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Christmas morning, part 2

Here are the pictures from Christmas weekend in Huntsville, all combined in one post.

We'll start off with Christmas morning itself. Uncle Mike, Aunt Bev and 3 cousins (Abby, Amy and Ariel) stayed over as well, so we had 10 sleeping in one house. It was a little crowded, but a lot of fun. Here are pictures of Taylor playing with a new present, sharing Ariel's Sit-n-Spin, and spending some quality time with Ariel in Daddy's lap.

December 26: Taylor gets in a little walking practice, courtesy of Daddy's shorts, and playing with her new best friend in the mirror.

December 28: Taylor at St. Stephen's in her Christmas dress.

From a different angle

Here are some pictures from Christmas weekend taken by Grandpa.

Yes, you're seeing this right - Taylor standing on her own

Christmas morning, part 1

It's Taylor's first Christmas morning, at least the day we're celebrating it at home. We'll be spending the weekend with Brian's family in Huntsville, and of course we'll have plenty of pictures. Taylor got the hang of unwrapping presents pretty quickly, though the boxes and wrapping paper often proved more alluring than the new toys.

The pictures include shots of our stockings and tree (the ultimate in baby-proofed Christmas decoration arrangements), Taylor and Elizabeth's Christmas bears (a Gohman family tradition) and Taylor unwrapping and playing with some of her new toys, including the wheels from a Walk-n-Ride before Brian had a chance to assemble it.

Feats of physical prowess

A couple quick hits: Taylor pushing an empty box down the hall ("Christmas presents? Nope, the best toys this year are the big boxes!"), playing with the door to the bedroom ("Mean ol' Mommy and Daddy keeping me out of trouble") and figuring out how to open kitchen cabinets ("Umm, Daddy, shouldn't these have safety locks now?")

Santa Claus and tasty frogs

At Holy Apostles Sunday night, Taylor had her first introduction to Santa. It didn't go over too well.

Tuesday night, she showed us her latest trick - chewing on her frog bath toy. She did this most of the evening, until she saw the camera (at least we got one). She would take the frog in her mouth, and swing it side-to-side until it popped out. She would then chase it down and start over again.

One more from this disk: the position she was sleeping in this morning. We haven't found her in the bottom-up-in-the-air position lately, but this was almost as cute.

Meanderings

Babies are so cute when they get frustrated. Okay, so maybe I only think mine is cute when she gets frustrated.

While I'm typing this, Taylor is trying to put the lid to her shape sorter IN the shape sorter. Needless to say, it won't fit. And she's getting mad. The fact that it plays a cute little song when she puts the lid on doesn't seem to help matters.

And now she's on to something else.... she's too cute and, yes, I'm biased. :)

Weekend in Huntsville

A few pictures from Taylor's latest visit with the grandparents in Huntsville. Thanks to Aunt Kerin's work over Thanksgiving weekend, Taylor is mastering the art of finger walking. want to cuddle with her? Nope. She'll wriggle out of your hands and slide off the end of the chair, grab one of your fingers in each of her hands, and you're off! Lately, her favorite place to walk is from the refrigerator about 10 feet to the dining room, then back to the refrigerator, then back to the dining room, then back to the ... you get the point.

Among the other discoveries this week: Taylor loves blueberries, especially in her oatmeal. She also likes to play with dishwashers, both here and at home, which makes loading and unloading so much fun!

Thanks to Grandpa McAlister for snapping these pictures, since Daddy so carelessly left his camera at home.

Thanksgiving

Okay, I know it's December and Taylor's days away from being 11 months old but here are pictures from Thanksgiving. We did it a little differently this year. In the past, we were at Brian's folks' on Thanksgiving then Brian & I would drive to GA for the weekend. With a baby, we figured that would be a nightmare. So, this year, Thanksgiving was in GA and Christmas will be in Huntsville.

Taylor had a stomach bug so she didn't get to eat everything we did. We did give her turkey, though, and she liked it. I was also a little disappointed because the bib I got her (Food then Football) didn't fit over her head - it was like a t-shirt top. Anyway, the first pic is early in the meal. The next two are when she was pretty much done and, as you can tell, she's very very very sleepy (turkey does it everytime!)

And now, we're ready for some football!

As many of you know, Taylor comes from a musical family. So is it any wonder that at a mere 10, almost 11, months old, she can play the piano? Okay, so she bangs on it but isn't that how all budding pianists start?

More pics of family in a different post....

Family & other pics

This was the first time in a looooong time that we had all the grandkids together. Here's a shot of all of them. Ages range from 19 years to 10 months old.

Here are cousins Alyssa and Darrin...

The onesie says, "My finger may be small but I can still wrap my Daddy around it!"

My dad had knee surgery earlier this month. The cooler Taylor's playing on here is part of his therapy. It's kind of neat - there's a tube running from it to something he wraps around his knee and it circulates cold water. Taylor had a grand ol' time with it and we had a grand ol' time keeping her from chewing on the tube and hitting grandpa's knee!

This last picture was taken before Thanksgiving. I bought her a ball sometime in October and she absolutely hated it. She would scream if it came anywhere near her. Now, she enjoys playing with it but gets frustrated when she grabs for it and it rolls away. *snicker*