Hazel at 8 months. Finally posted the day after she reaches 9 months, oops.

Hazel, you are such fun! At 8 months you were ready to start crawling, still sleeping like a champ, getting stuck under chairs as you tried to move forward instead of backward, intensely curious about everything in your environment, and thrilled to hang out with big brother. 

You joined us at the table for dinner, and loved practicing eating. You turned rice into a sticky paste, flung beans an impressive distance, and revealed an egg allergy. 😦 You got more vocal and persistent in expressing your opinions. You did not, clearly, slim down. Thank goodness, because I just adore your rolls and folds!

A few fun projects over Christmastime.  We made gingerbread men, hot chocolate, Christmas countdown chains, and felt nativity scenes.  We had living room picnics with peppermint tea, sang ALL THE CHRISTMAS SONGS, read ALL THE CHRISTMAS BOOKS, and delivered goodies to neighbors and gate guards.  We did our Jesse Tree again, read the Christmas story on repeat, and practiced joy.  It was a cozy, happy month.  

Max doing the daily inspection of his “tree house.”  Daddy won’t decorate the house with Christmas lights since our little would-be engineer can’t keep his hands off anything to do with lights or electronics, so he decorated his tree house.  The purple berries are his lights and he frequently requests to go check on them to make sure they aren’t out.  He collects the berries and replaces any that he declares have gone out.  He also likes to collect spare branches he finds and bring them to his tree house.  

Hazel just wants to eat the leaves.