Merry Christmas!

Like all of Lauren's other firsts, I had a picture in my head of what I wanted her first Christmas to be like. It didn't quite turn out that way, though. It took longer to get the contractor in to work on our living room, so I couldn't do any decorating and then I got a horrible cold two weeks before Christmas so I had to miss a party and since I'm nursing I was limited in what I could take, so I was just barely surviving for over a week and ended up doing most of my Christmas shopping on the Saturday before Christmas, something I did NOT want to do.
So there weren't any decorations besides the Christmas tree and I didn't finish the cute unwrap a Christmas book every night thing, but we managed to get all the gifts bought and wrapped and had a nice day. Lauren slept pretty well Christmas Eve, which helped!  After she went to bed we picked up all of her toys so she wouldn't have any distractions from the new ones. She almost got the hang of opening up presents, but not quite. And she got bored before she was even halfway through!
After her morning nap my family came over to exchange presents and she got fairly overwhelmed with that, but once we were done opening presents she settled down and enjoyed playing with everyone. One of my brothers then came with his new puppy, a Pomeranian/Jack Russell mix, one of the most adorable dogs I've ever seen and Lauren couldn't get enough of him, it was so cute!
We were able to recover quickly from having a house full of people and I'm already making lists of how to make next Christmas better!

A New Living Room!

When we went to Utah in July we asked my brother to house sit. He was more than happy to, until a couple days after we left when the shower started leaking into the living room below. There wasn't too much water, so he cleaned it up and the next day used a different shower. Same thing happened, only this time a lot worse. He sent us this picture of our living room ceiling:

We aplogized profusely that he had to deal with the problem and immediately got on the phone with our insurance agent to report the damage and find out the procedure for getting money to repair it. We ended up waiting until we got home to deal with all of that, instead of trying to do it all over the phone and making my brother deal with letting people into the house.

We had a couple of plumbers come give us estimates and chose one we liked. He found a small leak in the drain pipe, caused by the shower not being sealed properly when it was put in. At some point someone discovered this and just put a rag in to soak up the water. So he fixed it and we were excited to use our shower again. And then the next day after we showered water was leaking through the ceiling again. So the plumber came back and discovered that it wasn't that leak that had caused all the damage, but a nail that had penetrated intothe main drain pipe when the floor was put in. So the whole time we lived here, who knows how long before that, water had been pooling in the ceiling every time we showered! It was amazing that there wasn't any mold!
So here's what the ceiling looked like after looking for and fixing the two leaks:

It took us a lot longer to find a contractor who was reasonably priced and we felt comfortable with. Then it took awhile before we decided exactly what we were going to do. There was a TINY bit of damage to the floor and we couldn't decide what to do about that. We finally decided to do nothing. So then it took awhile for the contractor to have time to come do the work. Luckily that gave us plenty of time to pick a new wall color, because that was quite a process!
Here are the walls covered in samples:

We finally picked a color and got a start date scheduled. And of course it took longer than we anticipated. Lauren and I spent the first couple of day away from the house to avoid the dust and fumes, but that got old, so the last two days we spend holed up in the master bedroom.

Here's what our kitchen and dining area looked like for a week:

                                                        Lauren thought it was very weird.

The new ceiling is up!

 

And the painting is finally done!

 

 

We're still working on moving the furniture back in, we left most of it out to leave room for the Christmas tree. It was such a relief to have it done and we're so happy with the new look!

 

 

Just a funny side note, about a week after the plumber came to fix the drain pipe, our garbage disposal broke and we called him again to come fix it, we joked about just putting him on retainer. Then about a month after that we ran into him on my family's farm in Joppa, turns out he and his wife board their horse there!

9 months!

I think I've done a pretty good job enjoying each phase of Lauren's babyhood. There are definitely benefits and downfalls to each age and it's easy to hope to get to the next one quickly - "I can't wait til she can sit up", "I can't wait til she can feed herself", "I can't wait til she can sleep in her crib", "I can't wait til she can talk". But for every one of those I've said I've thought of something that I love about the phase she's in - "I love snuggling next to her at night", "I love when she reaches for me to hold her", "I love her sweet little baby babbles". So for the most part I don't feel like time is going too fast or too slow, I love watching her grow and learn and look forward to what she's going to learn next month. But it is pretty amazing that her first year is 2/3 of the way over! So much happens in the first year, they learn so much, and it's almost over. It's crazy! I'm happy that I've remembered to do all the "first" things and take all the "first" pictures that I've been dreaming about for years, even when it annoys Chris!
This month she:
- weighs 15lbs 8oz, which I thought was low, but I guess she's just a busy girl, burning a lot of calories!
- is 26.5 inches long
- FINALLY sleeps in her crib at night and for all of her naps
- still isn't sleeping through the night, but there are some nights she goes for longer stretches
- is pretty much out of all of her 6 month clothes and wearing mostly 9 month and some 6/9 month, which is amazing to me that she caught up in size with her age! I didn't think that would happen for years!
- wears 12 month size socks, she's going to be a tall girl!
- eats chicken with vegetables or apples or rice, although she's still not crazy about it
- crawls like crazy everywhere
- can pulls herself up on just about anything and sometimes tries to stand without holding on
- can crawl up the stairs
- went on her first road trip to upperstate New York and did great
- impressed the doctor at her 9 month checkup with all of her skills, she's right on track developmentally! Amazing for a girl who was born early and small and the OB's were so worried about!
We love her more and more every day, even the days she drives us crazy!

The downside to her being so mobile is it's almost impossible to get her to sit still for pictures! This is the only one where she's not screaming because I won't let her get up.

Lauren's First Thanksgiving!

My sister invited us to her house for Thanksgiving, if we were up to the six hour drive with an 8 month old. We decided to go for it and I'm so glad we did! I was a little worried my mom would be upset about not seeing Lauren on her first Thanksgiving, but she was okay.
We drove up Wednesday and Lauren did beautifully! We ran into major traffic and Lauren's naps got messed up, but she handled it well and slept the whole night once we finally got to bed!
My sister and her husband let us have their master bedroom suite so we'd be more comfortable with the baby and it worked well since it's closed off from the rest of the house and quieter.
On Thursday my sister's mom and her third husband drove up for the weekend. We ate at a normal dinner time, instead of earlier in the day like a lot of people do on Thanksgiving, but that was fine. My sister had told me ahead of time that if we came up we weren't allowed to help with anything, that it was a vacation for us, so I took advantage of that and let everyone else do the cooking! We mixed some mashed potatoes and gravy for Lauren to try. She wasn't sure about the texture, but liked the taste.
Friday we took a walk and then my sister, her mom and I went to run some errands. Everyone took turns playing with Lauren and she was great about letting other people hold her and play with her. She did end up sleeping in bed with us, but I'd been expecting that. Luckily my sister and her husband have a king size bed, so there was plenty of room!
It was a really nice visit and I hope we can do it again soon!

My sisters' mom's husband brought up a bunch of

oysters this is my first bite ever. Not something I'd

be excited to eat again, but they weren't horrible.

The guys playing pool

My sister cooking

Eating Thankgiving dinner

Lauren's Thanksgiving shirt, handed down from

my friend whose baby is exactly a year older than her.

Us sister with our babies!

We tried to take a cute family picture, but Chris kept looking drunk

Lauren loves seeing horses!