Advent Fun

I decided we needed to start a new family tradition with Lily this year, and chose to do an advent calendar. I've always liked the idea of an advent, but never found one I liked, or that I liked and was willing to pay for. This year I was crafty and made some bags; some days had activities and some had candy. It was fun and gave us things to look forward to. As Lily gets older, we'll do more, but for now, I'm loving it. I'm excited to plan things out for next year.

The 'Twilight Bark' is real!

While watching 101 Dalmations, when the CARTOON dogs started the twilight bark, Maggie responded with her own barking spree. And given her current level of alertness, I'm pretty sure she's on the lookout for the missing puppies.

Quiet Christmas

Christmas was a quiet affair this year.  We stayed home, relaxed, and had a Harry Potter marathon.  We busted through all eight films in three days.  Crazy?  Maybe.  But it was good to see the story all in a row.  Lily was more interested in the tissue paper that accompanied her gifts, but I knew going in that Christmas was for Kevin and I this year.  She'll be more interested next year, and playing Santa will be tons more fun!

In case you can't read it, Lily's shirt asks "Is it too late to be good?" It's a legit question sometimes.

My BIL decided that he was a princess this year, and proved it by wearing a tiara on Christmas Eve.

Lily enjoyed her Christmas Eve jammies

My SIL and I spent Christmas Eve making fun bobby pins.

Deacon Dave's

There is a place not far from our house that puts on a display every holiday.  Deacon Dave has been doing this for 30 years; and each year has a different theme.  It's kind of amazing.  This year the theme was Elfland.  And while the elves were kind of creep looking (think really old mannequins that have been used for thirty years with Spock ears stuck on them), the display is always fun and fantastic. 

The front of the house.  And the line waiting to get in.

Creepy elf getting some hot chocolate

The light count is 345, 300.  And the Grinch is playing inside the movie house. Awesome!

Hermy the Elf (from the claymation Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer movie) finally found a place to set up his dentistry practice. 

Lily looked especially cute.  And was fascinated by all the lights. 

Living Bethlehem

This year, a bunch of churches produced a Living Bethlehem over the weekend.  It was much more than a stable scene with live animals and actual humans playing Mary, Joseph, baby Jesus, angels, shepherds, and wise men.  No, this was a full scale town with people dancing in front of the city gates,  Mary riding an actual donkey, wise men coming in on camels and being carried in on a chaise.  It was a full-on production of the story; start to finish.  It was fairly impressive; but so crowded you couldn't really see anything at all.  I hope they do this next year, and that they can figure out a way to handle some of these kinks, because it was incredible detailed and involved.  I was super impressed.

Entrance to the town of Bethlehem.

I really wanted to ride the camel.  And the celebrants out front were doing a good job of keeping the crowd entertained. 

Announcing that the proceedings of registering to pay your taxes would be orderly and that any ruckus would be suitably punished.  I think they were talking to us in the crowd of viewers and telling us to behave or get out.

Sheep and shepards! 

The roman guards costumes were really authentic looking.  

Fancy

There is always some type of performance going on each night at the Oakland Temple Hill during the Christmas season.  Each year they have free performances of the Nutcracker ballet, so we grabbed a couple tickets and made a fancy date night out of it.  We dropped the kid off at my in-laws and away we went for the evening.  The temple grounds were gorgeous, the performance delightful, and my date was pretty cute, too.  Such a fun night.  Not to mention, our dinner out was capped with a thoroughly delightful creme brule.  So yummy.    

Aren't we cute?

Nativity

Every year in Palo Alto, the church hosts a creche exhibit.  The building closes down for a week, and every room is filled with nativity displays from around the world; different cultures, materials, and styles are represented.  We went this year and it was amazing.  I love nativities; I collect them.  I took photos of my favorite ones, and when we were leaving I saw a sign asking for no videos or photography.  Oops.  I'll try to remember that for next year.

I always see nativities with the end result.  I never really think about the journey to Bethlehem, except in the abstract. And now I can fully appreciate how miserable that journey must have been on an uncomfortable donkey, over rough roads, in (potentially) nasty weather of some sort.

Russian nesting dolls.  Genius! 

It's a puzzle!

It's a German mechanism nativity; the pieces move showing the journey. Amazing. 

This one is from China; there are some dragons with the animals in the stable (which is a dragon ship!).  

From the Ukraine.

Fleeing to Egypt.  Again, a part of the story I never really dwell on when it comes to nativities.  

Stone carved to look like origami.  Amazingly intricate and delicate.  

The Lily Chronicles

Lily--Four months

Lily had her four month appointment the other day, and so I present to you, further updates to the Lily Chronicles:

Height: 2 feet, 1 inch (60th percentile)
Weight: 14 pounds, 12 ounces (60th percentile)
Head Circumference: 16 inches (50th percentile)

As you can see, Lily is fairly average in her physical growth and measurements.  She is still a month ahead in social development; the doctor was quite impressed.

Here are a few of her other accomplishments:

*She flips from her back to her front (but has yet to figure out how to go from her front to her back)
*She has started on more solid foods; thus far she is a fan of rice cereal, oatmeal, bananas, applesauce, carrots, and squash.
*She sits mostly on her own (there are still some occasional balance issues)
*She stands on her own as long as she is holding onto your fingers or the coffee table
*She is noticing the pets; she reaches for the cats and Maggie and wants to pet them
*She loves to watch TV
*She is a social creature who wants to be around people; she hates being alone or left out of the fun
*She hates to sleep and fights against it
*She is getting more hair everyday; it is growing thicker and longer (Kevin is convinced it is red, I don't really see it--I say it's more blondie/brown)
*Her eyes are blue and look a lot like mine
*She likes to snuggle
*Her favorite games are "kisses" (where I kiss her cheek and then she kisses mine) and "trust fall" (we count to three and she lets go of our fingers and falls straight back onto the pillows).  Makes her laugh every time


There is a great deal of minuta development that comes along with Lily.  Somedays we look at her and she seems to have grown an inch or two every night.  It's pretty remarkable how quickly she changes.  Her personality is becoming more developed and she is turning into her own little person.  I'm interested in seeing who she becomes the older she gets.

Jealous?

Sometimes we do photo shoots where we prop Lily on a blanket and take lots of photos of her.  

And sometimes Maggie gets jealous of the attention we pay to Lily and reminds us that she is also photo worthy by arranging herself on the photo op set-up.  So we oblige, because she is so darn cute.

Thanksgiving

This year Thanksgiving was spent with my family at the Beach House in Aptos.  We lazed around for the entire week and had a very relaxed Thanksgiving holiday.  Lily loved her first trip to the beach, and the Beach House.  The weather could not have been more perfect.  Since the whole family was able to gather together, we had a family photo shoot.  It was our first family photo with Lily and the last one for a long while, since Ben is leaving for Ft. Benning, GA, in January for boot camp.

The whole Klima family

Klima boys--2012

Klima kids--2012

Uncle Jeff and Aunt Kerry

The boys figure out what to do with their new niece.

BYU vs. SJSU.  Kevin and I left Lily with my parents and joined Julie and Justin for a memorable outing. 

Beautiful sunsets

Maggie hearts the beach

Lily figured out she could stand on her own while we were there (while hanging on to something, of course).

Lily met her Uncle Chris

The Thanksgiving flaming pumpkin.  A new tradition, apparently.  

Naptime!

Hunting for our Christmas tree on the way home.

We met Santa!