Baby vs. Grinch - Four Months

Four Months

It's true. Maggie has turned a corner and become a full-fledged BABY. No more of this newborn stuff. We've got the real deal here, folks. She now:
- Can sit comfortably on mom's hip
- Loves to have long conversations with dad (and laugh at him)
- Plays by herself and with her toys
- Has become much more curious about everything
- Puts EVERYTHING in her mouth
- Grabs her left foot (she really can grab both, just prefers the left for some reason)
- Will no longer sleep through the night :(

We continue to LOVE mother and fatherhood. It is so much fun to watch Maggie grow and change. (See subsequent Grinch post)

Quality of life

is about to improve 1000%.

Adventures in traveling, starring Maggie

Maggie won the gold star on our trip. Turns out she is a great little traveler. Most likely it's due to her age and when we go back out in 6 months we'll be pulling our hair out...but for as stressful as it is to fly these days, we were all very thankful that the baby made the trip better, not worse.

Keeping with her personality, she was so curious about everything...I would love to know what was going through her head as she stared out the window.

Hanging out in the Vegas airport between flights with Dad and Grandpa. The Santa hat was a hit with everyone, except for the cranky airline worker who informed us that she didn't celebrate Christmas. This is also outfit three of four. Fortunately, the blowouts occurred prior to our flights.

Breathing Again

You know when your mom offers to "stay and help with whatever you need that would make your life easier," that your house is looking really, really bad and the fact that your life is in shambles is no longer a secret.

The past week or so has been an absolute whirlwind...one of those weeks I feel like I can barely come up for air. Fortunately, my mom did stick around and help me out yesterday, and I am feeling much better about life today.

Thus the lack of blogging recently...it's hard to justify sitting down to post when your only goal for the day is "taking down Christmas" and that doesn't even happen!

Speaking of which, I hate taking down Christmas. Not only is it a sign that the season is over, everything just looks so BARE! This also further accentuates the fact that we've lived in our house two and a half years and there is still nothing hanging on our walls. Which is also depressing.

So now that Christmas is put away, I thought I would attempt to distract myself from my bare walls and continue my update from the holidays.

Christmas this year was wonderful for two reasons:
1. My parents are now in town, so we were able to "celebrate" with them.
2. In order to avoid schlepping all of our gifts out to California, we had "Christmas morning" on Christmas Eve. I just LOVED being home for that. It is one of my favorite memories from when I was little...being home every Christmas...so it was just great to finally experience that in our own home. Especially now that Maggie's here. Not that she'll remember, but it was just fun to get her out of her own crib and come downstairs with everyone in their jammies.


Today's goal is vacuuming. And hopefully another post or two.

The Best Medicine

My first blog video!! Yipee!

I was on my way to work out today and went to give Maggie some kisses before I left...fortunately Gary was around to capture the following moment. (This is the first time she's ever laughed in response to something that we've done, so we were thrilled - and thus the length of the video...)

Maggie laughs from Gary Anderson on Vimeo.

In the Moment

While I try to wrap my head around the amount of pictures and updates I need to post, I thought I'd share this pic I took a few weeks ago (before Christmas). I came downstairs and Gary and Maggie were watching football. She was propped up just like this and they were both just glued to the game. When I brought my camera out, she looked over and gave me this grin. I think this might be my favorite picture of her to date.

New Year, New Post (finally!)

Happy New Year! We are currently on our Annual "Why Do We Live Where We Live" trip, visiting Gary's grandparents and aunt and uncle on California's central coast. This place is just short of paradise, and I don't even want to THINK about Wheaton right now.

I'm not quite sure where to start with the updates since it's been SO LONG since I've posted. (and December was pretty sparse, too!) For now, I'll start with yesterday and then work my way back.

Here's the day in pictures:

A little morning nap.

Hanging out with Great Grandad.

The ladies.

A visit to Grover Beach to watch the sunset.






Our wonderful and gracious hosts!