December already?!

Where has this year gone? It's hard to believe it's already December. Christmas is less than 3 weeks away! This has definitely been the fastest year of my life.

Ellison is doing great. She has taken really well to eating "grown up" food! I'm glad she got to start eating it when she did because she got to have real food at Thanksgiving! She's tried a variety of meat, fruits, veggies, bread, yogurt, noodles...but her favorite food is definitely cheese. If there is a bunch of different things on her tray, she will eat all the cheese first. She also seems to really like Cheerios, bread, raspberries, and pears. Watching her eat certain foods is pretty funny...just the way she goes about picking things up and getting them into her mouth can be pretty comical. One thing she definitely did NOT like was cottage cheese. She tried to pull it back out of her mouth!

First Thanksgiving feast

Ells continues to be on the go non-stop. She has taken to climbing the stairs several times a day and trying to climb everything else as well. When she is standing and holding on to something she can bend down, pick a toy up off the ground, and stand back up. She's still too wobbly to stand on her own, but I think she is getting closer...

She is getting better at waving and has also started to point at things, mostly the TV. Within the past week or two she has started to pay more attention to what's on and will watch and laugh at certain things (Ice Age was the first movie she really looked at the TV during and seemed to find funny). She also thinks Christmas decorations are hilarious and will point and laugh at those as well!

Watching TV

This snowman pillow is her favorite decoration!

The holidays are already flying by! We spent a little time at the zoo on Thanksgiving since it was so nice out. We always see something funny or weird while we are there...this time it was one of the elephants finishing eating her food out of a paper grocery bag and then proceeding to eat the bag as well. Ellison was a good girl at our Thanksgiving dinner at my aunt and uncle's house and didn't fuss too much about everyone wanting to hold her (she's got a little bit of stranger anxiety lately).

Thanksgiving 2012

St. Nick came to our house twice on Thursday. Gramma Janis brought over a bag of gifts in the morning. Ellison's favorite is her new Little People nativity. I set it up under the Christmas tree after she went to bed Thursday night and she charged right for it when I brought her downstairs Friday morning. Then she carried Mary and Baby Jesus around with her for awhile! She has mixed the people from her Christmas Little People playset in with the nativity now, so I believe there is now an elf and Santa hanging out with the wise men...

After Jay got home from work we gave Ellison her stocking. We weren't really able to get too many good pictures of her with because she literally does not sit still for more than 2 seconds these days. She got some treats, new snack bowls, special spoons that hook up to baby food pouches, a book, a couple Christmas shirts, jammies, and her "First Christmas" ornament. It matches the one Jay and I have from our first Christmas together!

This weekend we head up to see Jay's family and meet Ellison's new baby cousin, Olivia Lyn! She was born on Monday and is getting baptized this weekend. There are now five cousins...the first two are boys and now three girls in a row!!! I hope they will be the best of friends when they are old enough to actually play with each other. Very excited to meet the new little lady and see the rest of the family. We definitely don't get up to visit with them nearly as much as we would like.

Hope everyone's holiday preparations are going well...can't believe it will be Christmas in two and a half weeks!