7 months

Caroline's had a very busy month. She's been working on crawling for awhile now, but in the last week, she transferred from an army crawl, to a full-on belly-off-the-floor skooch. Then a couple weeks ago, Bud went to get Caroline out of her crib and she was standing up! She seems way too young for that, but she's doing it all the time. The Friday before Christmas she finally cut her first tooth, the bottom left, with the right one coming in just a few days later. She also dances whenever music's playing (especially "Party Rock") and even gave us a couple claps yesterday. She's been an awesome sleeper and now takes bottles too. We love this girl! As Jen Tingey said, "She is just a delight".

December

December has been wonderful. It's the funnest, busiest, best month of the year! I celebrated my 33rd birthday on the 8th (with a great dinner from the Tingeys!) and then we took the whole family (minus baby) to see the Broadway production of Lion King, thanks to an early Christmas gift from Nana and Pogger. It was so much fun to see the kids faces light up when the animals came walking down the aisle. Then Kim, Christopher, and Brooklyn came into town the following week and we had a great time with the family, even though almost everyone was fighting some type of cough or cold. Unfortunately, the Kerls had to leave on Christmas Eve morning, but that also gave us the opportunity to have a very low-key Christmas. We saw a movie and then stayed home Christmas Eve. Christmas morning came dark and early at 6am with the kids barging into our bedroom, flipping on the light (and fan), jumping on our bed yelling, "WAKE UP! WAKE UP!". I remember feeling quite terrified for a couple seconds. Luckily, Caroline slept in for awhile. We had a great Christmas morning, quick breakfast, then headed to church for a great sacrament meeting. We came home and had a second breakfast of Belgian waffles, thanks to Bud's new waffle maker, then had both sets of parents and the Gieseas over for Christmas dinner, the annual "roast beast" (prime rib). Later in the week, Bud and I celebrated our 13th anniversary with a wonderful evening at Settebello Pizzeria and a movie. What an amazing 13 years it's been! We wrapped up the year with my least favorite holiday, New Year's. It's just too long a day and we always end up with sleepers who are mad they didn't get to see the fireworks even though we tried so hard to wake them up (this year it was Mae). But 2011 was a fantastic year and we are blessed beyond words. Here's hoping for the same in 2012!

Early December:

Christmas:

New Year's Eve:

Houston

Over Thanksgiving we finally got to go to Houston for a week to visit the Fontanos. We toyed with the idea of driving, but thankfully came to our senses and so did Southwest's rates. I was very nervous flying with 5 kids, but luckily, all went well and the flights were great. In fact, Caroline was quite the hit. I had a little Asian grandma sitting across the aisle from me literally take her out of my arms without asking, and two Hispanic women chase us down the tarmac saying, "Stop! Stop! We need to grab your baby" (that was the literal translation Bud gave me).
We arrived at 11:15pm and the Fontanos were there to meet us even though we were getting a rental car. Their sweet kids really wanted to see their cousins. We had a great week just letting the kids play, seeing NASA, and of course, eating! We had never been to Chick-fil-a and I think we hit it at least two or three times. Sooo good! And they have Potbelly's in Houston! We discovered those in Chicago, best sandwiches ever! And although we didn't make it to Austin for Round Rock Donuts (sorry Jonah), Shipley's Do-Nuts were great! I think we even pulled off a pretty awesome Thanksgiving too. The men were very excited to deep-fry their first turkey, it was really good. Tara rocked the rolls and pies, and I pulled off some sweet potatoes and pumpkin pie. Not too shabby for not having Nana around. Thank you so much Tara and Pete for an awesome vacay! It's very rare we get to go somewhere and we really appreciate how comfortable you made us, how much fun we had, and how well you fed us! : )