Sitting up (tripod style)

My little girl is growing up so fast! On Christmas Day, as we were playing on the floor with Aunt Lori, I decided to see if she could balance herself with her hands on her feet. (She'd just discovered her feet that morning - so cute!) To my surprise, she stayed there for a good couple of minutes! Since then, she's really getting good at it. She can even lift up a hand and reach for something. She's still pretty much resting her belly on her legs - she can't sit straight up yet - but I think it counts!!!!!

I just can't believe how quickly she's changing. It feels like a minute ago she was a helpless infant. Now she's a "grown-up" 3 1/2 month old that smiles and "talks" to me, and is now sitting up! She's going to be crawling in about 2 minutes. Gosh - we're not ready for that! We haven't even begun baby-proofing yet!

Merry Christmas!!!!!

Merry Christmas to everyone!

Don't you just love Megan's little outfit? Her little red dress, with white tights and black patent leather shoes was a big hit! (Although it was so warm that she only lasted a few hours in it. Then she spent the rest of the day in her PJ's)

We had a pretty busy Christmas here in McGuire-land. After church in the morning, we tried to open presents at home with Megan. But first she needed a bottle. Then a nap. So Rob & I opened our presents, and then her presents for her. We figured she'd get to open a bunch later in the day at Grandma and Granddad's house - and we were right!

She had such a good time hanging out with all of the McGuires. Aunt Lori was visiting from Chicago, and she had fun watching her cousins, Colin & Clare, run around opening their gifts. Megan especially enjoyed playing with the bows - and she was watching intently as Mommy opened her presents. She got so many toys, books and clothes that we haven't even been able to go through them all! Needless to say, she was a pretty exhausted little kid by the time we got home.

But overall it was a great first Christmas for Mommy, Daddy and Megan. Hope everyone else's holiday was just as great!

Christmas Eve

It's almost Christmas - YAY!

Tonight Megan celebrated her first Christmas Eve. In her world, it was fairly uneventful, but it was fun for Mommy & Daddy! She had a nice warm bath, and got into her special Xmas PJ's. We read "Twas the Night before Christmas" - she really liked that. She's been very interested in "reading" books lately. And she was asleep before she could finish her bottle.

Hopefully she'll find Christmas Day much more exciting!

Chocolate Chip Cookies

Yummy! Megan & I made chocolate chip cookies today (Daddy's favorite). Well, actually, I got Megan situated in her highchair in the kitchen, got the mixer set up and started to measure out the dry ingredients. Even gave her a measuring cup to play with. She wasn't interested. After about 5 minutes, she started to get fussy, so I put her down for a nap and continued on with the cookies. I had a sheet in the oven when she cried to get up. So for the next hour I was feeding her a bottle for 5 minutes, strapping her in her bouncy seat, taking the cookies out of the oven, occupying her for 5 min while they cool, putting the new tray in the oven and taking the warm cookies off onto the cooling rack. Then back to the bottle to do it all over again. It was a bit of a logistical nightmare...

So I guess technically Megan & I made our first cookies today, but she was really just trying to eat her afternoon snack, and my silly cookies got in the way!

Mental note - next time I want to bake, make sure to do it after Megan's in bed. At least until she turns 3!

Megan is 3 months old today!

She's getting to be such a big girl (literally and figuratively). I think she weighs almost 15 lbs now! She's also smiling all the time and putting things in her mouth. She's just a drool machine! We also think she's starting to cut her first tooth. We see a tiny white dot on her lower gums. It feels like something's poking through, but I'm clearly not an expert at this. We'll see... She doesn't seem to be bothered by it at all, so either she's just a laid-back kid, or she's not teething. I'll keep everyone posted!

I'm an Aunt!

Kevin & Betsy had little Ryan Andrew on Dec 7th at 12:41 pm. He was 7 lbs, 7 oz and 20 inches long. Isn't he a cutie pie? Megan can't wait to meet her little cousin!

Xmas tree shopping and decorating

Well, we went and got our Christmas tree today. Megan seemed less than thrilled. It was really too warm for her winter coat, and she kept getting the sun in her eyes. The tree options weren't that great either. We could probably get a nicer tree from any number of farms down the road, but we like to get ours from the Volunteer Fire Department. It helps them out - and apparently it's tax-deductible! (We've been getting our tree from them for years - and this is the first year that they mentioned that to us, gosh darn-it!) But it's a decent tree - and it's always prettier when it's decorated!

Megan "helped" decorate as well tonight, but again... less than thrilled. Sometimes she even seemed a bit scared of it. Oh well. But we did have her help put up her first ornament - a Hallmark "Baby's First Christmas". It was very cute!

So here we are...

So here we are - a new blog to keep everyone updated on the events in our lives, plus some vents and ramblings when I feel the need! I'm going to try to do this on a frequent basis, but with an infant it might be tough. But all I can do is try, right? We'll see how it goes.....