chatty girl

Maren loves her play mat - and she is especially fascinated by the Girl in the Mirror, who mysteriously shows up every morning. She loves to talk to this girl. It looks like this:

Maren's first Christmas

Maren's first Christmas, in summary:

Eat.

Sleep.

Fill diapers.

Eat.

Open presents.

Visit family.

Sleep.

Fill diapers. (Including occasional massive blowout.)

Eat.

Sleep.

Repeat.

But the written description isn't that much fun. Pictures are better.

Thus we present Maren's first Christmas, in photo form:

Our first family photo (in which Dad is mesmerizing to Maren).

With cousin Wyatt...

...and cousin Sofia.

And Grandpa! (While trying to eat my bib.)

Meeting cousin Matt...

...and Uncle Bob.

One of many hours spent on the World's Best Play Mat (made even better with cousin Lauren).

Hanging with Aunt Brenda

With almost all the Bray cousins...

...and almost all the grandkids. (We got to video chat with cousin Katie, but we missed her!)

Also, Maren's mom got a great camera lens for Christmas, designed for taking close-ups, so you'll be subjected to lots of these:

fine dining

Tonight, Maren's cousin Sofia helped give her a bottle. It went a little something like this...

First, you help Maren drink the bottle.

You have to hold it just right.

Like this.

After she drinks for awhile, you have to burp her.

You keep patting until she burps really loud.

Then you feed her some more.

After awhile, you get so good at this that you can totally watch the game at the same time.

Thanks for the help, Sofia!

the girl in the mirror

Maren really likes to talk to the girl in the mirror on her play mat. She lies there for quite awhile most mornings and they chat away (while mom enjoys a cup of coffee and some breakfast, if she's lucky). She's making more gurgles and coos, and she finds that Mirror Girl just fascinating.

it's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

Maren is busy getting ready for Christmas. Which, at the moment, mostly involves wearing cute holiday-themed outfits. Like this one, with penguins:

which comes with a matching hat.

Or her snow-girl fleece, which is great for cold, rainy weather:

And the fancy dress she wore for her holiday photo with Grandma and Grandpa McCallum and the cousins.

Yesterday, we hung her first ornament on the tree (which was such a moving event, she wept through the whole thing).

Maren and her parents wish you a very joyful Christmas and happy new year!

I love to make you smile

So far, Maren is mostly smiling while she sleeps. Which means she looks like this:

and then, all of a sudden, she does this!

We are catching more 'awake' smiles too, but so far they've eluded the camera. She smiles and smiles, until the instant we point the camera lens at her, at which point she becomes either perplexed or fascinated by the camera and stops smiling. Oh well.

She isn't quite laughing yet, although occasionally she lets out an almost-giggle while she sleeps. (She does a lot of things while she sleeps.) But she is starting to make some non-crying noises while she's awake. She especially likes to talk to the yellow quilt on the couch. Apparently the yellow quilt is quite the conversationalist.