Tales from Our Fairytale: 11 Months and Santa Clause is Coming to Town!

To my favorite little cheerleader,

Thank you for bringing so much joy to our lives over the past 11 months. I don't think I will ever get tired of watching you smile, and even more so the laugh that comes from that smile these days! One of my favorite things that you are doing these days is clapping. I know this isn't a new trick, but you officially understand what clapping is all about. You ALWAYS clap when you hear people clapping on TV, and considering we watch a lot of sports with your daddy...you are clapping ALL. THE. TIME. :)

One of the things I have learned about you this month is your love language. I'm well aware that 11 months might be a little young to narrow this down, but it's another #MiniHe moment. I'm pretty sure your love language is words of affirmation, just like your daddy's! You are constantly looking to us to cheer you on and tell you that you are doing a good job (which you always are doing, of course), and you always make sure that we are following you along as you crawl.

Some of your other favorite things to do include: "show us your tongue" - and you rightly do, opening and closing the doors...most of the time closing me out, and waving hi and bye. You are a very smart girl, and I can't wait to watch you learn more and more!

Eleventh Month Stats

Wearing: 9 and 12 month

Not quite in the 12 month pants yet...

Eating: No changes here! We're working on adding some big people food to her list, but it's just gonna take time! ;) She LOVED her Hopkins County Stew.

"Mommy gave me her very last bite! She loves me!!"

Sleeping: The month started with some pretty early mornings, but we are ending it with some later ones! Since she's been sick, she's been sleeping until about 8:30, with one morning even being NINE:30!!

On rare occasions, she sleeps on her back!

Teeth: EIGHT!!! You guys. Last month she had four. This month she has EIGHT! Yes...it was a rough month. (And I'm pretty sure she's working on a molar.)

If you look close, you can see those pearly whites on the top!

Unofficial Measurements:22.7 pounds, 27 inches tall, and that punkin head is 48 cm! We'll get official measurements next month at her ONE YEAR well visit! How that's even possible is beyond me! ;) Can't wait to see how much she's grown and the percentiles she is in. (Although we didn't go for a well visit, we did have TWO sick visits this month! A nasty sinus infection and "the crud" wiped us out there for a bit.)

Eleventh Month Highlights

Daddy's take on the past month: "She played. A lot. - End of blog" :) He couldn't be more right! This girl plays hard and non-stop. She is determined beyond anything I've ever seen, she is always on the go, and she doesn't stop until she is where she wants to be! Oh, and he added, "And she was a zombie. And a lizard. Oh. And a bear." - That she was! :)

THANKSGIVING
We had so much fun celebrating Bryleigh girl's first Thanksgiving! We headed to Sulphur Springs to start the week for time with my parents and Alan's crew, and got to spend some time with my dad's parents while we were there.

Mom, Dad, and I ran in the Turkey Trot 5k on Thursday morning while Bryleigh and her daddy got a little more sleep in and started getting ready for the day. Once we finished up there, we all loaded up and headed to Fort Worth for Thanksgiving lunch with all of Mimi's family, and Grandmother got to come too! It was so good to see everyone!

4 Generations - Bryleigh's first Thanksgiving

On Saturday, Brad and I had all of his family over for round 2 of Thanksgiving lunch, and it was such a sweet time with family and friends - including some family friends from Moldova, Kate and Ghena. Memories were certainly made!

Shopping for Thanksgiving!

CHRISTMASTIME FUN
We did wait to decorate and get in the Christmas spirit until Thanksgiving was officially over considering we had 16 in our house for a meal, but we were definitely ready to get our house all Holiday-ified as soon as the last dish was put away!

I was honored to host a Christmas Cookie Exchange for the girls in our small group, so that definitely kicked off the Christmas season for us! The house was all decked out, and it smelled AMAZING with all the sweet goodness that the ladies brought! (Thankfully we had some help eating the 5 dozen plus cookies and candies.)

I was so excited to take Bryleigh to meet SANTA CLAUSE! I was sad that it fell on a night while Brad was out of town for work, but when an "authentic" Santa comes to your favorite boutique store with TWO live reindeer on his motorcycle, you kind of HAVE to go!! It went just as I expected it would. I mean, hey, everyone needs (at least) one Santa meltdown picture...we went ahead and checked that off this year!

The holidays always mean one thing: holiday parties! I was so excited that Brad was able to get back in town early enough to go to the Carlisle and Gallagher Christmas party this year. We have so much to celebrate about his last year of work, and it's always great to see his friends and colleagues. I'm so proud of him! (And Bryleigh was SUPER excited to see her daddy on Saturday morning when she woke up and he was HOME!)