Pic-stories

So.
I have this baby.

And she is ALWAYS happy… so long as you’re holding her.
Before the word “spoiled” rolls from your lips, let me just say: she’s been this way since she “popped out.” (My kids are convinced that she simply “popped out” and I haven’t argued with them.)
She just really hates being left alone. And she really hates wet or dirty diapers and she really hates being left alone.
The second you pick her up, she stops crying and she focuses her pretty little eyes on you and you. just. melt.

And then nothing else in the world gets done. With my husband’s powers and mine combined, our house is still dirty.
We’re trying to slowly get her used to spending some time on her own. We’re hoping it works.
Because as much fun as it would be to spend our days just snuggled up tight with our little one, we actually have to do other basic things like cook, eat, shower, and so on.
Anyway, it’s made blogging a luxurious luxury. Even as I type, my lonesome baby is squalling for some love and food. But before she gets it, here’s a little bit of what’s been going on.

We left Alice home in the care of Grandma and we went to the girl’s first Christmas program. It was all she could talk about, and I knew I couldn’t miss it. She’d been singing the songs for weeks.
Her program was on a Thursday and the word “Thursday” was completely discarded and replaced with “Program.”
“Tomorrow is Wednesday and then it’s PROGRAM and then Friday!”

She did a great job, and it was so fun watching her up there sing “Up on the Housetop.” She’s such a fun girl.
The latest bit of excitement in her world is pretty much monumental:

She hoped her tooth would fall out on Christmas Eve so the Tooth Fairy and Santa Clause would run into each other at our house. But… no cigar. The wiggly tooth is still intact!
Alice met her uncle Steve for the first time.

Don’t let the pictures fool you: she actually DOES like him.
Alice has been able to meet so many people for the first time! Our visitors have been scarce, for which we are eternally grateful! I think everyone is sick right now, and the last thing we want at our house is more sickness… we’ve been through colds and stomach bugs, and we don’t want anymore for awhile!
Here’s a picture I SNUCK in of Alice meeting her great-grandma:

I wrapped Alice up in a blanket my great-grandmother Alice had crocheted on:

It’s the same blanket I’ve blessed my other two kids in, and Alice will be blessed in it as well -I just love it!
We spent one evening all curled up on the couch together, and I just love how our entire family still fits on one couch:

I’ve been dying to sit down and look at some baby pictures of Alice and Lacy side by side. Today I finally DID it.
I’ve never been good at the whole figuring out who the baby looks like game… but I gotta say: my baby girls look like twins. Right?

I can see a difference in them -Alice has her own look and personality, but gosh… these pictures are pretty hard to argue with:

Danny is absolutely smitten with this one (he’s been smitten with them all):

Our Christmas was wonderful -despite the stomach bug we fought off -more on that later.
I’m not showering much.
I’m not wearing much make-up.
I’m hungry all the time and Alice has let me know that when I eat chocolate, her stomach hurts.
I have a stocking full of the BEST kinds of chocolate bars.
Uneaten.
They freeze, right? I also have a cupboard full of chocolate treat, chocolate milk mix… it’s all taunting me. But I’m being a pessimist. What I ought to be saying is this:
My darling new one has given me the gift of weight loss for the New Year! Yahoo!
Oh gag. Sorry. I can’t be optimistic about No Chocolate.

But it’s hard to be too pessimistic these days… in addition to OUR new one, we have two new little Christmas Critters on our porch (and in our driveway and in our flowerbed and under our snow boots):

We’re finally at the close of the choppy, choppy post. It’s been choppy for a reason. It’s taken me about 4 hours to write it… in the meantime I’ve fed the baby twice, changed the baby thrice, made a trip to the Post Office, cleaned a baby swing, and gone and opened the fridge about 5 times (hoping an elf would come and put something onion-less and chocolate-less in there for me to eat).
And this is generally what I’ve been up to and what I’m about to be up to in about five minutes:

Cheers.