Baby's First Christmas

Merry Christmas!!!

We have had many visitors during the last week. Most recently, the 2 days after Christmas, Grandma Judy and Aunt Melissa came over.
I think Greta enjoys being fed by other people, it spices things up for her! Grandma Judy made sure Greta ate up all her food, and Greta didn't even cry when Nana wiped her face at the end (she usually cries when I do it...)
On the go with the new toy from Nana (wearing the beautiful sweater Aunt Melissa made for her). One of the things Judy and Hans got Greta for Christmas is this little "My Garden Friends" set: a soft pail that Greta can put a lady bug, snail, butterfly and bumblebee into. All the critters make a little noise, and she especially loves the laughing ladybug.
For Christmas Eve and Christmas Day Grandma Kathy and Grandpa Shayne came over. Here is Greta in the new outfit my mom made her for Christmas. You know Greta REALLY REALLY is into you when she eats your face :-)
All ready for Christmas brunch at our house. Greta napped through most of brunch--after a busy morning of opening gifts. We had homemade cinnamon rolls with cheddar and smoked salmon scrambled eggs, as well as sausages. Yummy! Greta had a few tastes of cinnamon roll. She takes after her mama and likes the sweets! Recently she has had tastes of homemade sugar cookies and gingerbread cookies too.
Getting sleepy...
The little Christmas baby with Grandpa Shayne! (oops, this photo is out of order and was taken Christmas Eve...sorry.)
Woohoo!!! Mum Mums in the stocking! Greta's favorite! On Christmas morning she ate a few too many of these...
Greta's stocking. I found this at a thrift store and liked the idea of it living on as Greta's stocking. I personalized it a bit by adding the hearts :-)

Matthew and I don't put the usual items in each other's stockings, instead when December starts we put little notes in one another's stockings and then on Christmas Day it's so fun to read what we've written to each other! When Greta gets a little older we'll do this with her too, but this year it was all about the Mum Mums.

Greta's first Christmas morning...still waking up! She was ready to go at about 7:30, so I lit the candles and turned the Christmas music on before she and Papa came out to the living room. She's taking it all in.
On Christmas Eve Mom and Shayne couldn't help having Greta open most of their presents to her! She loves the bows.
After opening a couple gifts Greta finally seemed to realize what all those OTHER "things" by the tree were...she wanted to open more of them!!
A xylophone from Grandma Kathy and Grandpa Shayne. What fun! Greta loves music. Matthew and I got her a little band set with maracas, cymbals, a triangle, a shaker, and a tambourine. It's going to get even louder here!
What's inside??
This is Greta's reality. All eyes on her!
On Christmas Eve we went to Stanley Park to ride the miniature train. Unfortunately you had to have reservations...so instead we just enjoyed being there with all the lights and Christmas displays. It was probably good we didn't get to go on the train, because it was FREEZING COLD!!!
Papa and Baby.
What a display! I bet next year Greta will LOVE this.
There was a little farm area with animals to look at. Greta seemed to enjoy it. As a matter of fact, today (December 30) we took her to the aquarium for the first time--Greta's face really lit up watching all the different sea creatures, and she had a lot to say about it too--she was very vocal! Sorry we didn't get any pictures...we will next time.
At the restaurant at Stanley Park's Prospect Point on Christmas Eve.
At Prospect Point in Stanley Park--what a view! I love how Greta is looking at me and grabbing my face here :-)
I think Greta likes dogs. Here was a friendly one outside the restaurant. The family I work for has a dog named Whisky--Greta really likes her too! And when we see dogs outside she usually make some kind of excited noise and watches them closely...maybe we'll get one someday?
Matthew set up the tri-pod and took this photo of us last week. This was the first shot! It turned out great!

Greta's first Christmas has been very memorable and eventful. Tomorrow Aunt Jenny and Grandpa Mac come to help us celebrate New Years.

Starting in 2009 my main way of scrap-booking has been this blog, and I sure am grateful for it. At the beginning of last week our computer crashed. We lost everything. If it weren't for this blog we wouldn't have any of our pictures of Greta!!!

Now we have this new computer and we've figured out how to put videos on as well: enjoy!

Testing, testing, 1-2-3, testing...

Here is our first attempt at putting a video of Greta on her blog, more to follow!

Matthew's Gals

On Saturday Matthew had responsibilities with his new internship position, and families were welcome to come along. Since we're Matthew's "gals", as he likes to call us, we came along. Much of the morning involved a Parent and Tots group. Greta had tons of fun at this! She played with other children and new toys, had a circle time with live guitar music, and made her very first craft (well, with lots of help from mama). Here is the finished product: a frosted pinecone ornament for our tree. Today she helped hang it up, and it completes are Christmas decor perfectly!
After glueing the pinecone it was dipped in salt and glitter. We are both concentrating so hard on this!
Painting the pinecone with glue.
Getting into the spirit of it!
Greta had a busy morning at the Parent and Tots group. She was up at 7am--we arrived at the church at 8 for breakfast, and then didn't leave until after lunch at 1:00. Only when we left did Greta finally get her nap. She was a real trooper, though (I did give her a chance to nap while there--for the record--but she was more interested in the activities!) There was a 4 year old girl there who really liked Greta. Greta enjoyed it when the little girl held her and was a little crazy with her--Greta had quite a twinkle in her eye getting such special treatment from a "big girl".

More special treatment is on the way soon...we have several visitors coming over for the Christmas holidays, and we can't wait to spend time with our families!

