The Gentrys

Yes, I realize my last post was Thanksgiving...and it is now after Christmas! I'm sure I could come up with excuses, but I think everyone is busy over the holidays so I'll just try to catch up.

My little angel has changed SO much since my last post. She is crawling everywhere now and took her first steps two days before Christmas! She will still only walk from person to person or from a piece of furniture to a person, only really when encouraged though. If no one is coaxing her, she just crawls where she want to go. I don't think it will be long though until she is running all over the house! She stands up by herself all the time and pulls up on everything she can find.

She has also been getting a mouth full of teeth over the last few weeks! We went from zero to 4 in maybe two weeks and 2 more are trying to push through today. It has been fun to see her little grin become toothy...but the sleepless nights haven't been such a treat.



She's eating a lot better now too. She prefers to feed herself, but we've been able to get her to take some baby food fruit and veggies now and then as long as she has some finger food to go with it. Her favorite food is still peanut butter and she has that almost daily on crackers or toast.

We had a wonderful Christmas! We stayed at home which was very nice and had Christmas Eve with Phil's family at his grandmother's house and then my family and his immediate family (most of them - we missed you Chris and ML) and his grandmother ate lunch with us on Christmas Day. I hate that I didn't take more pictures. My sister and brother-in-law drove all the way from Maryland and spent several days with us before Christmas and started the drive back early this morning. I see them so rarely and can't believe I didn't take any pictures while they were here! We had a wonderful time visiting with everyone though and it passed too quickly! By the way, Emma Cate LOVES all things Santa! Everytime she sees a santa figure or an elf she starts squealing and reaching for it. She loves this little elf we bought! She didn't love sitting in Santa's lap...that's just the age though I think.



I love Christmas time. I love having a real tree and leave the lights on all day when I'm at home. I love the decorations and I love my nativity. But it never fails that the day after Christmas, I'm ready to put it all away and clean the house! I feel like such a grinch, but today, that is exactly what I did. Before my family left I solicited their help in taking down all the ornaments and lights and getting the tree out of the house. My dad even helped me put all the boxes in the attic. Then I spent her morning nap time cleaning the house. I decided to leave out my nativity. It is by Willow Tree and I love the natural look. Phil's parent's started it for me last Christmas and added some pieces this year too. I may just leave it up for another few weeks or I'm really thinking about leaving it out all year. After all, we shouldn't just celebrate Jesus's birth at Christmas!

Ok, Emma Cate is trying to pull all the DVD's off the shelf so I guess I'm done with blogging for now!

We attempted pictures for our Christmas card yesterday. None were great of all of us, but I think we chose the best one for the card...look for it in your mailbox soon :) I thought this one was too funny of Jake though!



Emma Cate is keeping us busy pulling up on EVERYTHING! She won't get in her walker anymore, but now wants to hold on to it and try to walk behind it...it goes a little too fast on our hardwood floors so I have to hold onto it...she's keeping mommy busy! I think she'll be walking soon. My baby is growing up too fast!!!



She is eating a lot more these days...table food that is. She still only will eat carrots and pears in baby food. She loves peanut butter on anything, but usually I give it to her on a Ritz cracker. I didn't think she could have peanut butter this early, but her doctor said as long as we didn't have any family history of peanut allergies, it was good to try. So we did and she loves it! She also eats cheerios, any bread, some cheeses, broccoli, cooked carrots, chicken and dumplings (mashed up of course) and samples from whatever we are eating. We are still nursing 4 times a day. She finally got her first tooth this month, but we haven't had any problems with biting thankfully!

Ok she's crawling up my leg so I think this post is going to have to end here. Hope everyone is having a wonderful Monday!