Happy New Year! Happy Birthday!

Happy New Year!! I hope all of you had a great Christmas and that this new year is the best ever! Speaking for myself: Christmas is ...wondrous and crazy and busy and FUN!! I have a whole new set of toys, I got to eat cool stuff and play with grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, friends (old and new) and even doggies (more on that later). It was all a little overwhelming & honestly, I'm having a little trouble adjusting back to normal life! So where do I start? Well, we'll go with the abridged version or else I will have to pay you all overtime to read this. I got to open one gift on Christmas Eve and of course that was a bit traumatic b/c under normal circumstances it is a big no-no to rip paper...with minimal encouragement I got used to the idea ;o). Next we listened to Amahl and the Night Visitors. Yes, that is an opera and no my parents aren't nuts. ;o) Mommy's family had a tradition of listening to a recording of Amahl every year and so we decided to follow suit. Mommy made a couple small changes: she used a CD (rather than the cassette from the dinosaur ages) and she got a picture book so we can read along as we listened to the singing...and good thing, b/c it's really tough to understand what the words are with all that vibrato & drama!! Mommy was learning right along with me even tho she's heard the opera countless times :o). Anyway, even if you don't understand every single word, Amahl is a nice way to remember what Christmas is all about. I'm not sure how much I understand now, but I'm sure mommy & daddy will keep teaching me about Jesus and Christmas...I think they may still be learning themselves. :o)

Ok, so then came Christmas morning, which was sheer madness: I would have been completely happy to play with the new toys I got the night before, but there were several more gifts to tear into that morning...and even more later in the day when family came over. I barely had time to taste everything!! (Uh huh, everything STILL goes straight to my mouth for chewability testing.) Then mommy went crazy cooking and setting out the nice china and for a little bit everyone was scurrying around getting ready for a big meal. And then...I went to bed. Yup, I was snoozing it up while everyone ate. Well, really what would you do? I got upstaged by some toasted bird and squished up cranberries!! Pshhaw! Where's the fun in that??

The day after Christmas we left on a huge world tour...well really we just went to Texas, but we drove forEVER to get there! I was really good, and had so much fun with the friends & family we saw over there. Oh, yeah, and I got even MORE presents on our trip.

So I'm not quite running yet, I mostly do the cowboy stomp. That is small, quick steps with feet raised and legs wide: produces loud noises inside (esp on hardwood floor) and is a very effective mode of transportation in tallish grass. Additional perk: looks very cute & endears me to the public (wink). I just started climbing everything: very scary time for mommy. I also have a few more new words: I say bye bye and nana can mean night-night or Nana (grandma Wheeler); as you can imagine those meanings are both very popular. I also say baba for bottle (sometimes) and I love to try to copy lots of different words, but I don't really know what they mean. And I even try to sing my ABCs (I still need to learn the names of the letters, tho ;o).

Speaking of Nana, she got a new puppy and brought him to visit me for Christmas! I like petting and chasing him. It's much better than visiting the puppies at the pet store...and mommy isn't so tempted to get me a puppy since I can play with Nana's now. I also got to play with a little doggie (Emma) in Texas; she was a LOT of fun!

Well the big day was Tuesday: I'm 1 year old!!! We had a costume party with pizza (yum!) and cake and ice cream (yum yum!!). I dressed up as a dinosaur (rrrrrrrrrrraaaaaaarrrr!) and my cousin Leighton dressed up as a giraffe; the adults were party poopers and didn't dress up at all. We had to take the costumes off eventually because we aren't supposed to get food all over them. I got a whole new batch of presents even though I've barely gotten the ones from Christmas out of their boxes! I was a bit dazed because I missed my afternoon nap, but that didn't prevent me from flinging bits of pizza and cake all over; making sure much of the frosting ended up in my hair; and wrestling with Leighton over my new toys. I think we should have birthday parties everyday!

Well I'll sign off with the statistical bit: I have 12 teeth (molars are on their way), I'm 33 inches tall (100th percentile) and I weigh just over 25 lb.s (80th percentile). I went to the doctor today, and she said she can't remember seeing a kid my age with so many teeth! :o) The good news is that after this set of molars come through I have only one more set...I guess then my teeth will start falling out, but maybe, just maybe I will get a break from teething!

Much love and best wishes for the new year!!
Gav