Friday December 2 (day 155/365)

Today was my holiday party at work.  We all went and had a good time.  The munchkin was all over the place!  Luckily there was a dance floor at the front, so we just let her run all around.  There was also an unlimited quantity of crackers, all in all it was a pretty good evening for Phoebe!

Really Dad?  Really?

Come on guys, hurry up!!  We don't want to be late!

Doing laps on the dance floor.

Thursday, December 1 (day 154/365)

Phoebe is quite the reader these days - she LOVES books!  Every once in a while we'll be playing with her and she'll just toddle over to her book corner and settle down for some quiet reading time.  If we go over and try to read the book to her she gets really annoyed and scoots away from us.  As two bookworms ourselves, we're pretty excited that Phoebe seems to love "reading" as much as we do!

Could you two hold it down?  Baby is trying to study here!

One of Phoebe's new books from Grandma Joyce has a picture of a black kitty in it.  She is obsessed with this page and every time she turns to it she gets really excited and starts looking around for Danger.

Wednesday, November 30 (day 153/365)

I didn't see Jeremy and Phoebe take these pictures, but when I downloaded everything from the camera, they were a sweet surprise.  My two cuties hamming it up!

Tuesday, November 29 (day 152/365)

Now that she has discovered the fun of laundry, Phoebe just can't get enough.  Between the baby and the cat, it takes us 10 times longer than normal to fold a load of laundry because there's always a tiny mammal in the basket drooling and wiping their nose on our clean t-shirts.  Kind of makes you wonder why we spend so much on toys for them!

Monday, November 28 (day 151/365)

We ordered Phoebe a wooden Hanukkah playset to help her celebrate her first set of winter holidays.  After closely examining it, she seemed to know exactly what to do with the latkes!

Sunday, November 27 (day 150/365)

Today was just another get-stuff-done-around-the-house day.  Phoebe did her part working hard to make messes and break out of baby jail. 

Oh hey mom.  Nothing to see here.  Just ... playing ...

Breaking out of baby jail??  Not me!!  I am just ... trying to get a better view!

YUM!  BAGEL!!!

Saturday, November 26 (day 149/365)

Today, we had a lazy day at home getting caught up on chores.  After Phoebe watched Danger climb into the clean laundry a few times, she decided to get in on the fun.  When a new batch came out of the dryer, the baby and the cat both pounced.  This is what we call good entertainment around these parts!

Friday, November 25 (day 148/365)

Someone is feeling WAY WAY BETTER!!!  Yay!

Thursday, November 24 (day 147/365)

After Wednesday being so rough, Phoebe was much, MUCH better today.  We had already canceled our Thanksgiving plans, and decided to keep the little germ bucket in quarantine.  It was sad to have to cancel our plans, but we actually had a nice day at home, snuggling, and watching football.  One of my friends had invited us over, and insisted on making us plates to eat at home so we could still have Thanksgiving.  The food was amazingly delicious and we feel so lucky to have such great friends!  When I got back with our dinner, Jeremy ran next door to drop off a pie.  The neighbors said they had already been to the pediatrician that day, so if we didn't mind their germs they didn't mind ours.  We went over and the boys played with Phoebe and we enjoyed catching up with the grownups.  When the kids started winding down, we took Phoebe home, fed her some turkey and put her to bed.  Then, we took the baby monitor back next door and hung out with the neighbors some more.  It was lots of fun!  We'd never had a chance to talk to them without a bunch of kids running around, so it was nice to have a grown up conversation ... and some grown up drinks :)  It has been quite the year here at the Gottwoods and we feel so incredibly blessed and lucky.  We have so much to be Thankful for this Thanksgiving!

Phoebe digs in to her first Thanksgiving dinner!  Thank you friends and family for making my first year great!

Wednesday, November 23 (day 146/365)

Phoebe had a very rough Tuesday night and Wednesday morning.  Her puking kind of came to a head and she was up all night.  Most of the morning she was also ridiculously sick.  We went through all of our crib sheets and fuzzy baby jammies.  Luckily (I guess) we had a test scheduled for her stomach anyway, so we went in for that.  After the test we came home, and since Phoebe was still not able to keep anything down, we went to the pediatrician for a follow up.  Our doctor wasn't in, and the sub that we saw said she thought that on top of everything else, the little doodle bug had developed a stomach virus.  Yuck!  By the time we got home, Phoebe was exhausted and sick.  We gave her lots of Pedialyte and snuggles and called to cancel our Thanksgiving plans.  Luckily, by the evening, Phoebe was doing much better and was even able to keep down a few saltines for dinner.  We really hope we figure out what is wrong with the poor baby soon because it is so hard to see her sick!

Poor sick baby!

Tuesday, November 22 (day 145/365)

Today when I went to pick up Phoebe at daycare, some of the kids from her class were outside playing.  It is always hard to get her to leave when the class is outside because she is usually having too much fun to consider leaving with her boring parents.  The baby playground has a lot of fun stuff, and is in an enclosed area right next to the classroom, so the kids get to go outside a lot with is great!  Today Phoebe was super excited to see me, but when it became clear I expected her to leave with me her enthusiasm died down.

Oh hi Mom!  Fancy seeing you here.   Want to play?

Home?  Sure, you can go home.  Just hand over this snazzy iPhone before you leave and you are free to go.

Monday, November 21 (day 144/365)

"Big throw" you say???  Hmmm, not ringing any bells.  Maybe if you hand over that camera it will jog my memory.

Phoebe really likes to play a modified version of catch - she usually throws the ball but then runs over and steals it back from you before you get a chance to throw.  Sadly, any time we try to catch her on film, we end up with something like this.  She pretends that she has never seen a ball before.  Ah munchkin.  Really, it is super-cute.  I guess you are just going to have to trust us on this one.