Santa Claus!

Wow, I am actually posting in the same month that the pictures were taken! Unbelievable! After this post, I will actually be caught up on pictures - even more unbelievable!

Moving on...last weekend (December 7th) we went to a party at the Dial's house in Satsuma where we got to see Santa Claus! We all had a great time, as you can see from all the pictures.

Meredith spent a lot of time climbing the stairs - she is very good at it and she can go up and come down on her own (but we still stay close just in case). She has turned into such a climber lately! She just grips with her hands and her toes, and she can climb just about anything.

Santa Claus is here! You can see all the children waiting on the fireplace...except one...

Santa Claus is talking to everyone, and everyone is eagerly listening to him...except one...
Everyone is patiently waiting their turn...except one...

She did eventually go sit down with the other children...

...but she didn't stay long!

Getting her to sit with Santa Claus was actually not that much of a problem - I was expecting it to be much worse

We were able to get several shots of her with Santa

Although she didn't want to sit very long with him either!

Each child got a book from Santa

Meredith was "helping"

Santa has a book for Meredith! It was "The Belly Button Book"

I think she is playing with the paper here

And once again, all the kids are sitting and smiling for a picture with Santa...except one

Some of the older girls held on to her for this picture

But even that didn't work for long

She did throw a fit before the night was over (see picture below). It was past her bedtime and she was tired. Given her age, I think she did extremely well at the party (she was the youngest toddler there, except for Brady, who was sick, so she was definitely the most active little one).

We even managed to get a family picture with Santa, although you can see she wasn't thrilled about it

Bye Bye, Santa!

We had her 18-month check-up this week, and she is doing really well, and luckily we didn't have to get any shots this time. He said her language development is right on target, and she is very healthy. He was pleased to hear that the eye surgery went well. He said that although she is on the smaller side (10th percentile for girls her age) she is proportional and well within normal limits and is doing fine, and is growing perfectly along the growth chart (she was right at the 10th percentile at 15 months too). She is 21 pounds and 30 inches long and he said she is doing great! We go back when she's 2 for another check-up, and we are thankfully done with shots until she is 5.

We hit another milestone this week - we had a coloring session that did not end with her eating the crayons! She has been coloring for a while, but it usually ends with her taking a big bite out of one of them (thankfully they are non-toxic). But this time she did not eat any of them!

She is very proud of herself
She is concentrating very hard

And now, for the newest edition of what has come to be known as the "Morning Hair Show"

This show was created by Meredith's Aunt Lauren - who is also a member. It originated when Lauren, who you remember, I'm sure, has very curly wild hair anyway, was on a vacation to Key West with some of her friends from college and they marveled at the state of her hair each morning, since they had never seen her before she fixed it, they were unaware of how crazy it could look after being slept on. Needless to say, it caught on and on days where hair looks particularly bad (or good, depending on how you look at it) we try to capture it on camera. People like me with straight hair don't have as much of a problem with this, but people with curly hair like Lauren and Meredith can look downright disheveled in the mornings. Meredith is the newest addition to the group and she has plenty of days of wild morning hair - and we had a really wild day this week. I knew Lauren would get a kick out of seeing some of Meredith's morning hair, since she hasn't seen her in a while.

It is wild from every angle!

Well, we are all doing great otherwise and looking forward to Christmas back in Alabama with our family!

Finally, I am caught up on pictures! There won't be any more until after Christmas, but I'm sure there will be plenty to post about then. We are really looking forward to Christmas with Meredith this year - it should be a lot of fun. We hope everyone has a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!