Lots of Pictures

This picture was taken at Mom and Dad's house, just a few days before we left for California. December loves stuffed animals!

This picture was taken while Mom was out here visiting...December is laughing at a Baby Einstein "baby-humor" moment -- they know what babies find amusing!

Taken the night before Mom flew home, December is trying to stop Mom from leaving by laying in her suitcase...either that or she's saying, "Take me with you!!"

Mom is reading a book to December, and December is doing the sound for bear ("roAAAAARR!!"), which she had learned from Daddy earlier that day.

December being happy

Here are a couple of pictures of the fire damage to one of the houses we saw on our "fire tour." The rubble you see in the picture is the remains of a once-gorgeous, large home.

You can see how the trees are all wilted and black from the fire.

December at the beach! It is by far her most favorite place to go. She absolutely loves chasing the waves and running in the water.

The wave is crashing around her legs, which she thinks is awesome.

All of that ocean water does get a little chilly after a while! She's doing a BIG shiver.

Playing around in the soft white sand...

Getting cleaned up after being incredibly sandy!

Running around on the beach...boy, all of these pictures make me want to go back to the beach again! We haven't been there since these pictures were taken, but Brad and I love it there, too.

Thanksgiving

A sparkly clean December after her bath, in her pajamas and ready for bed

We were cleaning and getting ready for the Thanksgiving party, so as I vacuumed I put all of the dining room chairs into the kitchen. In this picture December has climbed up onto a chair and found some tasty cinnamon bread to snack on.

Here's what it looked like before everyone came...

And here is everyone! You may notice that conspicuously absent from the head of the table is December. She went down for a nap at noon and slept for over three hours (completely unheard of!)...so she missed Thanksgiving dinner. By the time she woke up, she was too busy playing with everyone to want to eat.

Here is December's progress with a spoon...she's doing really well at learning how to use forks and spoons!

Thanksgiving Day was really fun! We ended up having twelve people and three babies over. After we had dinner at 2:00pm, we sang some songs, and then we played games. By that time everyone started to leave, it was about 9:00pm. We put the babies to bed and then we went in the hot tub (using the baby moniter to listen for any cries). It was busy, and I think that helped ease the thoughts of it being the first Thanksgiving away from family. I'm glad we had it at our apartment because I could hardly stop to think about sad thoughts during all of the commotion and demands of hosting. That was nice. However, Thanksgiving Dinner didn't really sit well in my tummy, and I'm still not feeling well. Ick. It probably didn't help that on Friday, we had a Thanksgiving dinner repeat with all of the leftovers. I shouldn't have done that! Now, all my body's allowing me to eat is water and yogurt...boy, I hope I get over this bug quickly!

Wild Animal Park

Yesterday, Naomi, Noah, December, and I went to the Wild Animal Park. We had such a great time! Here are Noah and December standing in front of the flamingos. I always thought of these birds as so unique and elegant...but they are loud and smelly. They're still unique, though!


I didn't check to see what the names of these birds are, but aren't they cool?? I love the hair tufts on the top of their heads.


Here are Noah and December in front of the duck hordes. The ducks were by far December's favorite! She just stared at them and didn't want to be taken away (I think she liked being in such close proximity).


Noah and December are driving a little remote-controlled boat in the pond with this wheel (though I don't know if they know that's what they're doing...they just liked to spin the wheel)


These birds didn't mind December coming right up to them! They'd fly away if I walked by them, but tiny December didn't threaten them at all!

These birds also liked to perch in the trees...they looked so funny, a humongous bird just sitting on a little branch like a robin or sparrow would do!


We walked though the "Heart of Africa" exhibits, and we saw so many cool animals! It was a cooler day yesterday (highs around 65*F/18*C), so all of the animals were out playing around instead of hiding in the shade. It was a great day to go!


This is one of the strangest animals I've ever seen! It is an okapi, and it looks like a mish-mash of all sorts of different animals! It is most closely related to a giraffe, though. If you ever come and visit us, we'll have to take you to the Wild Animal Park. It's such a beautiful place!



Today we are getting ready for Thanksgiving -- cleaning the house, preparing the dishes that can be made ahead of time, etc. Through our church and the seminary, we have been given some giftcards for various grocery stores to use for Thanksgiving dinner, and that has been really wonderful! The area churches collected food for the seminarians, and it was all dropped off at the seminary yesterday. Last night, Brad, December, and I joined the crew of people organizing the incredible amounts of food. December probaby did more damage than good, taking food away from our organized lines and putting it wherever she wanted, but it was fun to help out. The generosity of everyone here is incredible! So this morning all of the seminarians went "shopping," and we got some really nice food! We have been blessed by the churches here.

It's a Bird, It's a Plane, It's a...MOO MOO!

December is hanging out on the porch. She climbed into the chair and apprently was enjoying herself thoroughly!

And then, she heard something in the sky: a helicopter. She's an observant toddler and especially notices plane/helicopter sounds as they fly by.

Here she is pointing up at the helicopter -- as soon as she hears one, she points to the sky and says, "Moo! Moo!" because helicopters and airplanes say moo in December's world.

She loves to talk on the telephone.

She has entire conversations as she holds the phone up to her ear, and they always start out with, "ehhhhoohhh" (= hello)

Brad took this picture today of December sleeping in our bed. As you know, when December wakes up from her nap, she's not always really finished sleeping, so then she finishes her nap on the floor. Today, Brad put her in our bed to sleep some more.

Here's December being super-helpful! She took these bowls out of the tupperware cupboard and started wiping them down.

She's a big helper...

Are you sick of looking at pictures yet? :) We got those new batteries for our camera, and I'm so excited about it that I'm taking pictures like a crazy woman! These batteries just don't die, and it makes me so happy! Anyway, here is December coloring.

December's favorite pastime: watching the big neighbor kids play around...I gave her snacks this time, so she was really having fun, eating and spying at the same time.

Thanksgiving Day is on Thursday. We are hosting Thanksgiving dinner at our apartment, and it started out being four seminary couples, including us. But now it appears that our little Thanksgiving party is getting bigger all the time! Everyone is inviting more people, which is great -- no one should have to eat Thanksgiving dinner alone. So now our party has grown from 8 people (not counting babies) to 16 people! I'm not sure how many people our little apartment can hold, but I'm pretty sure it's going to be bursting at the seams! Who knows how many more people will be invited before the actual day happens...on the one hand, I want everyone who has no place to go to be able to come, but on the other hand, I don't know how we're going to sit the people we've already got coming! :) But I'm sure it'll all work out...as long as we've got enough food, everything will be just fine!