the best of 2011

Joel is 8 months old :)

Joel's favorite food this month: Gerber yogurt {any fruit flavor will do}.  He is eating more table foods from our plates & loves mealtime!!  He is picking puffs and other finger foods up on his own and eating them.
I got his nesting blocks out for the first time a couple weeks ago, and he loves them.  He picks them up, inspects each one, and then moves to another.

He continues to scoot on his bottom - he goes all over the place - favorite place to scoot is to his toys {which is great, because he's not too interested in things that aren't safe - yet}.  He can also go from sitting to the crawling position and has started the Army crawl...it won't be long until he's off!  Joel pulls himself up to his bigger toy bin in his bedroom and looks over the side, pulling out which toy he wants next.

 cute!

Here he is with his big brother reading The Night Before Christmas...

Joel celebrated his first Christmas...he wasn't feeling the greatest & our trip to visit family wasn't as pleasant as it could have been, but overall, he was pretty good.  When his schedule is off, he's out of his element, and sick it makes for a trying time & sleepless nights for him & his mama!!

 Getting ready for Candlelight service at church

Joel & Mommy before church one Sunday morning in December :)

Brothers :)

 His favorite part of Christmas morning was opening his stocking (after we opened his other presents & a long nap!)

 We also celebrated Daddy's birthday yesterday by taking him out for lunch at Appalachian Brewing Company in Harrisburg.  He ate his puffs, along with some cheddar-potato soup, soft pretzel appetizer,  & fries...then we went grocery shopping at Wegman's...he was soooo good the whole day :)

He loves going out to eat & sitting in a big-boy highchair :)

 

He's definitely cutting teeth...I can feel jaggy edges poking through his gums...hopefully all of them won't make him as cranky as he's been this past week when they come in!  We rub baby orajel on his gums each night using a little rubber brush that came with his "toothpaste" he got from Santa...he loves it!!! 
I am sure I'm missing something - as I'm not nearly as detailed as I had been the first few months {I'm blaming that on working full time & still wish that I could be a SAHM and spend every single day with him, watching him grow}. 

Happy 8 months, Baby Joel...We love you!!! 

He wasn't feeling the best, but he could still smile while he opened presents at Gee & Pappy's :)

~ Magical ~

In his letter to Santa, Daniel asked him to leave one of his sleigh bells.  Santa delivered.  Out of all the Christmas pictures I took, these are my absolute favorite :)

Merry Christmas & "Love Came Down" winner...

Working until 1:25

Last minute errands

Dinner out with my boys

Candlelight service at church

Home to tuck the kids in

Exchanging presents with Dan :)

Santa comes to our house tonight!

I wish everyone a Merry Christmas and hope you will celebrate the true meaning of this holiday season with your family.  

 

Oh...and the winner of the $20 Love Came Down giveaway is ...Rachel Lundy!  Congratulations, Rachel..shoot me an email at ramohney@comcast.net & I will get back to you with all the details :)

 

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