able to fit us into their trip back to Colorado and Nebraska for the holidays. They spent the night with us on Monday, and we spent the evening catching up and laughing and sipping bubbly. We wish that we'd had more time with them but we so happy they were able to stop by and meet Isla for the first time.

Minneapolis Trip

Isla and I journeyed to Minneapolis on December 12 to visit my best friend Geri and her little bubbas. They had just gotten a huge dumping of snow, so we all stayed cozy inside catching up and oohing and ahhing over the kiddos. Isla loved Baby Camden and Brody wasn't sure what to think of Isla playing with his toys. It was so so so great to spend a lazy week of quality time with Ger, and it certainly won't be as long between our next visit! Many many thanks to my husband for organizing this surprise trip!

Little bookworm

Isla has started taking a real interest in her books, so we've fit it into her nightly routine to read her a couple. Right now her favorites are 'Goodnight Moon' and 'The Very Hungry Caterpillar'...two classics.

A visit with jolly ol' St. Nicholas

As you can tell by the photo, Isla wasn't the happiest to be sitting on Santa's lap. She didn't freak out, but when we had round #2 with him to try to get a 'happy' photo, she did scream a bit. We've been trying to teach her to say 'Ho Ho Ho'!