CS&C Brady Blog: Holiday Season!

We had a wonderful holiday season. Cecilia kept us very busy, and Christian and I had a nice break from work. Christian was off from Christmas Eve until the Monday after New Year's, and I did not have Elise the of or after Christmas. It was great to be home as a family, and like most everyone with time off, we thought we'd have all this free time and get so much done! Boy were we wrong! I was amazed at how our days filled up with activities. Let's just say we were never bored. We did get a decent amount of work on the basement done, which was top of our list. We organized most of it, threw out alot, Christian got his work bench built ans set up, and we cleared out a play area for the kiddos. The play area is not ready yet, but it is well on its way. The next step is getting carpet padding, and deciding whether or not to get a new piece of carpet down there or make due with the pieces we have. I am anxious to get it all set up; it will be so nice to have another play area for the girls (Cecilia and Elise), as we get a little stir crazy up here sometimes!

Cecilia enjoyed the holidays, but toddlerhood is definitely upon us complete with temper tantrums and battles of the will. She is still mostly good and very well behaved, but she can have her moments of complete meltdowns (fortunately, this is usually at home). We are working through them, and trying figure out her triggers, and then trying to avoid them. She is starting to want to be independent and wants to feel like she is making her own decisions. Oh the toddler years, and I am sure there is so much more to come!

Cecilia's language skills are still advancing quite well. She amazes me everyday with words she knows. She will pretty much say and learn any word you tell her now. She repeats and remembers very well. She is just starting to use some two word phrases, but they are still few and far between. One of the really cute things she has been doing in the last few weeks is saying a person's name in a long sentence of gibberish. Such as she will say, "Mama, gibberish, gibberish, gibberish." It is like she really thinks she is telling me something very important. She has also started calling my name some when she is in bed, and I must admit I can't resist it! I am sure it will get old in time, but for now, when I here her little voice saying, "Mama, mama?" I have to go to her. When I get to her, she usually tells me a long story in gibberish, like she has been in bed thinking of all this stuff to tell me, and just decided I needed to know. Another other cute thing she is saying "Bless you" after you sneeze; however, do not try to pretend to sneeze just to get her to say it b/c she knows the difference, and she will just look at you like you are crazy! And our current favorite that she just started this week is telling us, "I love you," which sounds more like, "I O boo." It is pretty awesome. As with all of them, I have really been enjoying this stage!

She has also really getting into pretend play in the last month, which has been really fun to watch. She has babies that she feeds bottles; she also mixes them up some food in her kitchen and spoon feeds them. She will often try to put them in her high chair (we need to get a doll one!). She will even go into the kitchen and get a towel to wipe their faces when she is finished.

Over the holidays, we had many wonderful get togethers with family and friends. Here are some pictures documenting all of our fun!

With Brendan on the way to my Aunt's to celebrate and early Christmas