Well yesterday Morgan wore an outfit that was *mine when I was a baby! I couldn’t believe it, but it fit her perfectly. It was a really soft denim, but I kind of felt the need to put a bow in her hair to let people know that she really is a girl! The outfit also had a little belt across the front that was embroidered with ‘Amanda’, but I thought I should probably take that off before she wore it. I think the embroidery and name made it a little more feminine, cause all day I kept thinking that she should be a policewoman or an officer of some sort. But regardless, it was so cute to see something on her that I wore about 30 years ago

Also, I mentioned in our picture gallery from Morgan’s birthday that she received, from my mom, the Raggedy Ann doll that I had when I was little. Nana had gotten a replacement outfit for her since the original was pretty sun-faded and used. So here are the 2 pictures of Morgan and I, when she received the doll, and then my mom and I from when I was 10 months old!

Pictures like these make me so thankful that my mom kept the things that she did, and inspire me to keep special things to pass on to my kids when they are all grown up!

We had a very rare, but marvelous day of snow last Saturday. Actually we also had snow one evening the previous week - it was the day after we came back from Colorado, where it had snowed like crazy, so it was a little anti-climactic, but enjoyable none-the-less. If you know me very well you know that I LOVE snow, and moving back to southern weather has been one of the least enjoyable aspects (for me) of our return to the States. I despise really hot weather, and love a good winter with lots of snow, so Atlanta is the wrong place for me to be on both accounts!

Anyway, so last Saturday it snowed pretty much all day - from around 10:30 am until around 3 or 4 in the afternoon. We probably got a total of maybe an inch, *maybe 1.5 inches, it wasn’t much. But Jackson had a grand time outside making a little snowman on the porch with Daddy, and scooping up snow to move it around with his shovel (almost as fun as a sandbox!). I, meanwhile, had a most enjoyable time inside with Morgan, watching it fall outside, and feeling that sense of contentedness that comes with such beautiful weather and knowing we didn’t have to leave the house. (can you tell that I miss the Slovak winters?? )

Jackson and Gavin first made a preliminary snowman, just to get a good base down:

Then, after his nap, they went back out to make him a little bigger, then add all the features (notice Jackson was never wearing his gloves - that’s because the snowman had to have them!)

Unfortunately the snowman started to melt a couple days after he was built. At first Jackson was just devastated, and kept talking about his ‘noman’ and I just couldn’t quite explain to his satisfaction that he was made of snow and when it gets warmer, snow melts. He finally seemed content to know that he could build another ‘noman’ when it snows again. I couldn’t bear to tell him that snow in Atlanta could possibly not come for another 4 years.

After another day or 2 passed by, Jackson found the demise of his snowman quite hilarious. First he lost his mouth and his eyes, then the carrot fell down to the porch. When it started to rain one day I took off his hat and gloves and brought them back inside. The rain made his head melt and fall off, and all day Jackson talked about his ‘noman’ with no head. He thought it was incredibly funny. Then finally the snowman disappeared mid-week, and as the little balls got smaller and smaller, he watched them go, and seemed ok with the whole experience. And I’m so glad that he got to have it!

I thought I would give an update on each of the kids:

Jackson - we have quite the chatterbox in our family now! He literally talks from the moment he wakes up to the moment he goes to sleep. We have to laugh sometimes because he pulls out words that we have not said in ages, but that he must have been storing up in his head until he could actually say them. He is constantly asking questions, although thankfully right now they are pretty easy to answer - I know that will change very soon! He also refers to everything that happened in the past as ‘last night’, it’s very cute. At first I wasn’t following him and kept correcting him that it wasn’t ‘last night’, but then Gavin reminded me of a friend of ours whose kids did something similar, and referred to everything in the past as ‘yesterday’, as they weren’t quite old enough to grasp the concept of time. So now I just go along with what Jackson tells me, and ‘last night’ can mean anything from this morning to many months ago. So glad that I can understand his mind a little better now.

We have gotten into juicing carrots every couple weeks (you have to taste it, it’s really good - and healthy!), and Jackson just *loves the process. He helps with every step, but his favorite part is getting to drink it each morning. Last night we had a bunch of carrots we were getting ready to juice, and his first reaction was ‘Oh Boy, carrot juice!! Me some, me some!’ At least he likes something that is actually good for him.

