holidays!

We're back. From our trip to Washington, that is. We spent two weeks with the family celebrating the holidays, which was quite an adventure for Maeby. She enjoyed copious amounts of hugs and kisses (and general adoring attention) from aunts, uncles, grandparents, cousins, and one great-grandparent. She also received a generous number of presents, including three (count 'em!) Winnie the Pooh's. She was, at the end of it all, rather ready to come home, though, and let out squeals of delight (yes, now she's squealing - and it's ear-piercing) when she saw her own room again.


Pictures:


Here's Maeby with her great-grandma, Jan.

Asleep in the car. She spent a *lot* of time in the car on this trip - which was consternating for her. She does not care for the car.

Making her first snow angel with Nana.

Her first snow-angel.

I love that snow suit.

For this, I just made a giant footprint and then set her down inside of it. She found it hilarious.

She's at that stage where she gets really excited over just about anything. Sometimes, we can't believe we made such a cute kid.

Here she is listening to "Santa Mouse" for the first time.

Napping with Nana and enjoying her new Pooh-bear.

Another Christmas gift. She really likes the noise the bird makes when you squeeze it - and how soft it feels on her face (and, let's be honest, in her mouth - where everything winds up nowadays.)

Maeby and her Papa after her blessing. Jenn found the dress on e-bay. I love that the pacifier completes the outfit in some way. We call it her "escargot" because it has a picture of a snail on it. She loves that thing.

Maeby, her mama, and her escargot.

Napping with grandpa. It's difficult to say who snored louder. We'll call it a toss-up, for now.

On a totally unrelated note, here we have Jenn's 87-year-old Grandma sledding down a rather steep hill (backwards.)

Her first sledding ride.

Here we go as a family. Don't worry - we only went for about five feet - down a slope about as steep as your average table-top. She was never, at any point, in any danger.

Snow-angeling (I'm positive that's not an actual verb - but I'm okay with that) with her cousin Katie.

I love messing with her hair.

Going on her first pony ride with her cousin Jazmine.

She's only proficient in the western style, for now. We're working on the English, but it might take some time.

Balancing on her grandpa's hand. She took to this much easier than her mama ever did.

Just happy to be out of her car seat for a while. Don't worry - we were parked.

Napping with mama.

SNOW

We're having quite the snow-storm today, and we took Maeby out on the deck this evening so she could enjoy her first wintry deluge. Sorry about the haziness on these, I should have adjusted the ISO and upped the shutter speed just a hair. Oh well; it's hard to adjust camera settings in a blizzard.

Also, this morning we went on a drive to try and find some Owls. They can often be spotted over on 53rd, in the trees. Alas, we didn't find any. We did, however, see a number of beautiful Red-Tailed Hawks. So, enjoy a few non-Maeby pictures for once (I'd almost forgotten what it was like to be out shooting things aside from my daughter.)

Merry Christmas & A Happy New Year!

Just want to wish everyone a VERY Merry Christmas.

Posts are probably going to be a little scarce with Christmas coming and a big trip up to Washington....We'll try to keep it updated for those who won't be sharing the holidy with us.

WHAT A WEEK!

(Editorial Note: For some reason pictures haven't wanted to upload very well so apologies if they look weird or distorted...It's been a long process to try and get it to work....)

WOW! We've been so busy this past week! So many new things and so much excitement! We played, we laughed, we cried, we got a little sleep…..What a Thanksgiving!

Great Grandma Jurgens came from Utah to see us and spend a few days with us. She was a lot of fun and we had laughs a plenty (as long as Great Grandma didn't wear her glasses).

We spent Thanksgiving up at Uncle Chris & Aunt Sara's house. We had far more food than we could eat! Maeby tried to suck on some – but she didn't like it.

We had a fun time after dinner playing Twister for the first time….

We went to see where Grandpa Jurgens is burried at the cemetary.

On Saturday we took Great Grandma out to the Ocean where we went to the Yaquina Lighthouse and saw so many awesome things! Mommy got to use her new wrap from Aunt Emily which was soooo great while walking on the beach.

On Sunday night, Great Grandma and Grandma helped us decorate for Christmas. Great Grandma and Daddy showed up with a tree for Mommy and we spent lots of time putting pretty lights and ornaments on and gave Maeby a reason to put on her new Holiday dress!

We had so much fun just playing with family….but by the time everyone left Maeby was so tired she slept all through the night (literally 10 hours) three nights in a row. Yea for Mommy & Daddy!