In preparation to go up to Canada for Christmas, yesterday we decided to try Lauren in a couple warm outfits we had stored away for her to use in the (hopefully) cold and snow.
One was an outfit we had found on REI's clearance webpage this summer when Lauren was really tiny and we had actually been looking for a sun hat for her. We never did find a sun hat, but instead saw a 6-month+ jacket and snow pants set at a vastly reduced rate. Even though the heat of summer was making it nearly impossible to even imagine snow and cold, we decided to jump on the deal and hoped that Lauren would fit it by Christmas. The snow pants fit pretty well, but the jacket gave her a lot of extra padding! :D
Yep, fingers can still get to the mouth :)
The other outfit was a fuzzy, brown, one-piece zip-up with bear ears on the hood and bear faces on the feet that her Nana in Maine sent her. The legs were a little too long still and the arms were quite a bit too long, but the second we zipped her in, we couldn't stop giggling at her bundled up bear-self and couldn't quit taking pictures!
Robot-bear
Practicing her bear growl :D
I think Lauren will be cozy and toasty warm during our fun in the snow in BC in a few more weeks! :)
Lauren's first American Thanksgiving was her second Thanksgiving celebration. She had experienced a small Canadian Thanksgiving meal back in October when her Aunt Becky was visiting. For this occasion, we spent a quiet and restful Thanksgiving Day at home with each other.
We started the day with a Thanksgiving story. The only one I could find in my personal library was an Amelia Bedelia book. It was a longer one and obviously over Lauren's head, but I still enjoyed snapping a picture of Jonathan reading to her. About halfway through the book, Lauren took a break from reading and played with some toys instead, but kept looking back at Jonathan and I as we finished reading through the book together. At one point she got most of her body off the ground. It might not be too long until she's able to roll from her back to her front!
Intent on the story (for the moment)
"You guys still back there?"
In the afternoon, after Lauren woke up from a nap, we went outside and got some pictures of her and a few family pictures together with the leaves in our apartment complex.
Wrapped in a blanket to keep her warm
Needed a little something to munch... ;)
After Lauren woke up from her late afternoon nap, Jonathan took a few videos of her and me. In the first one, I taught Lauren a Thanksgiving song that my friend Danielle had taught me and my fellow volunteers during our US Thanksgiving dinner in Tanzania in 2010. In the second one, we were finally able to capture Lauren's adorable laugh on camera. Until that evening, we never seemed to have a camera handy when she broke out into laughter, so we were really happy to finally catch her giggle in action!
We were rather delinquent in actually having Thanksgiving meal. A couple from our church hosted an "orphans" Thanksgiving meal and we contemplated going, but all we really wanted was to just relax together at home, so we ended up doing that instead. And since we'd had a great Thanksgiving meal, complete with both pumpkin and apple pies for dessert, when Becky was visiting, we didn't especially feel like we had to have another fancy meal. However, we did want to do something a little more special than usual, so on Friday we walked to the grocery store (which, happily, was much less busy than usual), got the ingredients for some special dishes, and prepped the food that afternoon. Then on Sabbath when we came home from church we had a small modified Thanksgiving meal, just some favourite dishes, with a dessert of a store-bought pumpkin pie for Jonathan (I don't enjoy it) and a Q-family special, homemade cheesecake. It was simple and delicious, just our style!
On Sunday we carved out a little time to take a dip in our apartment complex's hot tub. The pool isn't heated, so once the weather got cooler we've taken to just warming ourselves in the hot tub. I'm always super nervous about taking Lauren in pools and hot tubs because I really don't want her to have an accident... Of course she's always wearing a swim diaper when we go in, but I still get nervous about potential leaks. Thankfully, it hasn't happened yet and hopefully that trend continues. Lauren loves the water, and quite enjoys our warm dips.
Lauren is sporting my baby swimsuit. The elastic is pretty useless, but the fabric has held up great since I used it 30 years ago!
Practicing her back float...while chomping on her fingers. :)
