A very Merry Christmas

Anna had quite a first Christmas--here are some of our favorite pics...

Anna with her first real baby doll (a Madame Alexander, as is our family tradition, from my parents--"Grammie and Grandpa")

Anna with her cousin, Sydney, in rocking chairs that Kelly and I used to use

Checking out what Santa delivered

At the park on Christmas Day...although August in Texas is tough, we make up for it by having beautiful Christmas Days where we can get outside and enjoy the weather!

Opening presents--bows were a bigger hit this year than the wrapping paper (and often than the toy itself!)

Playing with her cousin, Finn--we were blessed this year to have Clint's mom (aka "Nana"), sister (aka "Auntie Lees"), brother-in-law (aka "Uncle Shawn"), and cousin come visit for Christmas. Finn and Anna are 6 months apart, and had a wonderful time getting to know each other better and playing, playing, playing!

Spending some quality time with Nana--it was so great to have her here with us for Christmas this year!

We're back...

Sorry for the long layoff between postings...we've been semi-comatose from too much Christmas food for the past 10 days or so. Now that we've recovered/digested, we'll catch up with a few pictures from Christmas.

As evidenced by the pic, she's been gaining a lot of confidence pulling up and standing. Here she is, a few days before Christmas, pulling herself up on a toy crate. But I think she's also trying to make the subtle point to Mommy, Daddy, and Santa that her toy crate is empty!

Ho, ho, ho...

Anna had her Christmas Party at school today, and had such fun seeing Santa and having some "baby hors d'oerves" with her friends! There was too much excitement in the room to get her to focus on the camera for the Santa shot above, but I guess at least she wasn't screaming in the shot! (We hear to expect that for next year...:-) )

Here Anna is enjoying some bananas and mini Nilla wafers with her girlfriends Ava, Caitlin, and Kara, and showing off her classroom and teachers to Daddy!

Is that a fish in our tub?

Anna's hair is finally getting long enough to play with...here she enjoyed a little fish-do while playing in the bathtub (her new favorite activity now that we finally figured out how to sit her up in her tub...we're a little slow at this "parenting" thing).

Tis the season for some mischief

As we put up the Christmas tree on Thanksgiving weekend, we decided it would be ok to sit Anna on the floor by herself for a few minutes (since, at this time, she was still fairly immobile except for her normal scooting/rolling routine which takes quite a while to actually get anywhere). Well, she decided it would be a fine time to show off her ability to crawl backwards, and she backed herself up underneath our stereo table. She seemed quite proud of her accomplishment.