Grandparents’ visit and Eliza’s ch-ch-changes.

I get so excited when Eliza’s grandparents come to visit.  Both sets of grandparents are marvelous, and I’m not just saying that because I know they’re reading this blog:)  I really, truly mean it!  It means so much to us when you make the long drive to Corpus.  It truly does.  At 28 weeks pregnant, I just don’t have the energy to drive or even sit in a car for hours at a time.  I don’t see things getting any easier when the baby boy arrives in 12 weeks(!), so I’m very grateful that y’all are willing to make the trip.

This past Saturday, JJ, Papa, and Aunt Jana came over to celebrate a belated Christmas.  We had a lovely time visiting while Jimmy made lunch and Eliza happily displayed her new crawling skills.

On another note, baby girl is changing rapidly these days!  She’s a crawling machine, she’s switched to whole milk, she refuses to eat baby food (or allow me to feed her at all), she’s very close to calling us Mama and Dadda, and she prefers to go to bed a full hour later than usual.  But the best change has been her temperament.  Now that she’s more independent, she’s SO much happier!  She’s also more peaceful and content than she’s ever been.  Her nights have been difficult lately, but I guess that’s to be expected along with the other changes.  We’ve had to go back to cry it out, but she did ok last night so I’m hoping tonight will be even better.  I can’t believe I’m planning her first birthday already!  It’s been quite a year, that’s for sure!

So this is Christmas!

Eliza’s first Christmas was a great success indeed!  We all had such a lovely time.

I guess she realized that yesterday was special because she woke up like this:

Good morning!

I’m coming for you, Santa!

One of her favorite Christmas gifts was an introduction to the tupperware cabinet:

After breakfast, we visited Daddy at work!

When we got home, she took a very long afternoon nap while I finished up the cooking.  Then we went to Darren, Becca, and Gabby’s house for a lovely Christmas dinner!

Sweet little friends.

I really hope these two start a band someday!

Eliza was pretty much done with Christmas at this point, but Gabby was still going strong!

Today we relaxed and had fun with her new Christmas toys!

She loves her tea set from Daniel, Teresa, and Dominic!

And she’s been having a blast with her guitar from Jessica, Chuck, Ember, and Jordan!

Yay for Christmas!

Jingle Bells!

Merry Christmas Eve, everyone!  Eliza and I are preparing food for tomorrow and watching Rudolph. It’s a nice, peaceful way to spend the evening while Jimmy is at work.  Though we really miss being with our extended family during this time, we are having fun creating new family traditions and memories!  In the future, going to Walmart on Christmas Eve will not be among our traditions.  I don’t recommend that.

Eliza had such fun at story time/sing along this morning, and she finally grasped the concept of Jingle Bells!  You can watch here:

She was devastated when we had to return the bells to the librarian, so I made her a pair of her own when we got home.  It’s a good thing I hoard craft supplies:)

And here’s a short clip of her crawling.  I’ll try to take some better quality video tomorrow!

Good friends, good times.

Sorry I didn’t post anything this past Thursday night.  We went to dinner with some friends and their precious baby Oliver, and I was too tired when we got home.  Thanks for your patience!

Our friends Brian and Amy, who recently became engaged, stayed with us for the weekend, and we had a fantastic time!  Yesterday, the guys watched football with Eliza while Amy and I got pedicures and went to the movies.  So perfect!  They are such a fun couple.  We’ll be going to their wedding in November 2014, which means that we’ll be flying to North Dakota with two babies (Jimmy is the best man and Eliza is a flower girl).  I can’t even imagine what that will be like!

In other news, Eliza has FINALLY decided to start crawling!  She is going everywhere and getting into everything.  I’ll try to post a video tomorrow night.

Eliza refuses to wait until Christmas to open her presents.

She loves Brian! She lounged in his lap like this for almost an hour!

 

A visit to the doctor’s office.

I didn’t get around to taking a pic today, but I did take Eliza to a prenatal appointment with me for the first time while Jimmy was at work.  She was surprisingly patient!  While we were waiting, we rolled around the exam room on the doctor’s wheeled stool, which she really enjoyed.  When she got tired of that, I read all of the helpful posters and diagrams aloud to her.  Now she knows all about the female anatomy, the childbirth process, and what happens during a pap smear!  Awesome!  She wanted to play with the little plastic uterus and fallopian tubes, but that seemed weird so I didn’t let her do that.

In case you’re wondering, the baby boy is doing great!  Eliza was entranced by the sound of his heartbeat, which was a really sweet moment.  I’m currently 27 weeks along, and this pregnancy is just speeding right on by!  I’m sure he’ll be a wonderfully relaxed and chill baby who sleeps all the time and never cries.  This is only fair because Eliza has always been on the, shall we say, exacting side.  In her defense, however, she has been extremely good-natured lately, though her nights haven’t been great.  She slept exactly one hour ALL DAY today.  Don’t babies need more sleep than that?  I know I do!

A few more of my faves from the weekend.

 

The most wonderful time of the year!

Granny and Pappy came to visit this past weekend, and we celebrated a joyful early Christmas together.  Eliza loved every single minute of it!  She was so incredibly happy the entire time!  Surprisingly, she understood the concept of opening presents quite well.  So well, in fact, that today she maneuvered herself under the Christmas tree and began to open other presents that we were hoping to save until Christmas!

These are a few of my favorite pics from the weekend.  I’ll post more tomorrow.

 

Goofy girl.

Eliza was tired and cranky this evening, but she did have a little silly time with Daddy!  Her hair is getting so wild!

Feeling better, thank goodness!

Still didn’t take any pics today, but I’m happy to report that we’re all feeling much better.  We were even able to attend our play date this morning, which was fantastic!  It was a fun meetup for moms of young kids where childcare was provided, so it was Eliza’s first time in a nursery.  She did great for the whole two hours!  Hooray!!

In case you’re wondering what to get Eliza for Christmas, this hilarious blog post sums it up perfectly.  Just perfectly!  Thanks so much for sharing, Nicole:)

#8 really hits home with me personally.

http://theuglyvolvo.com/2013/12/10/a-ten-month-olds-letter-to-santa/

Ehhh.

Well Jimmy and I are currently being plagued by a stomach bug, so I didn’t feel like taking pictures.  I doubted you’d like to see pics of us pathetically huddled up in front of the TV anyway.  Eliza had the bug a few days ago and is fine now.  So she generously shared it with her parents:)

I hope I’m feeling better by tomorrow…we have a really fun play date scheduled that I don’t want to cancel!  Gonna go try to sleep it off now.  Good night!