Holidays

We had a lot of fun this holiday season!  Even though Berkley was too young to really understand, it was still so fun to watch her reactions to everything (the tree, the lights, santa claus, opening presents, etc.)  I also had a lot more enthusiasm when it came to decorating this year, probably because I have my own house now so I took ownership in the decor.  Anyway, here is an account of our festivities. 
-Zack and I went to The Forgotten Carols with some guys from Zack's work and their wives.  It wasn't something we would normally do and we really enjoyed it.
-We picked out a nice, real tree as a family.  I'm all about fake trees. They're easy to put up and take down, you don't have to clean up any pine needles, they're cheaper in the long run, and some even come pre-lit.  However, I happened to marry one of those people who refuses to do fake.  So I guess I'm stuck going out in the cold every winter to find a tree and cleaning up endless needles.  I have to admit, though, it did smell amazing. 
-We rode the frontrunner to Salt Lake to see the lights at temple square with Zack's family. 

 It was a pretty cold night but we were bundled up enough.  By the time we got to the lights it was Berkley's bedtime.  She was super tired and I figured she'd just doze off in her stroller.  When I went to recline her, she whined and tried to sit back up.  She wanted to see the lights!  So I sat her back up and she just stared at all the lights in a sleepy daze.  She was mesmerized. 

 The rest of the fam.

 And of course, a temple shot. 

 -We went to three big family parties.  Schvaneveldt, Toolson, and Morby.  Here are a few pics from the big Schvaneveldt get-together. 

Cousin Bree reading Berkley's new book to her.  

 Berkley made friends with her... second cousins?  Shaylee and Hadley.  They were the most entertaining part of the party. 

 -We attempted to take some pictures of Berkley in her Christmas dress in front of our tree.  Zack's mom made her the dress and also made a matching one for a doll.  Super cute.

-The weather on Christmas was not Christmasy at all.  This was my 9th Christmas in Utah and the first one that wasn't white.  We didn't even have any residual snow on our lawn, it was all melted.  The day was perfectly sunny.  It felt so weird.  It felt like April.

Christmas morning sleepyhead.

 Berkley actually did pretty well unwrapping her presents.  She did get distracted though and wanted to play with the wrapping.  Then, when she realized there was a toy, she wanted to play with that instead of unwrapping the next present.  So it ended up going a little slow but we didn't mind, it was pretty fun.  We even shot a couple vids with our new flip video camera!

 (I know it's kind of a lot of video.  Feel free to skip it.  I'm sure the only ones who will watch all of them are her grandparents anyway.)

Christmas evening was the Morby family party.  Here is Berkley with Nellie, the closest thing she has to a cousin.  I have a feeling they'll have a lot of fun together at next year's party!

Berkley is 5 months older than Nellie but Nellie still weighed 3 lbs more than Berkley!

Santa showed up at the party.  It was after Berkley's bedtime and she was way tired and whiney so I thought she would hate Santa.  Instead she just sat there and gave him a couple of confused glances. 

-We were able to have friends over from Brigham City, Salt Lake, Washington, and California!  We saw our Cali friends, the Fullers, on New Year's Eve.  Their son Evan is a month older than Berkley.  This was their second time meeting and I think they hit it off pretty well.  These pictures are for their future wedding video. 

-Our four year anniversary was also over the holidays.  (December 28th)  We've found that by the end of December we're pooped from all the traveling, entertaining, hustle and bustle so we tend to keep the anniversary casual.  We just went to dinner while my Mom watched Berkley.  It was nice to spend some time alone together.  Four years.  Crazy right?
-On New Year's Eve, Berkley was acting kind of sick so we opted to stay home.  (It was a good thing too, she ended up puking all over and we found out a few days later that she had croup and an ear infection!)  We ate yummy snacks, drank our Stewart's key lime sodas, and watched Inception for the first time.  We were asleep by approximately 12:10.  Party animals.

11 Months

Berkley turned 11 months old on December 21st.

 These monkey pictures are getting more and more difficult with her trying to dive off the couch or grab the monkey.  A lot of the pictures ended up like this.

 A few things this month:
-Berkley gives five and blows kisses now.
-Words she says are dog, woof woof, ah ah (for monkey), dada, dat, wassdat?... that's all I can think of.
-She'll point to her nose, eyes, hair, ear, and socks.
-She loves her books.  That's the first thing she'll pull out of her diaper bag.  She'll open up the book and start pointing to things and jabbering like she's reading.
-It's almost as impossible to change her diaper as it is to take her picture.
-She learned how to sit up from a laying down position making naptime a little more difficult but not too bad.
-Learning to push herself to a sitting position led her to figure out that she can crawl with both knees down.  She still occasionally does the half scoot/ half crawl but for the most part she is doing the traditional crawl.
-She loves to walk around while holding someone's hands and even walks up the stairs.  (She has to lift her leg up really high and she only does it with her right leg.)
-I may have accidentally taught her to chew with her mouth open and she thinks it's super funny.
-She started "sharing" quite a bit this month.  By sharing I mostly mean showing the item and snatching it back when you reach for it.  She also tries to share her bottle with me, but only after it's empty.
-One day she started saying "Mmmmaaaaa" in this really weird voice over and over.  The next day she was doing it again.  When I looked a little closer I saw that she was blowing bubbles in her mouth.  It's pretty funny to watch.
-She got her first goose egg from our entertainment center.  I attempted to get pictures of it.

 Here are some more pics from the month.

Browsing through the ads.

 Cuddling with dad for 10 seconds.  (She's never been a cuddler.)

 Eating a pretzel roll.  She's a super good eater.  She'll pretty much eat anything we give her.  She definitely prefers table food over baby food these days though and she really likes bananas and any kind of bread. If anyone is eating in front of her she'll beg until she gets some.

 She has four teeth now.  Her top two are super spaced apart and goofy looking.

 She loves phones and remote controls.

 Pulling herself up on everything.

She's just learning so fast, getting into everything, and moving a million miles a minute.