Musings on life, parenting, Jesus, and more...

We were going to wait until after our California vacation next month to start Jenica on solids, but she's woken up in the middle of the night for the last 4 nights in a row, after sleeping through since she was 9 weeks old, so we decided it must be time to add a little more sustenance to her diet. Pay no attention to her wild bed head, we filmed this this morning right after she woke up. As you can see in the video, she started out wanting to reach for the cereal and the spoon, but by the end she was doing very good at keeping her hands in her lap. Hopefully those good table manners will continue :)

Exciting day at the Bachelder's! I think the video says it all...take a look :)

Well, as you may or may not know, our New Years Day snowshoeing trip was "postponed" due to weather. Rob went with our friends but Jena and I stayed home because it was rainy and wet. However, this last Saturday was beautiful so we headed to White River Canyon, where we were supposed to go on New Years, and had a great time. It was a little windy so we started out with Jenica in the front pack facing Rob but she wasn't happy like that at all until we turned her around so she could see what was going on. She stayed awake for most of the trip and then finally fell asleep at the very end.

It's hard to believe that Jenica is 4 months old already. The time has gone by so fast. She had her doctor's check up today and another round of shots. She cried longer this time than she did last time but still fell asleep before we even left the doctors office (I try to plan her appointments around nap time so it works out good.) Her doctor says that she is very healthy and alert for her age and was impressed that she's sleeping 11 to 12 hours a night. He says we can start baby food if we want but there's no hurry so we may wait another month or two. She still seems to be doing fine and feeling satisfied on milk alone and I guess waiting a little longer can help avoid food allergies in the future. We were supposed to take her for her first snowshoeing adventure on New Years Day but the weather wasn't really cooperating with our plan so Rob went with our group of friends while Jenica and I stayed home. We may try to venture out again this weekend if the weather is ...

For those of you who aren't aware of my work situation these days, I've been able to stay home with Jenica full time and still do a little part-time work with out having to worry about child care. Jenica gets to come to the office with me. I work one or two mornings a week at Hilltop Tax Service, which is conveniently located only a couple blocks from our house and I also spend about half a day a week at Rob's office doing bookkeeping for them. Jenica thinks it's fun to see her dad at the office once and a while and at our last visit, she even got a quick ping pong lesson during his lunch break. We feel very blessed to have such flexible employers.

We had a great time with the Bachelders (Rob's dad, step-mom, brother and sister) on Christmas day. Here Jenica is modeling one of her gifts from Grandma and Grandpa (a onesie that says, "Who needs Santa, I've got grandparents!") She also got some cute red leggings, a soft pink sweatshirt, some new socks, and a cuddly teddy bear. Thanks Grandma and Grandpa! Oh, and they gave mom and dad a "date night"... A gift certificate to Regal Cinemas with babysitting included :) That will be a treat! Plus, Aunt Amy has offered up her babysitting services for free anytime we like. Jenica already likes her Aunt Amy a lot, she gets the biggest smiles for her and even some little giggles. We had a delicious holiday meal, complete with jello cake (Dan's mom's family recipe) which I had never had before but thought it was so yummy I had to go back for seconds, and then we taught the family how to play Settlers of Catan...so now they'll know what we're talking...

Jenica, Rob and I wish you all a very Merry Christmas and Jenica would like to give a shout out to all her loyal followers and say thank you for making her first Christmas the very best ever. Cousin Kayla went all out and got her about 7 or 8 new toys to play with. She loves some of them already, especially the little slippers that make noise when she kicks her feet. Grammy got her a pretty bracelet (she loves the bling, ya know) and sent along a dress that Shay's Grammy made for her when she was one (pictured above). She also got Jenica her very own kid size rocking chair, which Rob is excited to assemble later. In her stocking she got some fun new socks and a teether toy from Santa and Grandma Judy and Grandpa Arlo got her a pretty stuffed animal. Grandpa Ken's gift, a video camera, isn't really for her to play with but will still be all about her in the years to come as we make fun videos of her to share with you all. Well, it's only 1:00 and we still have more Chris...