Home, jetlagged, and without mail

Our trip to the Philippines was amazing! But more on that later. We're home now and Taylor (and, by default, me as well) is ridiculously jetlagged. Even though we still go to bed at 9pm, she has been waking up at midnight and staying up for about 4hrs. Then we sleep again until 2pm.

Mark was sick when we returned, so he has been sleeping in the guest room. This has also worked to his advantage because he is back on Central Time and functioning fairly normally.

Today I'm trying to break the cycle. I set my alarm for 9:30am, thinking that we'd get up try to act like it was a normal day. Well, after I hit snooze and 10:30 rolled around we got out of bed. I opened up all the shades and blinds and curtains in the house and I started tackling some of the chores while Taylor sleepily played. She's asleep again now, but I think I'll have to wake her up soon so it's more like a regular nap. Tomorrow we actually have appointments out of the house, so we definitely need to get back on track.

I think we'll head by the post office this afternoon. We haven't been getting any mail since we came home. I set our "hold mail" for 12.24-1.12, but I think the postal worker has continued to skip our house. I want my mail!

Christmas day

What a fun Christmas - our first as a family of three! Besides all the presents and food and movies (which were great), we had a lot of fun dressing up Taylor as a little "Santa baby" and then stuffing her in a stocking on the fireplace.

She matches Grandma

The best stocking stuffer ever

(Don't worry, she wasn't really hanging from the mantle. Mark was holding her up with one arm from behind the couch.)

Taylor did a few new things today too! This afternoon was the first time she actual signaled to me that she needed to go to the bathroom and when I took her she pooped in the toilet. Woohoo! Now it really is Elimination COMMUNICATION. So exciting.

Second, we taught her how to clap her hand against her mouth while talking to make a funny staccato noice. She loves it and initiates it herself.

And third, while watching Home Alone this evening we got to the part where Kevin looks in the bathroom mirror, puts on aftershave, and yells AHHHH! Taylor perked up and started yelling AHHHH along with him.

Over the last few days she seems to have learned how to blow out her nose to rid herself of boogers and how to use a tissue to wipe her nose. Very valuable skills, especially for the winter season. She also likes to bark with the dogs by saying "Bah! Bah!" whenever they are on their guard.

Tonight we need to get everything ready to go for our long drive to Omaha - at least 11 hours. We hope to leave before 8am so we can arrive at a reasonable hour. Keep us in your prayers. It'll probably be a bit slick and snowy when we get further north.

Playing with Daddy and her new game pad

Snuggling with Mama

First Christmas gift

Happy Christmas Eve! This morning we woke up to dreary skies and lots of rain in Evansville, but as soon as Taylor opened her eyes she yelled, "Yahee!" I think she knew that she'd get to open her first Christmas gift today.

All eyes on Taylor:

Look, it's a animal carousel! Thanks, Grandma!

The whole family is going to 11pm and midnight church services (two different churches), but I'll stay back with Taylor since I know there's no way she'll make it (quietly) through one of those.

Standing

Taylor is standing on her own! She can stand for up to 15 seconds by herself and you can tell she's working on her squats to build up those muscles. Here are some pictures from last night.

And as far as personality developments, Taylor has started making a "mean face" to express unhappiness and to be playful. Sometimes she'll snap out of the face quickly and having a beaming smile. Other times she'll just keep staring you down with her little squinted eyes and furrowed eyebrows.

We're packing for the holidays now - Evansville, Omaha, and the Philippines. That requires lots of suitcases and lots of planning, which I have yet to do. We leave tomorrow afternoon. Taylor thinks the suitcases are fun and proceeded to take out everything I started putting in them. See my "anti-helper" in action:

Straw-tastic

Taylor can finally suck through a straw! Last night was her first successful go at it, seen here:

She tends to backwash a lot, so we'll definitely let her have her own glass for all those floaty bits to swim around.

I must head to the post office today to send out a Christmas package. Only one this year! The rest of our gifts will be hand delivered. I still have a lot of wrapping to do though!

The baby monitor is acting up today. The video is fine, but I think the sound may not be working. I'm hoping it's just all in my head.

Ah, December

So I was wrong about Taylor walking within a few weeks of my cruising post. But she sure is cute cruising around the house and crawling EVERYWHERE. Check out this video of her with her walking hippo toy.

She has gotten super fast at crawling now. If we're not keeping a close eye on her, she usually ends up in another room doing something very dangerous - like leaning over the sunken bathtub or almost sticking a *plugged-in* extention cord in her mouth (::shudder::). Perhaps she'll still walk before Christmas and the trip to the Philippines, but boy am I scared about trying to chase her down once she's toddling! Here are her latest photos and another cute video.

We're pretty much done shopping for Christmas gifts, thank goodness. Now I just need to wrap and ship and pack up the rest for our family visits. We'll head to Evansville on Tues, Dec 23 and then on to Omaha on Dec 26. Then, on Dec 30, we're off to Hong Kong and the Philippines where we'll meet up with Chris' & Cathe's families. We'll be back in St. Louis on Jan 10.

Today is Mark's last day of school! He's taking a final this afternoon and then he'll be done (well, aside from some edits to a group paper due on Wed). He is dropping his Masters program for now and will possibly transfer the credits to an online school in the future. The classes he was taking at WashU just weren't quite what he wanted to focus on, plus he had very little time to do anything outside of work and school. Now he can put more effort into preparing his teaching for Bible study and playing with Taylor and just being around. We're all really excited for this next stage to begin!

Cruising right along

Taylor is cruising now, walking along the furniture while still holding on. There was even a moment this weekend when she let go with both hands to rub her eyes and then put her hands back on the coffee table again. This girl is going to be standing on her own a lot more, I think, and probably walking within the next few weeks. Wow, babies develop quickly!

The weekend in Evansville was fun. Chris and Emily are married now and we even stayed an extra day to hang out with Mark's relatives. Very relaxing. I read the Kite Runner (an intense book!) while Mark's aunts fought over who would hold Taylor next. She's definitely a charmer and she seemed to take really easily to Mark's family.

Some other cute things from this weekend:

• Taylor started crawling up the stairs on her own
• She started lifting up her legs to the side while dancing in a standing position
• She likes playing call/echo games with "ah" sounds and little giggles
• She slept in Mark's arms for nearly half of the wedding reception (2.5 hrs!)