Future Rock Climber

Nicole has been pulling herself up for about a month now, and she's getting really good at it. She'll just stand at our media cabinet for 45 minutes and entertain herself (which I am not complaining about!).


Her newest trick is pulling herself up on her dresser. I open the bottom drawer and she pulls herself to standing, and then she opens the top drawer and hangs on that. She has started to stand on her toes and reach for the top of the dresser and once she gets a good grip she'll lift her leg like she's trying to climb it.

Alex decided that he would teach her to step on the knobs so she can better hang from the top of the dresser (I know, genius). I couldn't resist taking this picture - and Alex was so proud when she hung there for a minute by herself.

Fun Stuff

Nicole is growing up so fast and getting into everything! As I type, she has crawled over to the bookshelf and taken some of her baby shampoo off of the shelf. Ah, what fun. She is pulling herself up to standing on anything that is taller than her, and falling down and bonking her head quite a bit. But, she just keeps on going! Here is some of the fun we've been up to the past few weeks:

Alex and Nicole playing blocks

Nicole getting pulled around in her diaper box like it's a car

Nicole wearing pony tails for the first time

Crawling around

Where to begin...

Wow, so I've been dreading this post because I've got so much to write about - but I'm going to keep it short. We went to Utah for 2 weeks for my sister's wedding and Christmas. I was so happy to have all of the family see Nicole (and give me some free time away from her), but the flights were not my favorite thing ever. It didn't help that she was sick on both flights. Ugh.

It was so much fun to have everyone in town for the holidays. It was pretty funny because we were all on different time zones (Japan, Ireland, Philadelphia, Denver, and of course, Utah) so we had people awake and asleep at all hours of the day. It was crazy chaos with 20 people sleeping in the house at one time, but it was a blast.

Megan and Andrew got married on December 20, and as is only appropriate, they had a hopping reception with a celtic band and Irish dancers. We even got to learn the dance "The Siege of Ennis." All of Andrew's family flew over for the wedding so it was fun to have everyone there. They're having a celebration in Ireland this week and I want to go so bad!

The rest of the holidays were spent back and forth between Alex's parents house and my parents house. Christmas was a ton of fun and we got some great presents. Alex spoiled me with a digital SLR camera! Nicole enjoyed being with all of her cousins and aunts and uncles and grandparents. I had a hard time leaving knowing I would have to keep her as entertained as she was while she was there. We had such a great time being back in Utah and, for now, it still feels like home.

6 months old

My little munchkin is 6 months old (well, a little bit past 6 months now) and we are having so much fun with her. She has started scooching around and doing the army crawl, so we now have to keep things out of reach and we'll have to baby proof once we get back from our trip to Utah. She loves to babble and say dada, and is loving her fruits and vegetables...or should I say most of her veggies (she's not such a big fan of peas)!

Thanksgiving

We headed down to Virginia again to spend Thanksgiving with Alex's aunt and uncle. It was a full house this year, with Alex's cousin, her husband, and their two kids, and another cousin. It was great because Nicole was totally entertained by the two kids, and it motivated her to start scooching around - she has a pretty good little army crawl going!

We went out to Great Falls after dinner and enjoyed the scenery there, and then the next day we were able to go into DC and see some sites. I love being close to so many exciting and fun things to see!

Great Falls, VA

National Museum of the American Indian

Little Flirt

Ok, I know, enough with the videos! But this was too cute to pass up - I babysat Owen (he's 3 weeks older than Nicole) a couple of weeks ago while his mom went to a job interview. Alex thinks that Nicole is trouble because she's already flirting with boys...

Nicole's first REAL solid food eating

So our first attempt at rice cereal a couple of months ago was really more for our enjoyment, and we haven't done it since. These last few days we've been talking about starting her on solid foods for real, and I decided to start yesterday. Here is some video of Nicole - she was swallowing and I think she enjoyed it. (This is really for the grandparents but feel free to watch!)