December and Baby Rich

December playing in the baskets of laundry, as always!

This week I watched baby Rich while his mom was at school, teaching and his dad was at seminary. He's three months old, and December LOVED having a little baby around to take care of!

Baby Rich

Here they are, having tummy time together. I had been worried about December getting jealous of him, because she gets jealous when I hold Samuel or any of her other friends. But she didn't mind it at all! In fact, she was incredibly good around him, and I think he smiled more for her than he did for me!





December gave him blankets, his pacifier, and his toys and pushed him in the swing!

...and gave him kisses

Lately I've been putting pigtails in December's hair, and she's keeping them in!! Yesterday, she kept her pigtails in for six or seven hours straight, including all through her nap! We are making GREAT strides in keeping pretty things in her hair, and it's very exciting.

This week has been a pretty busy one for us, so I didn't get the chance to do much posting. As a result, I'm really far behind on what I've been wanting to put up! So that's why I'm putting up a few at once -- I need to catch up. But I have a feeling the next few weeks are going to be pretty busy, too. Next week I will be doing some watching of baby Rich again. The week after that, Brad's brother Jeff, his wife Erin, and December's cousin Caden will be coming out to visit, and we're SO excited about it! It'll be tons of fun to have them here and show them around! After that, we will be going to Michigan for Brad's Spring Break and my cousin Dirk's wedding! I can't wait to go back -- we're ALL excited about it, and it's only a few weeks away.

Painting

December went over to do some finger painting with Noah. December had never painted before! Here they are before they begin.

December working on a zebra face.

Noah loved getting his hands dirty and making a handprint-mane for this lion!

December, on the other hand, didn't even like getting the tip of a finger dirty with paint and squealed like crazy (in anger) when I tried painting her hand to get a handprint! She MUCH preferred using a paintbrush instead!

San Diego Zoo

A couple of weeks ago we went to the San Diego Zoo with our seminary friends Matthew, Naomi, and Noah! The Zoo is different than the Wild Animal Park that I usually show you pictures from (though they are related -- the Wild Animal Park is larger and is focused on breeding the animals, so there's always lots of babies running around there). This is an overview of part of the park. You'll probably be able to see it better if you click on the picture to enlarge it...

We took December and Noah into the petting zoo. Unlike the Wild Animal park, where you pet adult and baby deer, antelope, and gazelles, at the San Diego Zoo they have all farm animals...mostly goats. December really liked it! She enjoys feeding the animals by hand.

I think this picture's pretty cute -- Noah was a little frightened of the goats, so he's flattening himself against the wall as much as possible! :o)

The Zoo has a sky train (it's like a gondola) that lifts you up and takes you across the length of the zoo. You can see some of the San Diego skyline as you fly across the park!

December and Noah waiting for snacks.

Here's December trying to crawl in to play with the animals...you can see which animal she was trying to play with in the next picture

Aren't they lovely?? I'm sure they would have thoroughly enjoyed having December as a playmate (or to eat for lunch). These are some type of tapir (I think they actually only eat leaves and green things)

One thing I like about living in California is seeing all the unique plants. I don't know what this is, but it's pretty neato

I like this picture alot. It looks like we're all looking at some fascinating wild animal, but there's absolutely nothing there. There's nothing there beyond what you can see for yourself -- dirt and some pokey plants.

A chimpanzee smiling for the cameras

More chimpanzees

We went to a show while we were there, and one of the animals was this arctic wolf. What an awsome creature! His handler made us howl at him, to try to get him to howl back, and he did! It was fun to hear a live wolf howl right in front of us!

They also brought out a cheetah, another beatiful animal!

I'm not sure what this animal's name is...

Kangaroo

Happy Birthday, December!

We decorated for December's party with LOTS of pink and purple balloons, both inside the apartment and outside it. This is how we decorated December's chair.

Here's the birthday girl herself!

Here's December sitting at the table that is half set up for food and the other half set up for hungry toddlers. For dinner, we had hamburgers on the grill, fries, cantalope, watermelon, bananas, and oranges (it was funny to me to have summer fruit -- cantalopes and watermelon -- for a February birthday! I'm realizing what crazy things you can do when you live in a warm place!!)

Here is December watching everyone sing "Happy Birthday" to her. I am very proud to say that December blew out her own two candles! I wasn't expecting her to be able to, but she was trying to blow them out before we even told her that was what she was supposed to do!

Here is what December was looking at: everyone while they sang (and Brad catching everything on film).

Eating her kitty cake -- well, actually, more like trying to save her kitty cake. She didn't really want to ruin the kitten. When Brad pulled out one of its blue M&M eyes to show her how tasty and edible the cat was, she grabbed the candy and tried to put it back into the kitten's eye. She did eat a little bit of it, though.

Here is the kitten after December was finished with it. Not as nice-looking, but still mostly in tact.

One of December's gifts was an Elmo Potty-Time dvd. Woohoo! (I've had my eye on this dvd for a while now.) As soon as I put it in the dvd player, Samuel, Noah, and December were drawn to the movie like bugs to a lantern.

You just can't beat Elmo teaching the potty! (and, in case you may wonder, the movie IS as strange as it sounds. It's weird. Really weird. BUT I'm still hoping it will work!)

Then Christopher (Samuel's dad) took out Brad's guitar and started playing some fun tunes, so the kids were dancing and have a great time. Here Samuel and December have jumped up on the couch next to Christopher.

They were trying to play the spoons, because they saw Della (Samuel's mom) playing them in beat to the music. I've never known anyone who can actually play the spoons, but it's pretty neat! I'm hoping I can learn, too :o)

The party was really quite fun. Everyone came around 5:30pm, and we had dinner right away. There ended up being twelve adults and seven children, all of December's California friends! It was nice for us to all hang out together, too. We've been very blessed to meet such great people here. Our new two-year-old girl was pretty tuckered out after it was all done, but she did great and was in good spirits the entire time (except for when her friends wanted her to share her new birthday toys). We are so thankful that God has given us such a gift, a wonderful, sweet, happy-hearted, fun daughter, for two whole years! She brings such joy into Brad and I's life, and we pray that we will celebrate many, many more birthdays with her. We love December!