chris.reese.girls1.2.3.4

Our sweet Finley turned 9 months old on the 30th. I honestly have a hard time believing she's getting so big. STATS: Weight: 20 lbs, 7 oz (90%) Height: 30 " (110%) Head: 17 cm And big she is...I was shocked at her percentiles. She really doesn't  look  that big to me, but I think her weight coupled with her height make her look the size of an average 15-month old. She mostly wears 18-month sizes these days.   The past month has been a tad difficult for our little Finley due to a number of transitions: two more teeth, switching to more table food whilst trying to appease her appetite, introducing more bottles as I started to wean her, constantly around large groups of family, and transitioning between households as well. All of this brought very little sleep, rare naps, and one tired and squealy baby...she reverted back to that horrific squeal to get our attention. Yowsers! When we saw the doctor he said she and I both looked like we weren't sleeping......

Christmas morning finally came!! (A little too soon for most of the adults...) The kids were anxious to venture into the family room and see what Santa brought! They loved checking out the tree, stockings, letter from our shelf elf, and looking outside for remnants of the reindeer food they left out. Lots of excitement! Church was moved to 11:00 (versus 1pm), so we decided to just open stockings and Santa gifts before church. The girls LOVED their presents. Santa came through with the pink computer for Paige, which she didn't get last year (I think he learned his lesson) and some earrings, which she promptly put on. Brynn got her sheep family and tiny kitchen...she loved  it! She was just as thrilled with the chapstick and headband in her stocking too!  We even had time to play a bit before showering our entire clan and getting prepped for church. Pictures had to wait until after church. We tortured our kids a tad in making them wait longer to start ...

Christmas Eve was a fun day all together with little stress. The kids had a load of activities around the house, I baked a few pies, we played games (Banana-grams, Dance Central on XBox Kinect), and ate yummy food (Cafe Rio for dinner?!...it was awesome).   I think this is the first year in our marriage Chris was not shopping on Christmas Eve (maybe last year...but we weren't together, so I don't know for sure...).  Grandma organized fun crafts. They made wreaths, candy canes, reindeer ornaments from clothespins, and angels - which morphed into spiders after some influence from cousin Grant. The kids thought the spider was much more fun to play with.    I brought our ceramic ornaments and let the three oldest do some painting. Every year they add a few new art pieces to our Christmas tree...love it! Mid-afternoon after it got dark, we piled into the cars and drove around to see some spectacular Christmas lights. Brynn and Paige rode with Grandpa...

December is busy around our house...here is a quick glimpse of what we had going on... The girls wrote letters to Santa, which usually include a small request for Christmas. I love seeing how their little brains work! Paige worked for days on her list...rewriting and rewriting...she had lots of pictures, a few questions and a somewhat long list of what she wanted...although some of her list was a repeat from last year. I'm happy to report Santa learned his lesson and gave her what she really asked for this year. Brynn dictated her letter to me and then drew pictures. The girls even got letters back from Santa!                  Thanks to a tip from a friend I decided to wrap our Christmas books and the kids opened one to read each day. When I pulled all my books out of the box I discovered I actually had 24! The girls LOVED unwrapping a present each night and I particularly enjoyed reading EVERY book this year. Some years we don't ge...