Christmas-palooza

Prepare yourself for the onslaught.

Pretty Christmas dress! (Footnote: it shall hence be known as Christmas Dress #1.)
Christmas morning! This will be the last year for quite some time that we got to sleep in AND enjoy breakfast before descending on the presents that Santa left under the tree. I'm not going to lie: it was delightful.

Let the presents begin!

Interest in the actual opening of the presents quickly waned.

Blocks!

Christmas Dress #2 from Aunt Peg and Uncle Mike. (My money is that it was more Aunt Peg's doing than Uncle Mike's, but not having confirmation of that I'm giving them equal billing.)

(Sorry about the back-light from the window. We'll stage a second, better photoshoot with this incredibly awesome dress.)

Yet another Christmas celebration. This one was a little after-the-fact at Gram and Gramps Wrabetz house, after the Minnesota Wrabetz folks arrived for their ski vacation week.

What could this be??

It's a wagon! It's a wagon!!

Peace out, everyone. Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!

A change of pace

Figuratively and literally, I suppose. Figuratively: I'm posting videos for once, in addition to photos! Literally: Shae is finally walking!

First (because uploading to this blog is confusing and backwards), photos. Auntie Amy and Uncle Kyle came over to give Shae a super-awesome Christmas present.
An awesome drum!

Rockin' out.

Sharing all the drum toys with Auntie Amy.

Gratuitous Christmas tree photos, just for the record.

Last year's ornament.

Jody's grandmother painted a set of these. One was lost when the tree fell over (oops!) but the other five remain.

So Shae took her first official (that we know of) steps on Sunday, December 20. Then on Monday (December 21) we were able to grab a camera as she gave it another go.

By Wednesday (December 23) she's an old pro!

Ho ho hoooooo

Before the tree fell...

Dude! This is SO fun!! Who knew?

Gramma's girl

Grampa's girl

Amazing what a *good* camera can do

Shae went to the 1st birthday party of her friend, Parker, this past weekend. She was sleepy when she arrived, but was entirely pooped out after all the partying with the kids at the party. Sleepy kid photos courtesy of Parker's mom, Rachel.

So two weeks ago I was walking into my office building and ran into Susan English, the wonderful woman who photographed our wedding. She also shot my friend Leslie's wedding in 2006. Upon making chit-chat in the lobby, she mentioned that she had some photos of me and Jody from Leslie and Chris' wedding -- I gave her my business card and she sent me the following this past weekend.

(If memory serves, Jody had taken a softball to the face a couple days before the wedding.)

Third week of the 13th month of Shae

Reading with Dad!
Favorite play spot: living room table. Favorite game to play: throwing coasters on the ground.

Serious exertion.

Zoey gets in on the action.

Gigglefest with Mama.

Playing in the dishwasher is a LOT of fun!