Merry Christmas!

Grant survived his very first Christmas! It was a busy one, but it was my favorite one so far! It began on Christmas Eve. Aunt Mandy and Uncle Josh stopped over and we then went to Great Aunt Michelle and Uncle Bobby's house for the Woyak celebration. Unfortunately, we could only stay for 2 hours and then we went to Great Grandma and Grandpa Hahn's house for the remainder of the night. Grant got to open up lots of presents, and he loved them all! He ended up falling asleep and we had to wake him up to bring him home on time for Santa to visit! We woke up Christmas morning and had breakfast with Grandma Jenny. Grant then opened up even more presents, and we were off to Grandma and Grandpa Gestl's house! Grandma Gestl made a wonderful meal, and Grant enjoyed some baby applesauce. Then, Grant opened up even more presents and we were off to our next stop! Next, we went to Great Aunt Diane and Uncle Tom's house for dinner and then on to the Lindner's house! Aunt Mandy and Uncle Josh bought Grant lots of great presents along with everyone else in Grant's life! His favorites were all the toys that made lots of wonderful noices! However, the festivities did not stop there...

Saturday night we headed back to Grandma and Grandpa Gestl's house for another celebration, and we celebrated with Grandpa P, Grandma Wendy, Aunt Rachel and Uncle Randy on Sunday afternoon. Grant was then completely done opening up his presents this Christmas! Grandpa P and Grandma Wendy bought him a talking Elmo which stole the show! Grant absolutely loved it!

Even though there was a lot of mention regarding presents in this Christmas posting, I want to take this time to thank God for everything that I have and to not forget the true meaning for this season. He has blessed me with such an incredible life. I feel so wonderful that we had so many family and friends to celebrate this season with, and I love you all.

Eight months old

Our little Munch is already 8 months old! He had a very busy month, too! We celebrated Grant's very first Thanksgiving this month. We began the day at his Grandma & Grandpa Gestl's house for lunch, and then ended the day at his Great Grandma & Grandpa Hahn's house for dinner. We then also celebrated Thanksgiving the next day with the Petre Family. Also this month, we celebrated Great Grandma Hahn's 70th birthday, Grant attended his first Christmas party that Aunt Mandy throws every year and he attended his first Woyak Christmas cookie decorating extravaganza at Cassie & Jim's house. We even decorated a cookie with Grant's initials on it, in which he decided to bite into immediately. : )

My favorite milestone of Grant's so far happened this month!!...Grant said his first word, and it was "Mama". Well, it started off as "Mamamamama...", and now it has shortened up a bit. It is honestly music to my ears. I can listen to him ramble in those words every second of the day.

Grant is also still a little rolling machine! He hasn't crawled yet, but he has done absolutely everything else. He will get on all fours and rock. He will even move backwards. He just doesn't know how to get the transmission out of reverse. He will even see something across the room that he wants and position himself just right in order to barrel roll over to it.

Giggle Monster

Family Time!

JC Penny's has a special event on the last Sunday of every month, and you can bring your dog in! We had Oscar's first professional picture taken and then took advantage of the event and had our first family picture taken (minus Shelby, of course). Oscar was a natural. : )

Photo Shoot

I wanted some nice pictures of Grant for Christmas time so I asked my friend, TJ, to come over and snap a few for us. Grant was ready to go down for a nap right when TJ got to our house...so I knew it was going to make for some interesting pictures. Enjoy!

Santa Claus is coming to town

My best friend, Kristin, and I decided that we needed a little "retail therapy" the other day and we (with Grant in tow) hit up Brookfield Square. As we were walking through the mall we saw that there wasn't a line to get your picture taken with Santa. I rememebered hearing from friends that this is something rare and that there is normally an annoying long line...so we decided to take advantage of this and plopped Grant on the jolly old man's lap. As Grant handles most situations, he kind of just went with the flow. I thought he would at least have a reaction to the jingle bells, but he kind of just looked at them and smiled. He must have known that this jolly old man brings him presents every year and he didn't want to act up.