please, let me instagram you.

It’s been a busy week, and we are all antsy to celebrate Christmas. Luckily, this year, we are celebrating a week early + Christmas Eve + Christmas day. More holidays = more fun.

Some of these are probably a month old now. I never guaranteed promptness.

She sleeps. Hard.

I love catching this kind of sleep. I can examine her little lips, her thick eyelashes.

Her tiny curl that has developed in her just-long-enough-hair back there.

We walk in the dark. Because the days aren’t light for very long anymore.

 

Where she belongs.

 

We stopped having a morning bottle and are now sitting down for a few moments before school for blueberries and oatmeal. Or sometimes a Nutrigrain bar.

 

This girl tries really hard to put her own hat on. Usually ends up on the floor like this.

She eats with a spoon. And wows us again. Even if she has probably known how to do this for the past 3 months.

H&M brings us cute socks…

 

…And legwarmers this winter.

Oh. my. GOSH.

 

I stayed home sick. It was relaxing.

She’s already a scholar.

 

Hearts, stars, flowers.

I dressed my kid in this the other day. It actually turned out kinda cute. We had no car seat, so no way of leaving the house in the outfit.

 

But dad came home and we went out. To the dollar tree. And let my girl out of the cart. (A scary thing to do as you can see here!)

Need to cook dinner/clean up dinner/take a phone call or breathe? Thank you, Nick Jr.

 

My front porch looked like this one day this week. Oh yeah.

Christmas Pageants. Girl loves her cousins.

Girl had her first Christmas Party. She made us a pinecone ornament.

“Paisley, what do you say to an elephant?” ::Silence:: (I don’t think we knew, either)

This one’s an oldie but goodie. She’s got it down.

I’ve been a gift-wrapping fool for the past few days. I love it.

We are officially having binky issues. She has named it “baboo” and asks for it every time she is tired, gets hurt, sees it, thinks about it, hears a word close to it, or any other illegitimate reason. She has recently gotten tall enough to see that we keep them here.

when doing dishes is cute

Sometimes when I’m trying to load the dishwasher, my toddler is either:

a) crying at my feet because she wants me to hold her

b) crying at my feet because I have knocked her over because she is under foot

c) removing things from the dishwasher as I put them in

or

d) trying to test how much weight the dishwasher door can handle.

On this day, I just chose to let her in on all the fun that was happening up at the sink. She thought she was pretty cool. I thought she was pretty cute. :)

scenes from bathtime

 

 

All the cuteness, happiness, goofiness?

…

Her daddy was in the tub, too.

 

 

matter of perspective

The other day, I had woken up numerous times to the wind pelting my house along with rocks, leaves whatever else was floating around. It was so grey out that the mountains were no longer visible and the breeze when you walked outside was bone-chilling.

But instead, I felt a little happy when I got to put my girl's extra warm hat on her. The way it smooshes her cheeks in and she doesn't rip it off anymore. Sometimes I grab the ear flaps and kiss her so she can't escape.

On the way to work, I noticed the traffic was especially backed up. So I pumped the heater and turned on the classic Christmas tunes. My girl turned her head to the left (as she does every morning) to wait for the rising sun to shine into the back window. Little did she know it wasn't coming. Instead, she giggled and chatted with herself  back there while we waited.

The day required a hot drink (and delivered one to mom in her office!) from Starbucks. That'll do it.

Upon standing in her office, I reached in my pocket and pulled out a wayward binky. Oh, my girl. The little reminders that make me smile.

As I entered work, the guard stood out in the frigid cold waving me through. I made sure to thank him for standing out there all day for us. Do you know what he said?

"Oh, my pleasure!"

Wow. We need more people like that.

Soon, one of those days was more like one of those chilly December days that you crave all summer long.

I want that, over there. Stat.