Morgan: Our little girl has become quite the feisty one - while Jackson has always been very even-keeled, Morgan can be all over the map in one day. She still loves to be held, which makes me thankful for her petite frame (she’s back down to 17 lbs, 1 oz, in the 2nd percentile). She has her little angry streaks, where she hits everything out of her way (we’re working on that one!), but still loves the attention of her brother, and playing hide and seek with him. She knows how to say ‘ma ma’ and ‘da da’, loves to clap to music (and any time we cheer for something she has done), can wave, and eats about twice her weight at every meal (so not sure how she is still staying so small!). She pulls up on everything and is starting to cruise, moving between pieces of furniture that are close enough. She continues to woo everyone we meet in the grocery stores, and thankfully is a great little shopper (Jackson tends to be the more challenging one).

So, just a quick update on the kiddos… will post some more pictures soon!

From Jan 10-15, Gavin and I were able to go on an amazing ski vacation for our 6th anniversary (on the 12th). On our honeymoon, we went skiing up at Whistler, in British Columbia, and on our 2nd anniversary we went skiing at Zell Am See in the Austrian Alps. But for the past 4 years I have either been pregnant or nursing, and unable to ski, so we decided it was time we took a trip!

We went to Steamboat Springs, Colorado, as we have family that lives there who have a family-owned condo where we were able to stay right at the base of the mountain. We found great plane tickets in mid-December, got great discounts on our lift passes on eBay, so were able to have a wonderful vacation on a budget! We skiied 3 of our 4 full days, and on our day off went ice skating and up to the wonderful hot springs - there is nothing like being in hot-tub like water (all natural, from the mountain) when it’s way below freezing outside! It snowed pretty much every night we were there - the day we arrived they had over 2 feet of fresh powder on the mountain! The weather was just perfect - in the high-teens/low-20s, which is wonderful for skiing, and our last day we had an incredible blue sky - not a cloud in the sky, and the contrast with all the snow was just spectacular. We didn’t have our nice camera with us on the mountain, but we tried to take some pictures with our other one, which are all in our gallery. My parents came to stay with the kids, which was such a blessing to us, and they sure enjoyed having all the attention of Nana and Papa. It was one of the best vacations we have ever been on, and are SO glad that it all worked out for us to go. Pictures in the gallery, here.

Ok, so I gave Morgan some more of her birthday cake, to see if it was that she really doesn’t like cake/chocolate, or if it was just a rough day for her.  I managed to get 2 bites of cake in her mouth to at least make her try it, which she ate and swallowed, but she made no effort to eat any more of the cake sitting on her plate.  Rather, she played with the crumbs, and wanted her milk.  So… is it possible that there is a member of our family that doesn’t just devour chocolate?  We’ll see in the future, I guess…

It’s hard to believe our little girl is 1 year old, but she celebrated the big event on Saturday the 29th. Both sets of grandparents were here to love and celebrate her. I spent many hours working on a cake that I really wanted to do for her, and knew I would have more time to do since the grandparents were here to help keep the kids occupied. So here is the final product, and I have to say I was pretty proud of myself:

But when it came time to actually present the cake, Morgan wasn’t too sure. I don’t know if it was all the people looking at her, or if she just didn’t wake up from her nap in a very good mood, or if she just got scared of the candle coming towards her, but she pretty much screamed her head off for the whole cake-eating part of the birthday.

She eventually ate a bite or 2 of cake, but then devoured the chicken that I put in front of her. She is pretty much a carnivore! So I need to try again with the cake that we have left over, to see if it was just a rough day for her, or if she really doesn’t like chocolate, something that would be hard to imagine in our family! And finally, here’s our little sweetheart later in the day, when she was in a better mood:

We do have a whole gallery from the day in the images section, which you can view here.

(Oh, and I didn’t mention that I had to take Morgan in to the doctor again on the 27th for another ear infection.  Poor girl.  But she did get weighed again, and she has gained 1 lb, 3 oz in only 30 day! Go girl!)

We had a great Christmas holiday. We went to my parents (Hoffman house) in South Carolina, and my sister Melissa and husband Dick were there as well. The kids had a great time with their new gifts - well at least Jackson did, as Morgan didn’t really care about much except the bows on the packages (which she started taking off all the gifts that were under the tree). We came back on the 26th, and Gavin’s parents came in town for Morgan’s birthday, so we then celebrated Christmas with them as well. Because there were too many shots to put in the post, I have put them in the gallery, so you can check them out here.

Like I mentioned in a previous post, the scrunchy face has come back in full force:

And Jackson had a bunch of markers all over the floor that Morgan loves to pick up and chew on. She found the brown one, and we were just cracking up at this picture - yes, our little girl has started smoking cigars at the tender age of 11 months: