Joy to the World!

Happy Holidays! I thought this picture would get your attention! Cousin Kristin came a month ago to take my six month pictures and this was one of the poses Mommy thought would be funny. Hopefully I will get my hands on these pictures before I am a teenager and am ridiculed the rest of my life. This is the only age where fat rolls are cute!

I am just loving this time of year. Mommy showed me a picture of what I looked like one year ago. Here I am, a little gingerbread cookie! This was our Christmas card we sent out. For some reason, it only scanned in black and white. Originally, it is in color.

The past two weeks have been busy. I am enjoying daycare and all of my buddies there. We are all kind of sick right now with colds, but at least we are all dealing with it together. I am sleeping in my swing at night so that I can breathe and Mommy keeps putting this thing up my nose to get the boogies out. I hate it! Anyways, we put up our Christmas tree in the living room and I love looking at all of those colorful lights. Mommy thinks the tree is too little, but Daddy thinks it's the best tree ever. Here I am sitting by the prickly thing! By the way, we do have lots of presents wrapped under our tree. Don't worry, my parents do plan on spoiling me this Christmas!

This weekend, we went to my Great Grandpa Jim's house in the cities, for our big family Christmas gathering. There were lots of cousins to play with and there was even a special guest, "Christmas Moose." His nose even blinked and I thought he was pretty amazing! The gifts I received from the gathering included a special gingerbread crystal ornament from great grandpa, some money to spend, a really cool outfit with a VW bug with a surfboard on it's roof, a season's pass to the MN Zoo, and Brava Strega Nona Pop-up book!

Here I am with Great-Grandpa Jim. He whistles a lot (Mommy explained because he is in the late stages of Alzheimer's)

Our family with Great-Grandpa. He is whistling some songs to me still! I like to hear whistling, so I smiled and listened to him.

Here's that crazy Christmas Moose I mentioned. All the kids liked him a lot!

Cousins Lexi and Sam played with me at the party. Poor Sam threw up and had to go home early.

Cousins Maddy, Lexi, Jack, and Rieder were giving me lots of attention. I soaked it all up!

After Great-Grandpa's Christmas party, we went to Papa's house to have our Christmas with him. He is leaving for Florida for six months (Mommy and I are sad), so we had to celebrate early. Papa really spoiled me, as usual. He bought me a really cool farm fun rug, some Tonka trucks, little trucks, a musical table, some books, and a huge lollipop (Mommy said, "NO" to me eating it at six months old...bummer!)

Me and Papa giving hugs to each other before heading out. We are both in our jammies at this point, reading for bed and our ride home.

My new rug and a few of my cool new toys!

Here are two other pictures that Kristin took of us when she was here. I like our family picture a lot and going inside of the big box in the bottom pictures was a lot of fun. I am wearing my "Grumpy Old Man" hat, one of my favorites!

In closing, some of my latest news includes sitting up ALL by myself, lots of talking/babbling, a little ridge of a white tooth popping up, and the BEST BREAKING NEWS.... I said, "Ma Ma" while Mommy was helping me write this post. She jumped out of the chair and asked me to say it again and again. Of course, I can't repeat it again or she might get bored with me. She said it was the most beautiful thing she has ever heard. Little does she know that it probably just slipped out, but I will let her smile and brag to Daddy about this one! My next picture will hopefully be of me sitting on Santa's lap. We were supposed to go see Santa this weekend, but it was WAY too busy and we are all recovering from colds and the flu. Have a great week!