rub a dub dub

marianne had buckets of fun in her washpod...

...but for the last several nights she has been refusing to sit down it the water. so we have retired the pod and moved on to the tub.

she had a ball. she splished and splashed and slipped and slid. she found it especially thrilling to crawl to the shallow end and slide back down to the deep end. marvelous fun.

yes, my little rubber friends, i think we're going to like it here.

even daddy had fun and managed not to get completely soaked.

the holidays

thanksgiving.

we spent marianne's first thanksgiving in monument, co with the rokkes and mcgees. we drove down the night before so that i would be there early enough the next day to participate in the rokke/mcgee family tradition of running the local 5k turkey trot. that was the first night, of what became many over the next month, that marianne woke repeatedly. and that night it was every hour, on the hour, all night long. i was exhausted come daybreak and questioning the 5k. but i did it. hills and all. at least i earned my stuffing and gravy.

we spent the rest of the day at the rokke home enjoying the company and not doing any cooking. which was a first for me in several years. and the food was delicious. eric roasts a mean turkey and john can bake a loaf of bread, i'm telling you what. the kids were like vultures waiting for it to come out of the oven.

i didn't take many pictures that day but i did snap a few of marianne with her cousins. she was a hit and they were great with her. they let her pull their hair and use their cell phones as teethers.

we had a lot to be thankful for.

christmas.

we made the annual trek home to mo and, per usual, it was a whirlwind of engagements. chapmans and laflens, marlows and beatties, mitchells and mardii, OH MY.

even for it being marianne's first christmas, she did get into pulling at bows and ripping some paper. it was adorable. she was showered with love and gifts and we really enjoyed our time at home with family...even if we slept in a different bed each night. and our drive home was undeterred by weather, which is always a blessing that time of year.

my nana

opening gifts with stella

entertaining aunt nati

is this what santa's beard feels like?

some of my loyal blog fans

laflen girls



sledgie ride

do what?

oh, okay!

au revoir. happy anniversary beatties.

christmas morning in their finest.

thanks for the bling, aunt julie.

christmas again.

technically, it was new years day but it was the day we opened gifts at home with marianne. so for us, it was christmas no. 2.

after all of that.
i needed some rest. marianne was teething from thanksgiving to new years and, as i mentioned earlier, she was waking often throughout the night, every night. upon our return to colo, we implemented some sleep training to break her of the new habits she had formed - and some old habits that we had formed - so that she could learn to soothe herself to sleep AND just as, if not more, importantly so that momma could get back to logging some serious sleep hours again as well. it's worked out amazingly. marianne took to the new routine with ease and is now a champ at falling asleep unaided and sleeping COMPLETELY through the night. and i am a brand new woman. hallelujah!

hey momma, watch this

before all of this single-digit and below-zero weather, we had some really nice fall days. i took marianne out to play in the leaves but instead she decided to taste-test. i made a valiant effort at first to stop her but as soon as i would pull one out, she'd shove another in. so i ran for the camera and let her sample.

blech! not so tasty.

but enough fun to give it one more try.

who needs toys when you have empty beer boxes?

they can be a car - vroom vroom, dada.

or they can be a boat - there's room, momma, come on in.

home to see the grands

in november, marianne and i joined jer for his trip home to deer hunt. while jer was off hunting and camping we carried on our merry way, visiting marianne's grands: two great-grandmas and four grandparents. it was quite a weekend and marianne had a blast. she took her first ride sitting in a shopping buggy at walmart while daddy and uncle john shopped for a camping gear and supplies. marianne had just started saying "ba" shortly before the trip and over the weekend she uttered her first "da" - I guess she missed her daddy while he was out on the hunt. a couple of days after we got back home, she started saying "dada"...most mornings we wake up to her yelling it. since then she's also been working on saying "cat" but is yet to clearly say "mama". i suspect i've heard it a few times amidst tired/frustrated cries but otherwise, nothing! she is now starting to wave hello and goodbye - on her own terms though, she refuses to be prompted. she's also clapping like a fool...when she takes a bite, when she knocks down blocks, when she takes a drink, when she crawls into the room...it's addictive and stinkin adorable. she still doesn't like fruit, AT ALL, but i've managed to sneak it into a few meals by mixing it with other foods. she's been cutting teeth like crazy and now has four that have erupted (two front bottom, one front top and the one next to it on the top). she's working on two more (the two corresponding top teeth). that front tooth on the top sure did give her a heck of a time. she started cutting her teeth on 10|9 and pretty much hasn't stopped. maybe she'll get em all out of the way and just be done with it.

here's the photo log from our trip to mo:

with great grandma mary, who remembered marianne's name and was in great spirits when we visited. we actually caught her in the workout room doing her exercises. she was hounding the nurse who was monitoring her workout...she kept calling him a the "meanie man"!

smiles and laughs with grandpa and grandma at the white grill - one of the yummiest dive burgers i've ever had, thanks john.

in the buggy seat at walmart - what fun!

hammin' it up with great grandma minnie. it made grandma's day to hold and hug on a smiley baby.

playing with her cousins at papa and nana's house. cadence is directing the baby play.

on papa's lap with cousin jack and pretty darn happy about it.

laptime with nana. worn out and very content and relieved for the downtime after a busy day playing with the cousins.