My New Year Letter

Dear Family and Friends:

Blogger screwed me over a couple of months ago,

making it impossible to post. 

So, for the past two months, 

amongst all of the crazy holiday festivities, 

I have tried to come up with a solution to rectify my problem.... 

and I think I did.  

Anyway,

I will now try to update everyone on our lives for the last couple of months 

in Christmas-letter fashion

(since I failed even coming close to sending a real one out). 

The Girls:

They continue to make me laugh daily.  

(like today, 

when Hazel said 

"Mom, I literally do not like this dinner".)

Seeing them interact with each other 

makes me want to have a million babies 

(or maybe just three)...  

Seriously though, 

it's so cute to see 

the special smiles they reserve for each other. 

Hazel can pretty much always make Nora smile 

and/or giggle

and I love that Hazel will do the same thing 

over and over and over AND OVER again 

to get said smile/giggle.

Hazel:

Is adorable.  

For reals, 

look at that face.  

She has such a good, little heart.  

When she found out that we weren't going to use our Christmas money for the "christmas couch" 

(christmas couch = regular couch bought with christmas money) 

that I've been planning on for about a year, 

she told me that she would buy my couch for me 

with all of her money that she's saved.  

Every time she puts a coin in her jar, 

she makes sure to tell me that she has more money 

for me to use on my couch.  

               Sweetest little girl ever!                                

She is now interested in playing dress-up.  

She probably wore this ballerina outfit for a week straight.  

No qualms here. 

Is that not the cutest damn curtsy you've ever seen?! 

And, 

as of January, 

she is officially a Sunbeam.  

She LOVES Sunbeams 

and can't wait until the Primary Program 

so she can speak in to the microphone.

She's a ball of sunshine

and makes me wonder how I got so lucky to have her .  

Nora:

Started baby food when she was about 4 months, 

but I really dragged my feet on this issue 

until she was more like 5 1/2 months.  

In my mind solid food = "big" baby 

and I still thought (think) of her as my "little" baby.

Thankfully, I picked up the baby food pace.

And at 6 months she has now doubled her birthweight 

and my "big" (little) baby is a whopping 14 pounds.

She found her toes at about 4 months

and fell in love with them

or anybody's toes, for that matter.

She also found her thumb.  

Hazel was a big thumb sucker 

and started when she was a month old.  

When one month came and went and Nora wasn't interested in sucking on anything, 

Taylor went in to damage control mode and literally tried to "teach" her how... hahah. 

 His lessons didn't quite work, 

but she did find her thumb at 3 months on her own 

and hasn't stopped sucking it since.

It took Nora a while to figure out how to sit up

but by 6 1/2 months, she is a champ!

She's also decided that her stomach 

isn't such a bad place to be

and has started steam rolling all over the place.  

She's always full of smiles (for mommy) 

and we're so in love with everything about her 

(especially those chubby cheeks).

 Taylor:

Continues to work on his dissertation

(and his hair growth).

He assures me that it will be done in time for graduation in the spring,

but is planning on defending sometime in the next month (ish)...

Crystal:

Is a proud new owner of an iphone 5!  

I know, welcome to this century, right?  

I am actually wondering how I ever survived so long without one.  

I also am still trying to figure out how to balance a life of kids, house-work, exercising, cooking, making baby food, blogging, managing finances, working, keeping up friendships, etc.... 

I have really great intentions, but forgive me if I'm not on top of things yet. 

So there was our last two months in a nut-shell.  

Stayed tuned for some catch-up on the missed holidays

(actually, 
because I'm really just trying to document them 
for my 2012 blog book,
don't worry about reading those posts. 

Because, 

isn't it kind of the worst, 

reading about someone else's Thanksgiving/Christmas 
in January?)

Cheers to a new year!

Boo-yeah 2013