Getting a baby to walk is no easy feet!

Scarlett's walking a little better now. She took her first step on Christmas Day, so I had expected her to be running an eight minute mile by now or something. Come to find out, babies don't just make their first step and all of a sudden they can walk! But that's ok-- I'm not even sure I'm ready for a toddler! When she doesn't think about it, she make it halfway across the room before falling to her bottom. She's a little like her mom-- she overthinks, worries, and ends up going back to the good old safe way (in her case, crawling). Here's a few videos of my trying to get her to walk. She does better when the camera's not there, but I thought the videos were cute.








Walking is fun...

But hard work! Poor thing needs a nap now!!

The Tunnel

For those of you looking for cheap entertainment-- Juan and I were at Ikea a few days ago and picked up this tunnel for about 17.00. Scarlett loves to play in it-- she hides and giggles and thinks we can't see her.

pizza night

Last Friday, I decided to try my hand at making healthy (i.e. whole wheat) pizzas. We got a Pampered Chef pizza stone a while ago but I have never used it, so I thought I'd give it a whirl. We invited Joe, Shana and Chloe over and a good time was had by all. I thought the pizza stone worked really well. The crust was really evenly cooked, which is what you want a stone for. I'd recommend it for sure. A few days ago, at Bed Bath and Beyond, I saw another pizza stone on sale and I can't say I saw much of a difference between that one and the Pampered Chef, though. The PC was a lot more expensive!!

These pictures make it look like the boys did all the work, but that's not true! Everyone pitched in!!!





One of the finished products. (It was hard to make a perfect circle without tossing it in the air and flipping it and doing all sorts of crazy stuff. I have a lot more respect for Papa Murphy's workers now)

Scarlett and her lion

Scarlett's still only taking a few steps on her own, but she moves like crazy on her lion!! (Her favorite Christmas gift from Nana!) This video is a few weeks old, so now she can actually manuever around furniture and other objects.

Disclaimer: No Babies Were Harmed...

In the making of this video!!!

Scarlett has become Chloe's baby! Chloe likes to run Scarlett around our (safe, padded) living room to everyone's (especially Chloe and Scarlett's) delight!

New Year's Eve

These are really late, but we had a fun New Year's at Jim and Alyssa's! Especially since we got to catch up with our old friends, Mya and Kiron, and meet Grady, who's just as cute as can be! Scarlett tortured him a little bit, but in the end I think they ended up friends.



This is pretty much how Scarlett looks nowadays! Always wanting UP!

Scarlett's favorite activity at Uncle Jimmy's house-- the stairs!

Scarlett going after poor Grady

Chloe's a little model! Look at her posing!

5 Books

During a blog browse I came across Amy's top 5 books of (let's say) 2007. It inspired me to think about mine, and in the end, it was hard to come up with just five! I love reading so much. It's wonderful that technology can't steal this from us.

1. Harry Potter. I didn't think Book 7 was as good as Books 4, 5 and 6, and I never found the final scene quite as dramatic as everyone else did, but I still tore through that thing like there were ants in my pants and the only way to get them out was to read. (Mixed metaphor there, sorry.)
2. Alice Munro, Runaway. A book of short stories that have characterization and plot like they were each novels. Amazing how deep and satisfying each story was.
3. Anne Tyler, Digging to America. An absolutely beautiful story about two different families who adopt babies from Korea.
4. Khaled Hosseni (sp? don't have book here in front of me) A Thousand Splendid Suns. For those who found The Kite Runner sweet but eye-roll worthy, this has all the humanity but none of the cheap writer's tricks.
5. Gus Lee, China Boy. It shouldn't have taken me until now to read this book, since I think it's made the awards rounds for years and countless college students have had to read it for literature classes. But it's so sad, and so funny, and so real. I love it.

This is what came from Amy's blog:

The rules: List five books that you have read in 2007 that you love. These do not have to be books that came out in 2007, but books that you (re)discovered/(re)read in 2007 that have become or are important to you. Link back to the person who tagged you. Tag five others.


(Amy, you didn't link to me but it was fun so I did it anyway! And instead of linking to individual people, I'll just put it out there for anyone to do. I'm always looking for a good book to read, so I'll take anyone's suggestions!)