Christmas Countdown

Ho Ho Ho!
Me and my favorite people.
Time for pictures with Mama :-)
On the move! Greta has gotten really fast with her crawling. She often goes after the little door stopper near the bathroom. I don't want her to mess with it because it's really hard, and if she were to climb up on the wall near it and then fall on it she could really hurt herself. When she goes near it I say "No, no, no" and offer her some other option--but just recently I've tested out what she will do if I don't move her, and she actually listens to my "No"!
Here we are on Matthew and I's 6 year anniversary. After church on Sunday it started snowing (last year it snowed on our anniversary too!) so I had someone take our photo out in the snow...unfortunately you can't really even see the snow...oh well. And we do look a little silly out there without our coats on! Brrrrr! I wanted to get our Christmas outfits, though. Greta is wearing a dress my Grandma made for me. She passed away 10 years ago, so this dress is really special and I was excited to have Greta wear it. It's funny, though, because I wore it as a 1 year old--Greta is only 8.5 months and it's practically too short for her already!
So far there aren't any presents under there, but soon there will be. I have a feeling Greta will get a lot of gifts this year! On Saturday we went to a luncheon for Matthew's internship program (which he was just formally accepted into tonight! yeah!!!) and there was a white elephant gift exchange--this was Greta's first experience with the whole concept of "opening presents". She was really interested, but every so often got scared at the loud oohs and aahs and boisterous laughing that accompanies such an event. Another thing she's scared of lately: Matthew's sneezes...he sneezes really loudly and she looks TERRIFIED when he does it!!! Poor thing! She has, however, conquered her fear of the vacuum. Now I can actually put her down when I vacuum, instead of hold her while I do it. She's growing up so much!
A few days ago Greta got up a little too early for my taste...so we spent some time in the dark living room looking at the tree. It cheered me up :-) Greta really enjoyed it too!
It's a little hard to see...but if you look closely you can see a Baby Greta silhouette looking up at the tree.

Greta's First Days of Christmas

After church, wearing one of her "Christmas dresses"...this one I picked out at a great vintage store in Jerome, Arizona!
Our little baby and our little Christmas tree. We opted for a small tree...due to our shortage of money and our busily crawling and exploring Greta. She loves it when the room is dark and the tree lights are on--she kind of chuckles excitedly and kicks her legs :-) I often stand next to the tree, holding her, and we just look at it for awhile. She tries to grab the tinsel and ornaments...
It's so fun experiencing her first Christmas with her! My favorite is when we turn on our John Denver and the Muppets Christmas CD that I used to listen to all the time as a kid. I think she especially likes the song Miss Piggy sings: Christmas is coming the goose is getting FAT!
It has been very, very, very cold here lately (in fact, there are snow flurries right now!) This doesn't stop us from going outside, but we have to get really bundled up. Here is Greta ready for an outing: shirt, sweater, hat, coat, pants, socks, and legwarmers...plus some shoes.
She looks like a little gnome here!
More than wearing these shoes, Greta likes to eat them. She has 3 pairs now, and Matthew thought it would be cute to put them in the entryway with our other shoes :-) So whenever Greta sees them lined up with mama and papa's boots--so easily accessible to her--she crawls over and gets them, and spends quite awhile putting them in her mouth before I have to snatch them away and struggle them onto her feet! Since Greta is so mobile now, all she wants to do is move, move, move! It can be quite an ordeal getting her dressed, and she's developed a strong will to fight us at times. Fiesty!
First words are on the way...Greta often says "Mamamamama" and "Dadadadadada" and is starting to show signs of associating these sounds with the right people! :-) Maybe that will be her Christmas present to us?

Happy 8 Months!

Today Greta turned 8 months old! She and mama both have colds, but we had a good day anyway. This morning we went down the street to the park so that Greta could ride on the swings. Just the other day she tried them for the first time...she seems a little wary of them at this point, she mostly looks around to see what's happening around her while on the swing. After the swings and a walk we came home for a nap and some lunch. In the afternoon Greta came with me to work, and she kept herself quite entertained on the floor and with pulling herself up on the chairs while I helped Jett with her homework. On the way home on the bus Greta fell asleep in the baby carrier, she had only had a 20 minute nap so far today and it was now 6:00!! Well the nap didn't last long...then she woke up very grouchy when we got home. However, giving her a mum-mum (sweet rice husk biscuit--she absolutely LOVES these) cheered her up before she ate dinner. After a dinner of pear/mango/apricot oatmeal cereal, some peas, and some fresh pear we got Greta ready for bed. After nursing she needed a little extra rocking to get to sleep tonight, but hopefully she'll get some good rest and get rid of this cold!

In the past couple of weeks Greta has been sleeping for longer stretches at night--once even 11 hours straight! She's been averaging only one wake up per night (before it was 3-4 wake ups!)--this is quite nice for me, and I hope the trend continues. Although, she has yet to cut any teeth, so I'm sure I'm in for some sleepless nights again here soon...

Greta loves to look at herself in this little mirror (don't worry--it's plastic!) Sometimes she even gives herself kisses! She's pretty proud of herself at 8 months :-) What a little sweetie.

Thanksgiving Some More...

Having a good time!!!
These are some photos Aunt Melissa took on Thanksgiving Day at our place.
Matthew especially loves this picture.
Still no clothes! The fun of being a baby--you can hang out in your unders all day if you want, company or no company.
Well she finally did get dressed :-)