Christmas/New Years/ Lilly 9 months

Wow, got a lot of catching up to do! So Lilly turned 9 months Dec 20, and she is so fun at this age!!! She can say some jibberish... it's fun! She says mama, dada, yayaya. Lol those are just a few. It's soooooooo cute! Sometimes I think she actually says mama to me, but I think it's just wishful thinking. :) She is a mad-fast crawler! She can stand on her own from anywhere between 5-15 seconds. She walks all along our couches. She has a lot of fun bouncing up and down, whether standing or you bouncing her. She claps her hands really well. She can wave hi and bye. Now she sounds like she tries to say "cheese" when I take her picture. :) She loves to pull my movies off the shelves. She absolutely loves my cell phone. Loves technology... like the laptop... :) Any time I'm on my laptop, she comes over and pulls the screen towards herself to see if grandma is there... or anyone else that she talks to. Grandma and Grandpa Fowler, Auntie Melissa and Uncle Jaffe, Grandma and Grandpa Bagley, Auntie Shelly and Uncle Kellan.... She LOVES to talk to them. She just hams it up for anyone there. Absolutely loves the attention. :) She is getting better with being able to sit with other people in church if we both are singing in the choir. She isn't so scared of "stranger danger" anymore. She loves big people food. Mashed potatoes, stuffing, bread, bananas, crackers, and cheese to name a few. I have been trying to practice using utensils with her, so I'll put some mashed potatoes on her spoon and she'll feed herself. Pretty cute. Her favorite sound to make right now is her Gremlin sound. She hears the dogs growl or wrestle and she growls at them. It's soooo funny. She growls a lot.

Right before Christmas, we acquired a new dog in the mix. Her name is Bella and she is a purebred harlequin great dane. She has gone through two owners already... the first one couldn't afford to take care of her anymore, so he dumped her on another guy when she was only 6 months old. Then this second guy probably thought he was going to breed her because she still hasn't been spayed. He only had her 4 months and he moved to a different house that has a smaller property, and since he wasn't as attached to her, he got rid of her. We told him we could try her out with our family for a week and see what happens, but he said if we take her we have to keep her. He was kind of different... I wasn't too impressed with him, and the fact that he had two other danes and a boxer and just made them all stay outside 24/7 and never spent ANY time with his dogs. Bella was very very neglected. ANYWAY, that's all I will say about him. :) Bella and Angus just love each other. If one of them is in their kennel for being bad or something, the other is just laying right outside and never leaves them. So cute. She needs some definite training... she needs to learn obedience and leash training mainly. And sometime soon we need to get her fixed. Luckily, Angus is already fixed! :) She is wonderful with Lilly too. I was nervous about that. She is a little rough, but Lilly loves it. She's kind of used to being knocked over at this point.

For Christmas, we bought her just a few little toys and Grandma Fowler and Grandpa Fowler bought her some board touch and feel books. She tore a couple little pieces off of the wrapping paper, but then got bored. Maybe next year! It was still a nice, relaxing morning. We just stayed here in Mount Vernon this christmas. We didn't have a white christmas, but it snowed a bit AFTER. :) Better late than never! I really have been missing the snow. People here can't really drive in it though... they were abandoning their cars and walking. Pretty sure we only got a couple inches??

For new years this year we had our friends, the Thunes over and we all played a game of Settlers of Catan and watched the new Robin Hood movie. We ate lots of junk food and got all fat and happy. It was a fun night!

Devan has been enjoying work...he actually gets to do some new stuff now instead of the same monotonous stuff... Right now, the refinery had something happen and the whole plant shut down. So Dev is on 6am-6pm shift through the weekend into Monday or Tuesday of next week. No fun. :(

Sorry about the novel! Had lots to catch up on! :)