T- Minus one month and counting until the big birthday! We've obviously had a lot going on this year which likely helped make it seem like the shortest year ever, but I truly am shocked at how quickly it's gone. I've thought about her first birthday a lot since she was born and now it's almost here. Wow.
I'm surprised every day by how much Maude is learning and changing. A frequent question coming out of our mouths is "did you see that new thing Maude is doing?" She's still in to animal noises, but is mostly focused on elephants. She raises up her arm (like an elephant trunk) and makes her elephant noise. It may be the cutest thing I've ever seen. I try making her do it frequently. She's becoming less patient with me. =)
Our little gal is becoming more mobile. I think walking is still a ways off, but she's definitely cruising around on everything she can reach. She started crawling around five months and started out with the army crawl. She's been using that method for the past 6 months but in the past month, she's started crawling on her hands and knees. So, she's moving forward in the transportation department. She's also mastered going up the stairs. She typically saves going up them for when we're not making her the center of attention. She knows we'll immediately come running and she likes that reaction!
Her first Christmas was wonderful. I don't think she had any idea what was going on, other than Mommy was home for more days than normal and we all spent lots of quality time together. I can't imagine a better Christmas. As most everyone knows, it's been a very warm winter so far so we spent every day that I had off going for walks with Maude and Stella. We all thoroughly enjoyed them. We were doing the same thing last Christmas, just a little over a month before Maude was born.
As we prepared for our first Christmas with Maude, we thought a lot about what we want our traditions to be. It's important to me that our family has traditions and rituals we look forward to each year. Not surprisingly, the traditions we've implemented thus far involve food! We made homemade burgers with sweet potato fries for Christmas Eve. Mike grew up having crepes on Christmas morning and we decided it was something we wanted to do as well. We decided that the food for the rest of the day is whatever we feel like and doesn't have to be a holiday-ish type of meal. This Christmas, we had pizza for lunch and a roasted shrimp dinner. It was perfect.
Maude got to see lots of grandparents for Christmas, too. My parents came up to visit the weekend before Christmas and we went to Kansas City the weekend after Christmas. It's so fun to see how much Maude loves being around them and I think they like being with her, too! =) While my parents were here, Mike came down with the stomach flu. They left on a Sunday morning, with Mike still feeling pretty sick and not able to do much beyond laying on the couch. Within a few hours of their departure, I came down with it as well. I'd heard of two parents getting sick at the same time and always felt so sorry for them, and was secretly glad that would never happen to me (of course!). Ugh, it was not at all fun. As Mike said "to all the parents that have come before us, we salute you!"
On to the pictures!
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| Happy!! |
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| Posing for the camera |
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| 11 Month Old Sweetie |
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| She recently can't be bothered with hair bows. |
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| We rang bells for the Salvation Army. Maude brought in some major moola! |
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| She particularly liked the bell. |
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| Awww. |
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| Her expression didn't change the entire time she sat on Santa's lap. |
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| See? No change. |
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| Christmas Eve |
