up and at 'em

Since Maggie and I are up and at 'em rather early today (she seems to be taking a hiatus from sleeping through the night; we were up at 1:30 and then again at 5:00), I figured I'd stop to document the fact that the little miss has at last figured out how to get herself into sitting position!

Friday, I went in to collect her from a nap and found her sitting in her crib, so I knew she'd managed to figure it out, but it was a little later before I got to see her in action. The process is pretty cute:


Down for the count


Getting the knees assembled


And the arms

taking her seat


and a bow :)

And, she's quite the little mimic. For instance, she's made some good near misses with putting shapes into their appropriate slots, being so good at "monkey see, monkey do". Along with this, she's taken to being much more communicative, especially at the dinner table. We have pretty much agreed that her first word will be credited as "more" - simultaneously spoken (mah!) and signed a few weeks ago. And more recently she's been all about the bananas (again, both signed and spoken). Does anyone know the sign for avocado?

Now if only those two top front teeth I'd have sworn were arriving for Christmas would make their debut, we'll really be making strides! ;)

Sisters

...kicking back and reading.







pay attention, Maggie! there will be a quiz!



excuse us, but do you need something?

Happy Birthday, Dave

Dave turned the big 3-8 (5 years older than me...for now!) on Sunday, so I am now settling in to the realization of what it means to have 3/4 of our family's b-days all clustered in a 4-week period: I have lots of gifts to wrap and cakes to make!

The girls were happy to be celebrating once again and I was happy to give Zoe the chance to see some gift-opening that didn't deliver any goods for her...good practice for Maggie's upcoming b-day when Maggie will be the center of attention.

Anyhoo, developmental strides aside, I think Dave's weekend was a good one.

kung fu Maggie?

Well, that's all I could think of when she came home from daycare the other day, looking like this:

indulgence

After sleeping until 10am (or was it 10:30?), Zoe had a pbj for "breakfast" and then a jaunt to the zoo on this nearly sunny day.

She squeezed a juice out of me at the zoo and is now watching Sesame Street.


(don't the dolls get to watch too, Zo?)

Sometimes, you've just got to say yes. And yes. And yes. ;)

Sisters

Building



and breaking together


(M obliterated that tower with her legs and a squeal of approval from her sis)

Up

Maggie definitely gets around, but she doesn't make a habit of getting up. We're working on breaking her of that ;)

3

Zoe is now 3 years old.


That is simply amazing.

And pretty damned wonderful.

We kicked off her fourth year a couple of days early with a bit of family fun, and of course, food.




Little sis, Nana, Grandma Leona and Grandpa Derrel


Do you take yours with pepperoni?


The bug theme continues...


Center of attention...a little too much attention...

but she shall overcome for cake. My girl.

There were great gifts, too:

Car



Books and Ball



Love


Happy Birthday to you, my sweet little girl.

movin' on

So, I was just reviewing pictures from the past three weeks and found that I really didn't take any great pix from Christmas.

Here's the two best shots:



Missing are good shots of Maggie (well, her face, even) and the family cookie-making on the eve.

There's a few cute ones from the Christmas aftermath, so I've added some here:



But I'm resolving to start posting from fodder that's a bit more current. Say, New Year's? ;)

Ah heck, here's the couple I got from the festivities at the Alonzo's four:



So OK, that ended up a little better than I thought it would but now, I'm movin' on...

St. Pierre Xmas/Anniversary (still catching up)

The weekend before Christmas just so happened to fall on my folks' 40th wedding anniversary, so we WA-contingency of the St. Pierre family convened to celebrate. The girls had a great time getting in some practice with the gift opening ;)


checking out the tree with Nana


wanting in on the action


building letters and names with Uncle Chris & Auntie Erin


sweet girls




breaking for some gnosh before the real party begins...


thus it starts


sweet look of gratitude


M on the move (yes, that's how she gets around)

It was a great gathering. Congrats mom and dad! And thanks for everything!