Wednesday, January 7, 2009

The Nine Blurps of Christmas

I got this wonderful idea from Julianne, a friend from my old Dentrix and Wymount days. So, I'm stealing her idea and doing some BLURPING - (a technical term that means I'm about to catch you all up on what I've missed writing about in the last little while.)

It's gonna be a long one, so I apologize. Get comfy. Here goes:

Blurp #1
Alexia has been getting awesome at Tummy Time. (She's starting to be able to support herself sitting, but not quite, so we don't have pictures of that.) But, she's getting good push-up muscles on her tummy, so that's improvement! She used to not let us put her on her tummy at all, and now she's okay with it! At least for a few minutes...when she's happy...in the morning. Okay, maybe not the greatest at the tummy stuff yet. She just likes to be upright. But, I love how cute she is on her tummy. Notice her shiny hands - slobber everywhere!!!






Blurp #2
We're not big fans of the JCPenny Photo place. We got some great photos taken there a couple months ago, but they kept pressuring us to buy more pictures than the ones we wanted, and we thought "Hey, we have a camera. We have a finger to push the button! Why don't we take some of our own?!?" So, we took some Christmas pictures of Alexia, and they turned out pretty cute. Here's just a couple:










Blurp #3
At our Ward Christmas party, I KNEW Alexia would scream her head off when sitting on Santa's lap. But, I figured - every kid needs that screaming-their-head-off-on-santa's-lap picture for posterity. So, even though she needed a nap, we took her to the party anyway. And lo and behold, she didn't cry! Her first Santa meet was a success!

Blurp #4
Alexia's first Christmas went great! We were up in Brigham City with my parents for Christmas, and Alexia didn't scream her head off then either! She rather enjoyed eating the wrapping paper, and probably would've rather we didn't take it so fast to throw it away and hand her the present inside. But, she loved her teething rings her grandma Partridge gave her, and proceeded to slobber all over them immediately!






Blurp #5
On the 28th, we celebrated Christmas at the Sharp's. Alexia got a cute sheep piggy bank (that I'm sure she'll enjoy someday), and a cute pink onesie from Moab, a book, and another new teether! She loves ANYTHING we let her slobber on, so she loves the teething rings! We hadn't taken many pictures until Jake's brother Jeff got out this monstrous remote control Jeep Crawler thingy, and Jon started showing off and climbing all over stuff. Once he started crawling on me and up to Alexia, she got a bit scared. But, once she got over the fear, she proceeded to try sucking on the edge of it. Everything goes in her mouth! Even huge $800 toy jeeps!







Blurp #6
Alexia's new favorite game is the drop-the-toy-and-make-a-pile-and-wait-for-someone-to-pick-it-up-for-me game. She loves to sit on someone's lap, or sit in her bouncer, and have a huge pile of toys to play with. She then proceeds to drop them one at a time on the floor. (Or throw them, if the desire overtakes her). She then watches the toy pile get bigger and bigger. Then, she complains when they're all gone. So, we pick them all up and start over again. It keeps her entertained for a while at least! I can get cooking done and occasional cleaning, as long as I notice when the toys run out and pick them all up for her.







Blurp #7
We noticed how interested Alexia has been lately in our food, and so we thought we might start feeding her rice cereal soon. We thought we'd get her familiarized with baby spoons first, so she doesn't protest when we put said foreign object in her mouth. So, we gave her a bunch of brightly colored spoons for Christmas, and Jacob then proceeded to take over 20 pictures of her playing with them. I mercifully only posted three of them. (Watch the evolution of the spoon's position. She finally figured out which end goes in her mouth!!!)






Blurp #8
Every time I eat these days, Alexia just stares at my food. No matter what she's playing with, or what game she's involved in, if there's food in the room, and someone is eating it, she just stares at them and the food the whole time they eat. We'll have to teach her eventually that staring isn't polite. But for now, it's cute!




Blurp #9
Lately, we've been giving Alexia tiny finger tastes of things we eat. On Christmas Eve, we let her taste the sweet and sour meatball sauce. She loved that! We let her taste a tiny bit of taco salad drippings on a place (no meat in the taste, of course...just sauce). She LOVES it! So, we determined that she's ready for rice cereal. Everyone seems to have advice on when to start it. Some people are adamant that we should wait until 6 months. Others think we're behind because we've waited until 5 months. So, we asked the baby bible - the pediatrician. They gave us the go-ahead. So, on Tuesday, we gave her the first taste of rice cereal. Poor kid. She gets tiny tastes of good flavored food, and we finally determine we can feed her, and all she gets is this bland rice mush. But, she seemed to enjoy it! She kept grabbing the spoons, wanting to be the one to put it in her mouth. I'm sure that more of it ended up on her bib than in her mouth, but hey, it's a start!!!









Happy New Year everyone!