Christmastime!

We had a wonderful time up north for Christmas. We spent several days in Minnesota, then several days in Ontario, and also a couple of days in Michigan for my dear friend Anita's wedding. The trip was very relaxing, though I've now learned that little ones do need to be watched even while I'M on vacation :)

Here are some favorite photos from our trip. I'll start with our trip to my parents' place in Minnesota.

Ready to open presents on Christmas Eve!

Meredith figured out how to open gifts pretty quickly. Especially the bagged ones!

My mom made Meredith this amazing fleece blanket with ducks and frogs on one side, and gators on the other! Meredith LOVES ducks (it is still one of the two words she says - "duck" and "balloon", along with some additional names like mama and dada). She also, as it turns out, loves sucking and chewing on fleece fringe. So this was a real winner!

We had to take a "halftime" to let Meredith get ready for bed. We thought she might fall asleep, so we were going to save the rest of her presents for later. However, she had other plans. So she came back out to continue in the festivities! She sat on Grandma's lap in her new fuzzy pajamas. She was only sort of interested in the clothing she got...

...but was VERY interested in my brother's cat, Nora!

My brother (Benny) got a book on cats, and Meredith was very interested in reading it with him. I love this picture!

Though she doesn't understand Santa yet, Santa knew that Meredith was a good girl this year. He brought her something he knew she would love: balloons, balloons, and more balloons! I think there were about 30-35 of them. She had a great time batting them around! I'll try to post a video if I can later.

I love this picture of Meredith all dressed and ready to start the day!

Daddy couldn't resist demonstrating static electricity with the balloon and Meredith's hair.

Meredith really loves puzzles, and since we are trying to work on fine motor skills, we got her another one for Christmas. It has provided hours of entertainment since then! She really likes it if you let her throw the pieces and you try to put them back in before she has them all out again.

Our coy little girl...still loves to tilt her head to get a response.


We were excited that Meredith would get to go out in the snow, probably for the first time in her life (given the amount of bundling of babies in Russia in summer, we don't think they probably bring them out in winter much). My dad and Rob got her all bundled up for a fun but short outing to the yard, while Mom and I were having our annual day-after-Christmas shopping fun :)

We went to my extended family (Mom's side) on the Saturday after Christmas. Meredith liked the other kids, but most especially loved the dog Sammy!

Kissing a new Christmas bear!


After all of our fun in Minnesota, we hopped on a plane to Buffalo (thankfully non-stop). The next night we had Christmas Eve all over again!

Ready for present time!

Meredith had mastered the art of gift opening by now (sort of).


Me and my girl.


You can see the shock in my eyes in the picture below as Meredith opened a special gift from her Oma (Rob's mom). It is a crocheted duck! This is special because Oma re-taught herself how to crochet after 20 years and managed to find a duck pattern to make this for Meredith. So cute!

Meredith likes the duck a lot - she can play with it for a long time....

....especially if she is giving it kisses.

What a happy girl!

Daddy helped open some presents too.

Along with spending time with Rob's immediate family, we saw some cousins. Below is Meredith with our cousin's little girl, Jenna. They are about the same age (Jenna was born in September, which is when Meredith would have been born if she hadn't been a preemie). We had a great time at their house, and also a groundbreaking discovery. After a whole month of trying to get Meredith to walk without anyone hanging on (the magic sweater lost its touch) we learned that what she really needed was (a) a little cousin her size who was walking everywhere and (b) a hallway with a full-length mirror on the end so that she could watch herself walk toward it! She started walking within a few minutes of our arrival and hasn't stopped since!

We also visited with our cousin Matt and his wife Sarah Jane. Matt picked out a special gift for Meredith - a toy robot! Let's just say he knows Rob very well.


Well, hope you enjoyed the photo fest! Sorry it took so long to get it posted. I will leave you with a really adorable shot from my parents' house. Who could resist this smile?

P.S. As you can see in the photos, Meredith wears her glasses most of the time but does sometimes take them off for a bit. On the whole, though, we think it's going very well and are excited that she is so cooperative.