Christmas 2008

Hello everyone!

Well, it’s been a while since we’ve sent out one of these installments! This time, I convinced Kristin to let ME write it (no, this isn’t Kaela, this is Lee). So here’s what’s been happening in our lives recently.

December began horribly, but ended all right. The first week in December, right after Thanksgiving break, I returned and had three finals. That is, three of my classes decided to end two weeks early and not have their finals during finals week. I think they said something like that they were doing it as a favor. . .to reduce our stressload. . .something like that. :-) So the first week back I wasn’t good company to be with. But the good part of that was that I had a really easy finals week and by Dec 16th I was free to enjoy a long break – almost three weeks. Kristin and I both enjoyed my being home.

A few days before Christmas we had a major snowstorm here – about two feet. The boots that Grandma & Grandpa Johnson sent us last year have seen good use! Kaela was fascinated by the snow – probably more so when she was behind the glass sliding door. Glass sliding doors add to the wonder of anything!

Kristin spent most of the week leading up to Christmas working on a dress for Kaela. She went and bought fabric, measured Kaela, basically made her own pattern, and then cut and stitched. I was in charge of distracting Kaela while Mommy was sewing – some nights were more successful than others. :-) But in the end, the final result was beautiful.

We enjoyed Kaela’s first Christmas at home together as a family. Kaela loved the Christmas tree, and we often had to be vigilant to keep her from tugging on the lights too much. She did manage to pull it down on top of herself just once, though she didn't seem to mind until daddy took the tree away from her. As far as gifts go, oddly enough, Kaela enjoyed trying to unwrap Christmas presents much more before Christmas than on Christmas morning – we couldn’t get her to open a single one. When they were open and she had new toys, she tended to be much more attracted to the stray bits of wrapping paper than to the actual gifts themselves. Oh well. :-)

For Christmas dinner we were invited over to a family in our ward that lives close to us: the Ashley’s. Kristin and I had lobster for the first time ever – apparently the New England states had a big load come in and on the news they were asking everyone to help their local fishermen by eating lots of lobster. So we did our part. It was really good!

Kaela has been learning and growing so much. She just hit 8 months right after Christmas, and it seems it’s passed by so fast. She now crawls all over the house and loves to pull herself up on just about anything, whether it’s a stable support or not. She’s gotten to have much better balance, though, than she did at the very beginning. She can now trolley herself around the room, just holding on to table’s, chairs, and walls – as long as the path is continuous from one object to another. Kristin and I both figure it’s probably only a few weeks before she starts standing on her own with no support, and then walking. So fast.

She also loves exploring all over the house. The other day she was playing around in the living room when all of a sudden it got alarmingly quiet. We looked around and couldn’t find her until we heard baby noises from behind the couch. She had fun.

Anyway, this is getting pretty long, so I’ll put the New Year in a separate entry. We love you all and hope you all had happy holidays.

Lee, Kristin, and Kaela Johnson