Shay's 1st Christmas

It's hard to believe that this time last year I was 6+ months pregnant and we had not met Little Miss Shay yet. And this December 25th found her crawling around amidst a huge pile of presents at Jeff's parents' place for her first Christmas. She is one much-loved baby!
 

A happy Shay Bug by Papa & Mimi's Christmas tree

My mom and her boyfriend, Ron, flew in from Minnesota to spend Shay's first Christmas with us. The trip was Ron's gift to my mom (thank you Ron!). We all piled into "Nadia" to drive to New River Fellowship for a candlelight Christmas Eve Service (Yes, we name our cars. Our other one is named "Dominique." Bonus points to whoever can figure out the last names of the people we named them after). I'm not sure if it was the loud music, the dim lights or the crowd of people, but Shay sort of freaked out when we brought her into the main auditorium. So I headed right back out to the lobby with her and proceeded to give her Cheerios (we arrived right around the time she was due for dinner). She muched preferred Cheerios over church! After awhile, we were able to go back into the service where she was wiggly as could be in Daddy's arms but was content to quietly eat her Cheerios and puffs, only flinging them into the aisle once, LOL! When we got home, she was ready for bed so we put her down and then ordered Chinese food, a relatively new Christmas Eve tradition for Jeff & me, and we all watched "Meet the Parents." Not your typical Christmas Eve but fun nonetheless.

2 cars, a ton of gifts and baby gear later, we all arrived at Jeff's parent's house in the afternoon on Christmas Day. We had a beautiful white Christmas in Nashville, the first in 17 years, and the view of his parent's backyard was so pretty. Minnesota friends...trust me, a white Christmas in Tennessee is a big deal!

Jeff & me on Larry & Kay's deck

Shay took a long nap while we ate dinner and woke up in time to "open" her gifts. She was none too impressed and was more interested in crawling all over and exploring. Must have been total sensory overload for her. Dinner and gift opening were topped off by a visit from Santa (Larry) and the Grinch (Jeff) which totally freaked poor Shay out! Maybe next year they'll be more welcome.

Not at all happy about the Grinch honing in on Christmas

 

Santa "Larry" and the Grinch "Jeff" with an unhappy Buggy

 

I can't believe how many toys, clothes & books Shay got! And, since she's a Shay Bug, many were bug-themed. Jeff's Nana got her a set of 4 bug hand puppets. I think Jeff & I have had more fun with them than Shay!  Thank you to everyone for loving on our little girl this Christmas and all throughout the year!

Shay checking out her Christmas bear from Aunt Julie & Uncle Bob

Christmas bow baby!

Also, congratulations go out to our friends Burke & Sarah Snyder on the arrival of their baby girl, Aubrey Caroline, who was born on December 23rd!  She's beautiful!

A December to Remember

Christmas portrait

The Christmas tree is NOT going up this year. If the tree went up, Shay would figure out a way to bring it down. Likely right on top of herself! So, even though the tree won't be up, this will definitely be a December to remember. At this point, all of our Christmas shopping and wrapping is done! Looking forward to my Mom and her boyfriend coming to visit the 24th-26th and going over to Jeff's folk's place on Christmas Day. I can't wait to see Shay amidst all of the gift wrap and bows.

Baby Land continues to be THE best place to be! Shay Bug is learning and growing so fast! She's getting stronger and more coordinated by the hour it seems. She crawls at super speed and is pulling up and cruising around everything she can. We've caught her standing by herself on occasion but only when she's not aware she's doing it on her own (i.e. while busy passing a toy from hand to hand). If we try to get her to stand on her own and she knows it, she'll immediately drop down on the floor.

Squash, sweet potatoes, apples, pears & oatmeal continue to be among her favorite foods, but she also likes her YoBaby yogart, bread, Cheerios, yogart melts (aka "baby crack") and, most recently, chicken. We make roasted chicken and give her very small pieces of it. She really seems to like it and will sit and happily munch away. We call her a little "Chicken Chomper." She's also busy trying to learn how to feed herself finger foods. She has her pincer grasp down and has made the connection that she needs to bring her hand up to her mouth. However, she hasn't quite mastered the art of releasing the food into her mouth. She gets it in about 50% of the time (although, she did manage to snatch one of her organic apple puffs off of the floor and eat it before we could grab it!). It's so fascinating watching her and realizing just how hard some things actually are. We take so much for granted as able-bodied adults.

Trying her hand at eating toast

She also has 6 teeth now! Those little pearly whites just keep popping out. We've been blessed that teething isn't the ordeal for us that we've heard it can be for others. She'll get a little fussy a day or two before a tooth breaks the surface, but that's really it. She doesn't run a fever or anything like that and continues to sleep like a champ (about 11 1/2 hrs. straight at night!

Oh, and remember those baby showers I blogged about?  "Big" Shay had her baby on Dec. 3rd!  A beautiful baby boy named Liam Gabriel.  Congrats to the proud new parents!  Comje on Burke & Sarah...Baby S. needds to join the December fun!

"Big Shay" and newborn baby Liam!

We don't really get white Christmases in Tennessee, but we did get some snow the other day.  I had to take some pictures of Shay's first time out in the snow!

 Daddy & Shay

Little Snow Angel