Christmas is Coming

Can I get away with nothing but pictures and videos today?? I have so many to share!!

I guess you don't have any say, though, do you? Mwahahaha!! You shall all be subjected to my whims!!

First up: These two videos of Alex were taken on December 2nd, the day after Alex turned 8 months old. Alex started "walking" a few days before, and I finally sat down to get it on video. He did about as well here as he did the first time he took 8 steps. My favorite part is how giggly he was getting each time I had him practice. You could tell he was absolutely giddy, or proud of himself, or something, the way he was tucking his chin down, grinning and spitting out barely-contained giggles. Now, one of these videos is pretty long. Don't feel obligated to watch the whole thing - his best run was the very first part of it. I just enjoyed his expressions too much to stop recording!

A few days later, we had fun in a darkened room, with him chasing around a flashlight spot like a little kitten. (I know, are we horrible, or what??)

This past week, Alex has been quickly learning how to put things into buckets and boxes. He'll keep himself quite busy with a few random toys and an empty box to put them into (and take them back out of). Melinda, in this video, was teaching Alex how to drop shapes into the shape sorter, and was so proud of him when he would do it! Well, he could only do the circle, since it didn't require any twisting and turning to fit into the slot. I didn't actually get that part on the video, because my batteries ran out, but you can see how they were interacting here. And yes, Melinda *is* dressed as Mary. And Jacob was dressed as Joseph. And they randomly decided that "Alexy-Galaxy" would be their baby Jesus. But they couldn't figure out how to keep him still like baby Jesus. He kept crawling and walking away. Hmm. Anyway, the video:



And next up, these two videos show how Alex is doing with walking now, just over a week later. Folks, there is no stopping him. He is on the go! He now walks with every chance he gets, and is doing quite well. He can cross the room without falling down a lot of times, or at least will usually get halfway across before dropping down and crawling. He always starts off walking, where possible. He loves it when Melinda or Jacob grabs his hand and walks him around the house, too. I was mopping the floor with the gate up in the kitchen the other day, and after he got cranky and tired of waiting for me to be done, he decided to head back to Jesse in the kitchen. Now, usually when he's cranky, he gets completely uncoordinated, and will crawl around pathetically, forehead dragging on the floor, until someone comes to rescue him and pick him up. But this day that I was mopping, he was so into the walking mode, that he walked away from the gate, still crying, heading towards Jesse in the front room, and almost made it all the way there without dropping down. He could have supported himself on the wall, but he walked a good pace or two away from it. And he's only gotten better since then. I've seen him starting to crouch down to pick something up and almost stand back up to keep going. He'll be there soon. Once he figures out how to stand up without a prop (and right now, he only needs something about 4 inches off the floor), then I bet he'll be walking near constantly. I'm proud of him, but boy is it trouble!! Babies are so much easier to take care of when they can't get around. ;) Not to mention he keeps banging his forehead into corners. (And I refuse to get a nice new family picture with a giant bruise on his head, so if you don't see a Christmas card/letter from us anytime soon, I'm sorry!!)
Enough with the rambling. Obviously I am not keeping up with my pictures/videos only idea.... Ugh. Here are the next two videos.





And, finally, some pictures from our ward Christmas party. We had a really good time, ate a lot of really good food, and had the chance to talk to nearly everyone there! We picked a table at the back of the room, (I admit, because we wanted a head start on getting to the food, when it was time!) and guess where the line to get food went? Right by our table. One person in line joked that it was just like a wedding line-up. Jesse and I both laughed at that one. And then I looked at our plates full of food, remembered our own wedding reception where we didn't get any of the food because we were standing in the line talking to people the whole time, and I said, "Right... except this time we get to eat the food!" I know, I'm so cleverish, aren't I? But really, it was especially funny at that moment, or so Jesse and I thought! We got to sit and eat our plates of food and chat with everyone in line as it moved slowly along. It was great! Alex had a fun time sharing my food, too. Did I mention that he's eating table food now? We took food introduction really pretty slow with him (and while I often cite allergy risk, my ulterior motive is my hate of pureed food-feeding). He wasn't getting anything regularly until 7 months, and here at 8 months, he's having a grand ol' time eating just about anything I decide to give him. Which is, granted, mostly very soft vegetables or mashed food, or teeny tiny pieces of turkey, but he's eating it, and happily! He's also figured out how to drink from a straw, and often commandeers Melinda or Jacob's Thermoses, which are built with straws. And he's also got 6 teeth now, 2 on bottom, 4 on top. All before Melinda and Jacob had any. Crazy 3rd kid.

