December & MEL's first Christmas

Have you ever waited until the last minute to pack - then ended up over packing?  Well, this is kind of like that.  I'm so behind on posting pictures, so I'm sure I'm overdoing it - but I figure its better to get it posted than spend the time editing!! (this goes for this post and the last 3 ....) ... so here goes:

We have the hardest time getting MEL to nap at home, although she'll sleep 4-5 hours a day at daycare!  Paris, however, has no problem napping - and loves to nap with M (who hasn't transitioned into her own bed yet - oops). Here's M showing us how good she is at not napping:

With it being M's first Christmas, we wanted to get in the spirit early and get a tree, but between the the poor napping, the weather, and the on and off colds she's had, we couldn't find time to make it out to a farm so decided to just walk down to the corner and get one:

And the finished result!

such a perfectly shaped tree!

Morgan was enchanted!

A couple non-Christmas-related things this month.... 1. wind storms! & 2. M's first derby bout!

Brandon and Morgan hiding under the table (in jest of all those freaking out in Portland)

And then there were the zoolights with GeeMa, Aunt Steph and Cousin Avery:

And then, of course, there was this little thing called crawling!!! Dec. 14 is the date we put on it, although she was almost there for a while, and quickly took off thereafter!

Work Christmas party - Morgan's first present and first meetup with Santa.  She did awesome!

sick - but still cute!

But alas, all this excitement got us all sick.  I wasn't able to enjoy my birthday, and Morgan wound up with like her 6th or 7th cold of the season - so hard to count when they run from one to the next:

poor thing :(

 The crud kept us from a couple holiday parties, which was sad, and we were afraid it was going to affect Christmas, but luckily we felt healthy and not-contagious enough for Christmas Eve. But first, we had to go see Santa!

we usually don't do the bow thing, but this was kinda cute

Ignore the guy to the right - this is a decent family photo!

Then off to GeeMa's for bruch:

Aunt Steph and Cousin Avery!

Ryder and Aunt Steph gave me a glow worm!

Then later, it was off to Uncle Turner's for dinner!

Grandpa Whiskers!

Aunt Chelsea and Uncle Turner!

Christmas morning just at home:

helping mom open her presents

Paris got presents too!

her first doll - and she loved it!

but I think she loved the paper the most!

Watching Santa fly over at Jimmy & Kori's

And just a few more:

Morgan has learned to feed Paris.  Paris is sooooo happy!

New Year's eve at Corrie's (well, until about 8).  This was Morgan's party outfit.

Edit: Adding a good pic of Morgan and Dad on NYE!

One last adoration of the tree before it was taken down.