Just Cute

So this is for you Auntie Vicki. I'm sure I'll have some more Christmas photos to post tomorrow night, but this is to tide you over...

Sporting her new vest from Grammy and Grampy and sweater from Brion and Mistilyn.

She looks a little intoxicated here, I assure you, she's not!Contemplative.I know it's not in focus, but that face is so sweet. My silly, little baby. I'm so in love.
She's getting really good at standing up in her crib. I can't put her down in her crib without her immediately rolling over and standing up. This doesn't bode well for trying to get her to start sleeping in her crib. Here she is, it's not her fastest time, but it's still pretty good.

A picture is worth a thousand words...

Well, I guess I'm trying to say that I'd rather post photos for you to enjoy than type something long and boring. Here's a little text with a lot of photos, probably worth about 20,000 or so words...

We celebrated Christmas with my fam in West Seattle yesterday. The drive was beautiful but treacherous. Still, it was worth it! Maizey got crazy spoiled.

It's been snowing like crazy, we have about a foot or more on the ground and I still haven't been sledding.

Ryan is on vacation starting Tuesday night and Maizey and I can't wait!

Oh, and HAPPY BIRTHDAY JESSICA! We love you!

Brace yourself. There are a lot of photos below. But, I can't choose my favs, it's impossible...

I've wanted to post a picture of what Maizey requires to fall asleep. So, here it is, and it's a SIDS nightmare!

We promptly uncover her face once she's asleep.

This was a snow day last week. We brought the guest bedroom mattress into the family room and created Snugglefest 2008. I'm guessing you can tell Ryan didn't come up with the name.

SNOWSTORM 2008:

Snow dogs. They love it! Even my little New Orleans girl gets into it!

My car, which hasn't been driven in a week!

Our backyard!

CHRISTMAS WITH THE GEBOWS:

A cool photo my sis took.

Brion and Mistilyn live at the bottom of VERY steep dead end road. Seriously, when it's not snowy you aren't sure if you'll even make it up. I think it's like 65degrees. Is that even possible? Anyway, they are stranded and so must ski/walk/ bus it everywhere. They arrived via skis last night. Too cute.With Auntie Ricky and Cousin Cash!
Her first gift of the night and she LOVED it!My little devil girl!Boxes to chew on are really the best gift of all! Especially when they're from Anthropologie!OOH! Foot! The ribbon made a cute headband!Mommy, you can't eat the baby.The Fam!Maizey's new Pedipeds. Thanks Grammy and Grampy.She is CRAZY about this wheel. Somehow my mom knew she would be...BATH TOYS!
Jim with the new gurgle pot in his new Sounders FC gear.THE DAY AFTER:
Surrounded by her new favorite things.
I'm telling you, she loves this wheel.But she hates her hood!

Downtown Extravaganza!

Well it happened. On a whim yesterday, around 2pm, Ryan and I decided to try to make our downtown Christmas adventure happen. We knew that it might be the last chance we would get to do it since it's just supposed to get colder and snow again! Everyone was up for it, and by 4pm we were on our way! I'll sum up the experience with one word: BRRRRR! It was REALLY cold, but it was definitely worth it! We had to wait for 2 hours to see Santa, but people took turns leaving the line and shopping around to make it a little more bearable. Once it was our turn we realized why people wait so long to come here (Downtown Nordstrom) for there Santa photos. They're really fun and really take their time with you to be sure that you get the photo you waited for. They took a bunch of shots of Maizey until they got one with her smiling! She was pretty captivated with Santa! When we sat her on his lap she just stared at him and then started playing with his beard. We lucked out and got "diversity" Santa (that's what they called him), I knew they had a black Santa downtown, but I didn't know they had an Asian Santa too! Hooray!The photographer was so great and offered to take a photo of all of us with our camera! It was really great and it felt so good to have the whole family there (minus Aaron who had other things going on). I couldn't help but feel so happy for Maizey, what a lucky girl to be surrounded with such a strong community of people. We were the only group of people to have one child and 9 adults!
I can't believe how cold it is outside. I woke up this morning and we had NO COLD WATER! The pipes froze overnight! I never really realized how much you need cold water. Luckily they only froze on one side of the house, and by this afternoon they were all working again, but it's just a testament to how cold it is. It's cold outside, but inside is as warm and happy as ever. Maizey is starting to laugh a lot more now. I LOVE playing with her, when she gets laughing and silly it's seriously the most fun I've had in my life. I love that baby.
We went shopping tonight for Maizey. We took her with us, but she was asleep so she won't know that we bought her toys and not Santa. It was SO fun to pick them out! She's at the age where she can totally get into toys now, and it makes shopping for toys more fun than shopping for clothes--I never thought that would be possible! We got some good stuff and I can't stand having to wait to give it to her!
It's supposed to snow tonight and tomorrow and now that we've been to see Santa, I really hope we get a lot and I hope it sticks!
Here are A LOT of photos, the good ones are courtesy of Auntie Ricky! It's a hobby that we all benefit from...

Just heading to see Santa. Maizey was ALL bundled up to stay warm in the 20degree temps!Daddy and Maizey watching the snow at Pacific Place while Mommy froze her buns off in line!Cuddling in line. She came to join me after I got inside.Pure joy.She was such a trooper.Hamming it up in line for her new fans.Ditto.Getting ready for Santa!Behind the scenes.How sweet is this face???So cute!The whole gang, including Diversity Santa.Heading to get dinner. Here she is wearing her new shirt that Auntie bought her last night. All these pics are so cute, I couldn't just pick one. Ugh, I just want to eat her up!

We came, we saw, we conquered

Maizey started crawling tonight! We took videos, but only as an after-thought. So, here they are, she was tired by the time I thought to video the event, so what you see here is a little crawling and a lot of falling. Even so, she's crawling. They're long, but cute.

First Snow

We had our first snow last night. We were having a great time at a holiday party at Jessica's in Ballard, and when we saw the snow starting to accumulate at sea level, we knew it was time to hit the road. I was, unfortunately, the designated driver. I pride myself on being a fabulous, confident driver, but when it comes to the snow it's a totally different story. It all stems from a long, icy drive on the West Seattle Bridge about 8 years ago and having to walk home after abandoning my car. Anyway, after a nerve wracking drive home on a snow-packed I-5 at midnight (when everyone but me is a drunk driver) with our baby in the car, we crawled into bed with all the blinds open so we could see what was happening without having to get up to look outside.

This morning we woke up to 4ish inches. I was really bummed and feeling imprisoned in my own home when we decided we'd have to reschedule Maizey's Downtown Extravaganza--complete with Santa photos, the carousel, snow at Pac Place and the WHOLE family. Seriously, it KILLED me to cancel it. I was HATING the snow. But, we decided to make the best of it and take a little walk. Maizey didn't quite respond to the snow like I hoped she would, in fact, I'm not sure she even noticed. We got some fun pictures and we rescheduled our downtown adventure.

Here are some photos of today...

Waiting for snow

I couldn't decide between these two photos. She's so silly! She LOVED Trader Joe's Organic Roasted Red Pepper and Tomato soup. I realize this isn't the type of foods you're supposed to give babies, but I don't care. Icicles

a> The roads outside our house are, literally, sheets of ice.Getting ready for the cold. This reminds me of "I can't put my arms down!"Heading out for our walk.Daddy and doggies.Trying to stay warm.Playing at the school by our house.Family.She fell asleep in the Moby on the walk home. So sweet.
Our tree. Not a very good shot. I'll get one where it's lit up at night!