The Doll Needs a Snack

December is a born Mommy. Whenever her friends come over to play, she is constantly making sure they take drinks out of their sippy cups, or she is hand-feeding them snacks, or getting them their blankets, etc. The following is something I hear every day, coming from December as she plays: "Baby? Bayyy-beee?? Ohhh, dere baby! Baby, dee? Dee. Boh, baby. Bohhh. Dere baby. Cuh?? Baby cuh? Cuh. Nana. Baby -- nana." (translation: "Baby? Where's the baby? Ohh, there's baby! Baby, eat? Eat. *brings doll to high chair and gives a great lift, setting her in...pushes the chair in closely to the table* Bowl, baby. [she calls plates "bowls"]. Bowl. *sets the plate in front of the doll* There, baby. Cup? Where's baby's cup? There's cup! *sets the cup by the plate* Baby -- banana.") It's pretty fun to watch her flutter around her doll, getting everything the doll needs to have a proper snack.

Here is December having a real conversation on the phone with Justyne -- she just sat and talked on and on to Justyne! I was so shocked that she was doing that! Usually, she runs away from the phone and giggles while I try to chase her down and hold the phone to her ear.

Getting out all of the toys and deciding to play with Barbie.

Noah and December playing together at Noah's house. Matthew and Naomi had invited us over for dinner on Friday, and the kids like playing together...

Well, they usually like playing together, anyway. This was taken just before December hit Noah in the face with her feet, and his lip started to bleed :(

December posing for the picture. It was the weirdest thing -- I bent down to take the picture, and December looked at me, and then struck up this pose. Silly girl!

Brad's into his Reading Days now, and he's reading behind me right now as I type! His first exam is on Thursday, and it's his Greek one. The weather here has been chillier than usual, and this morning we turned on our heater for the first time. When we woke up, it was 60 degrees inside our apartment (15 degrees C), and December's hands were little blocks of ice, so we turned it on for a little bit. BUT the nice thing is that it has warmed up with the sun shining, so right now, outside it is 70 degrees -- much preferable!

"Hey -- DON'T Touch My Hair!"

We watched Samuel a couple of nights ago while his parents were out and about. Here are December and Samuel dancing together (holding hands and twirling around)




Samuel wasn't quite as keen on the dancing as December was, so she decided to dance by herself.

Here is December, throwing a temper tantrum...

Samuel and December are being all cuddly (this is right before bedtime), and they're watching a calming Baby Einstien video

Samuel LOVES hair, so in this picture, he was reaching out to touch December's hair. She did NOT think that was an okay thing for him to do!

Brad's Mom was very kind and sent us a chocolate count-down to Christmas calendar...Brad and I ate the chocolates for first few days, and then we thought we should share with December. Here she is, unwrapping the chocolate.

Being the chocoholic that she is (at such a young age, too!), she shoved the entire piece in her mouth at once. Now I don't think Brad or I will get any of the rest of the chocolates! I had to hide the box so that she's stop begging us for more of them :)

YAY! All Brad's papers are finished! He pulled an all-nighter last night to finish the last one, but they all got turned in on time, and he is officially finished with his classes now. Next week he has a few days for his Reading Break, and then on Thursday he begins his final exams, which continue into the week following...and once those are finished, we go on a road trip! Christmas time is great fun. I can't wait to start wrapping presents because I want to see how December will respond to gifts under the tree, now that she's a bit older. I wonder if she'll know what's going on with all of the shiny, sparkly boxes hanging out on the floor...? It'll be fun to see!

Somersaulting

December's newest trick is to do a somersault -- here she is, getting into the crouching position

Then she puts her head to the floor and straightens her legs

Here she is in the middle of the flip

All finished her flip!

On Sunday, December was wearing her Christmas dress, and there was another little girl at church with an almost identical dress to hers!

The other little girl was doing really well for the camera, smiling and frilling her dress out, but December was trying to run away from her...Brad had to hold her down in order to get a picture of them together :)

After a full morning at church, December fell asleep in her carseat.

It rained quite a bit last week, and then at the end of it, out came a rainbow! It was so pretty! This picture was taken out of our bedroom window.

It has been pretty busy here lately, as you might guess from the lack of posting! Brad has just finished his last days of classes, and his end-of-semester papers are due tomorrow. He has put in some REALLY late nights (or, I should say, early mornings) already, and it looks like he'll be pulling another one tonight. The end of the semester is really rough! Also, Medi-Cal has been giving us grief (but that's nothing new), cochroaches have decided to invade our kitchen (GROSS!), my wisdom teeth have been coming in more and more (which causes GREAT amounts of pain and prohibits me from eating almost entirely), friends' cars are breaking down and desparately needing our help, going to Christmas get-togethers, etc. So there hasn't really been a dull moment!

But MOST exciting of all is what happened last Thursday! We bought a minivan! YAY! I've been wanting one for a really long time (like since before we were married...I have an affinity for minivans), and we're selling our car. Our car doesn't have A/C, so that has been pretty desirable at times here! We have a buyer for our car in Alberta. So w'll be driving our car up in a couple of weeks when we go up north for Christmas, to have Christmas with Brad's family. Soo, we had been looking for a van since before we moved out here, but the right one hadn't come along...until a couple of weeks ago! It was a great deal, and I wouldn't chose any other van! It's a 2007 Kia Sedona, and we bought it used -- it had been a rental car beforehand. I'll put up some pictures of it. We LOVE our van! It's so much fun to drive, although it's still a bit nerve-wracking because it's unfamiliar and new! It's been wonderful to have already.

Yay for Minivans!

Here's our van! We are really exited about it.

It has 30,000 miles on it...and it has air conditioning! YAY! (it has other features too, but I'm thrilled about the air conditioning! It's already been put to good use)

Here are all of the buttons and things...they're fun to figure out!

December likes to play with the buttons, too!

The back bench folds down into the floor in a 2/3rd split. The right two seats are folded into the floor here.