The Holly Wall: December 2010

Man, it's been busy lately! Sorry for the absence on here...there has just been too much going on. We spent the weekend after Thanksgiving recovering (well, at least I did). We also gave Lainey her first taste of oatmeal (first taste of anything besides my milk!) that Saturday after Thanksgiving. She made a few weird faces but she did great with the spoon (she kept wanting to grab it) and the whole feeding thing. Troy would go, "Ahhh!" and she would do it too and he would stick the spoon in her mouth. Voila!

She gobbled it up but then she had a rash the next day so we waiting a little over a week to try again just in case it was a reaction to it (it wasn't). We've only given it to her three times but she seems to like it okay. And that old theory that it makes them sleep through the night is so not true. That hasn't worked at all for us!

On December 4th Lainey saw her first snow. It was the perfect kind...the trees and grass were covered in white but the roads were clear. My Mom had come up to do some shopping with me and it was perfect to put us in the Christmas spirit!

Somehow, I have managed to get our house decorated for Christmas. I love this time of year and I love Christmas stuff so I always like to get the house decorated right after Thanksgiving to enjoy it as long as is reasonable. And since Lainey is still so little, there's no need to childproof so I could put out all the usual stuff. Here is our tree when it was nearly done (we did eventually get out the real tree skirt...the cat was just a stand-in).

What with everything going on, we have been tired! We've had shopping, parties, decorating, cleaning (okay, not really)...you get the idea...we've been busy! That will really wear you out.

But with everything going on, we did make time to go see Santa yesterday (despite Troy's concern that his lap was a breeding ground for germs). The line actually wasn't too awful and everyone in line was very nice and patient. I think the holiday spirit was actually rubbing off on some people! Lainey took a nap in her stroller so we had to wake her up when we got close to the front of the line. When we plopped her in Santa's lap, she just looked around. She wouldn't smile but she didn't cry and that was good enough for me. Instead she just looked at us like we were crazy (because, well, we looked crazy...us and Santa's "elf" shaking bells and a light-up Rudolph trying to get her to smile or look at the camera). But I think the picture turned out really cute and she was so cute in her dress that her Aunt Kristen got her!