Merry Christmas

Wow, what a fun filled Christmas this has been for us.  Sorry for the lack of posting- I blame my camera and the length of time to upload photos to blogger!

We had a great time at our church's Christmas service-they did such a fabulous job decorating and making everything fun, worshipful and accessible!  Here is one of the only family shots we got this season (it was way past her bedtime, so Miss C wasn't in the mood to smile).

Having Coraline made Christmas morning so much fun for us this year.  We started the morning with homemade cinnamon rolls with cream cheese frosting and then let Coraline enjoy her Christmas gifts.

Here she is with her gifts from Santa.  She got a few toys and some outfits.

She found that eating wrapping paper was much more fun than opening the gifts- be careful Grant your finger is almost in the way!

In addition to eating the paper, she found that eating the gifts was much more fun too!

We had so much fun with our families.  We ate like kings.  We got some neat stuff (I got a Kindle- woo hoo- reading has commenced again)!  

I would have uploaded more photos, but I don't have 30 extra minutes to sit and wait!  I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas too.  I promise to be a better blogger this year!

Coraline Meets Santa's Beard

I love going back to my Alma mater, Peace College, any time I can.  That place houses so many good memories for me.  So, I jumped at the chance to take Coraline there for a fun, free event-- Christmas story time and a chance to meet Santa himself!  

I love Peace at Christmas!  This is the main building (I lived on the third floor my junior year).

Cute and sweet librarian, Anne, reading the kids two stories- can you spot me (Coraline got covered up by the book page)? 

And Miss C meets the jolly man himself, but was distracted by his beard, which she found quite entertaining! 

Peas and Carrots

Miss C has started solids.  According to her, her world will never be the same!  If you've been reading this blog for any length of time, you probably realize that I'm not very traditional.  Well, after reading this book--

I decided to skip the rice cereal route all together and just dive right in to real foods.  And so we did.  She's had bananas, yogurt and cinnamon, kefir, peas, carrots, green beans, pears, apples, white beans and turkey.  All with a little pat of butter or coconut oil and some mild spices.  One of the take home messages from the book that I've really taken to heart- babies like food to taste good too!  If it's bland to you, it will probably be bland for baby.  I haven't pureed the heck out of the food either- a little chunkiness is not harmful. 

(Yum, turkey, peas and carrots)



(She LOVES her food- she has yet to reject anything I've given her)

One of the things I've found extremely helpful in preparing her food is this little workhorse- the Beaba Babycook.  It steams, reheats and chops food.  Sure, you can make baby food without it, but it sure is easier to have one little machine do it all and within 15 minutes or so.