Highlights

Does anyone actually have time to blog during the holidays? Well, clearly this working mother of two doesn't. So, I guess I'll just have to give you the highlights of the last three weeks.

On December 4th Mason was officially 9 months old. He's still "army crawling" but starts out with a few tummy up crawls before he gives up. He can also ALMOST go from crawling position to sitting up, but not quite. He also loves to clap. He can recognize his own name now, and I'm pretty sure his official first word is momma. Oh yes, we have a momma's boy on our hands. He is also 20.0 lbs (40-50%) and 28 3/4 inches long (50-75%)

I talk a lot about what Mason does, but not much about Kendal's accomplishments. Her biggest thing now is letters, like writing and figuring out which letter makes what sound. She knows a lot of them, but gets frustrated easily. One of my favorite things about Kendal is the way she loves beautiful things. She loves Christmas lights, sun rises, and anything with jewels. She's also developing a sense of humor. The other day we were in a public bathroom and she bumped into something. She laughed about it, and then started purposely bumping into things to get laughs. It totally reminded me of my friend, Becca. (Hi Bex!)











This was cute. Kendal dressed up a bunny in Mason's clothes and left it on the couch. Our cat, Hercules, found it and slept cuddled up next to it the whole afternoon.

One highlight of the holiday season is making cookies and other goodies with the ladies of the R. family. We get together and make way too many of everything, but it's fun and gets us into the holiday spirit. If only my tummy didn't look so much like Santa's...













This was cute, too. Kendal was helping feed Mason. Precious.










Kendal's dance class had a little holiday show this month. Very cute. They did a dance to "Rudolf the Red-Nosed Reindeer" and a couple other holiday tunes. Video does exist of this, but as of now we do not have the correct cord to connect our seemingly archeaic video camera to our brand new computer. I may have to follow up with this at some point. I should mention that Kendal has a very short attention span, or so it seems. Her hair finally fits into pig tails, and she just couldn't stop playing with them during the show. Hilarious.


Mason and Kendal in their footie jammies. Remember these?

Kendal did have a Christmas program this year at church. It was kind of a non-event. She was so shy she would not leave my side, so I had to sit with her the entire time. (There were other parents, too, so it's not as weird as it sounds.) She sang precious little, but it was all very nice anyway. It seems that this was not to be remembered, though, as none of our or my mom's pictures turned out. Major bummer.

That night we went to Disney on Ice. Kendal loves this stuff. I had to buy her an Ariel light-up wand that plays "Under the Sea." We also had another healthy dinner of mini-donuts and popcorn.










As I've mentioned, John's Aunt Leila and Uncle Tim live in Tennessee. They are nice enough to send Kendal and Mason Christmas gifts. Well, the pressure of waiting until Christmas was a little too great for a certain 3 year-old, so we opened them early. Kendal got a very cute purse (with a sparkly K), coin purse, and necklace. Mason got Tennessee Volunteers gear.












Just in case those of you who do not live in Minnesota don't know, we've gotten a bunch of snow here already. So, of course, here are my little snow angels.


Mason also got another tooth this month. The top center left one on the 16th of December. Top center right is very close.

Finally, today Kendal got her very first haircut. Yes, first. She's really wanted to have long hair, so I've not pushed the haircut. Now, though, it was a little straggly in the back, and she has a bit of a mullet of sorts, as the front is much shorter than the back. So, we went in and got the back shortened up a bit, maybe 2 inches. She was such a good girl! She followed directions very well, and was so happy and proud of herself.













THE END!!!!!