Melinda enjoying her dessert at our table:

Jacob and Jesse on the other side of the table, also at dessert time:

Seeing the bit of tulle in this picture with Jesse & Jacob reminded me of something sweet. One of our Primary class children, Courtney, made us cupcakes and wrote a lovely thank-you note to give to us, for being nice/fun/interesting teachers. It really made my evening! She started out the year so shy and withdrawn, and has been so fun to watch this year. She's now always one of the first ones to volunteer to say prayer or help out with the lesson, and always seems genuinely happy to be there. The whole class, really, has been so fun to watch over the course of the year. I'll be sad to see them move up in a couple more weeks. But I was so touched that she was thoughtful enough to make us a treat and give us a note. It makes us feel so appreciated!

After the program was the traditional Santa visit! I let Melinda run over to stand in line as soon as the closing prayer was said. And although I typically shadow the kids, I also decided to let Jacob run after Melinda and stand with her. And while I knew they were both excited to see Santa, I was surprised to watch them as they approached. Melinda held onto Jacob gently, guiding him, not letting him go too soon, and gently prodding him when it was okay. It didn't hit me until much later that evening.... Melinda let Jacob go sit with Santa first. Wow. How special was that? I knew she was eager to see Santa. Probably much more eager than Jacob, who is still young enough that this is his first year grasping the concept of Santa. And yet, even though they often fight over so many other things, and even though she was very eager, she let him go first. Happily. Without anyone suggesting it to her.

Someone better stop me before I start getting all teary-eyed with mommy pride!!!

Jacob had no issues with going up to sit on Santa's lap. I'm pretty sure it was when Melinda was this age that she was absolutely terrified of Santa and wouldn't go anywhere near him, even though she loved the idea of Santa. So I was impressed at how easily Jacob took to it. He was his typical shy-faced self, though. So cute!


And then, it was Melinda's turn. She immediately took Santa around the neck in what looked like a big hug, though I'm fairly positive she was "whispering" (I use quotation marks, because her whispers are often loud enough to hurt my ears) what she wanted him to bring. It got a few laughs out of the other adults watching. After she whispered, she started fidgeting with his very loose beared. I was afraid she was about to yank it down! But I think she was just trying to get the whiskers out of the way of his nose, since it was so fluffy. ;) A few people asked me if I wanted to find out what she whispered to Santa, but I was pretty sure I knew. Asking Melinda confirmed it: She wants a "bubble gun" (not to be confused with bubble gum). The kind of bubble machine where you can pull a trigger and shoot a million bubbles at once.

I haven't found any yet.

Although, I suppose, I should be happy I'm not like the parents who will have to explain to their son why Santa didn't bring a Nintendo Wii just because he sat on his lap and asked for it. ;) It's a pretty silly, parent-entraping tradition, isn't it?

Last, I wanted to show off one of my early Christmas presents! Jesse's parents sent two boxes of gifts, which arrived on Saturday. Nedra warned ahead of time that one of them was an "open immediately" type of gift, so I went through and found it as soon as I could. I was so amazed when we unwrapped it! It's a beautiful felt nativity set:

I'm so in love with it (THANK YOU, Nedra!!!!!). It's so gorgeous. It reminds me exactly of stained glass. Those wise men even have shiny sequins in just the right places. I cleared off the bookcase just so I could have a perfect spot to display it. It's wonderful, especially since I have nowhere to put our other Nativity scene, which is so breakable. Jesse said there was a set just like this when he was growing up, but I never saw it, so I felt pretty surprised and breathless when we unwrapped it.

Alright. Well, I think that gets me all caught up with pictures and videos. Next time I blog, I can talk more! Wait, a minute... I shouldn't say that. I think I just spent an hour putting together this post, which certainly wansn't free of my ramblings....