It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas

Lots of Christmas stuff going on! Earlier in the week Parker and I went downtown to meet Jared for some coffee. They have a LOT of Christmas singing bears down there in one of the buildings. Parker had spurts of liking them mixed with spurts of running around, staring at people eating lunch, and trying to run into a clothing store. We also went to see a life-size Gingerbread house in the new Ritz Carlton hotel while down there.
I tried to put Parker in her Jumperoo again to see how much she has outgrown it. Even on the highest height setting, she still was way too tall for it. It’s funny how fast she’s grown. It seems like just yesterday we were laughing at how funny it was that her feet were nowhere near touching the floor in the lowest setting. She actually liked being in it for a while! I was surprised. Then she realized she couldn’t really move much and wanted out.
Later in the week Parker and I met some friends at Birkdale for coffee. We went to see the Christmas bears there again. We also went and played in an area where they put a huge Christmas tree every year. Parker had fun running around with Tripp. It was FREEZING. Luckily Tripp and Jack shared their gloves with Parker. She had so many layers on that it was hard for her to move around and, as you can see in one of the videos, if she fell she couldn’t get herself back up very easily. She kept trying to dance and that was making her fall a lot.
Saturday night we went out and bought a Christmas tree and then put it up yesterday. We were going to put it up while Parker was napping, but she decided not to nap until 1:30 (which is the time she is normally going down for her SECOND nap) so we just did it with her there. She was actually very good about it. I thought we were going to have to be constantly trying to get her out of the way and telling her to move. But she was so amazed and curious about the whole thing that she really didn’t get in the way. She watched quietly the whole time. You can see in the pictures that the tree looks a little weird since we had to keep the bottom 1/3 of the tree bare. She is trying as hard as she can to reach up to the ornaments and grab them off. She has her own string of lights to play with for now so she stays away from the ones on the tree. She really has no idea what is going on haha. Grandma Jessop got her a book that Parker can open and hear Grandma’s voice reading to her. I keep playing it for her to get her into the Christmas spirit. She just sits there in amazement when she hears Grandma’s voice. It’s very cute.

11-30-09 to 12-6-09