Shiny new pictures in the shiny new year

So, I've had the last few days off, which has been just awesome and very much needed. I know that I need to gather my strength for the new year ahead, and also wrap up some projects in our home, which is what some of the time has been spent on doing. As you can see, we were busy this weekend taking down our Christmas tree. It's a little early for us, but my reasoning is, with the way I tend to get busy nowadays, if I don't do it now when I've got the time, it may still be up on Valentine's Day. Which is not a good thing with a live tree. Well... not technically live... having lived once tree...

In other news, this little munchkin is teething big time. Which means no matter how many times I put her down for a nap, she will invariably awake 10, 20, or at the most 30 minutes later. All day long, it is a dance of put down for nap, wake up, put down for nap, wake up. So she is not rested and cranky all day long. Which makes it impossible to get anything done unless it is in small increments throughout the day. Let's hope there's a tooth in there somewhere about to emerge.

There was a lot of putting our feet up this weekend.

So out of the ordinary.

It's all about the orange stripes

Every evening, when Daddy gets home from work,

the order of the day is to play Play Dough with Caleb.

Caleb looks forward to it all day long, even mentions it to Daddy in the morning

as he is leaving for work: "Daddy, we'll play with Play Dough when you get home?"

I sure do appreciate Ron's dedication to this particular type of play.

She is practicing sitting up. Sometimes she falls over.

Cranky because she is tired and does not want to sit up anymore.

We've had a lot of time for learning, too. Here Caleb is parking the cars.

Learning to recognize numbers and affix the appropriate amount of animals
to the picture. He is doing great!

Using the glue independently

CHAOS.

This is actually not as bad as it was. The sorting here is already halfway done.

Look behind her. ORGANIZED CHAOS, I'm very proud to say.

And here we have a very close encounter with a Smurf.

Outdoor fun. In the bitter cold.

Stop licking your lips, sweetie. Remember what you looked like at Christmas?

MAGIC. How did he do that?

Rosy cheeks.

Actually, her cheeks were rosy before going outside. Saliva rash.

Okay, sweetie. I don't think it's going to work.

You're doing a great job trying to be DOUBLY excited to make up for her

uhm... lack of excitement

at trying to show off matching baby legs/shirt. You're a good boy.

I, too, thought that she might catch some of your enthusiasm.

However, it appears that she's not having it. I think she really needs a nap.