Dec. 7-8

I totally meant to keep a few things secret, but I just cannot keep these pictures to myself. I tried out my new backdrop with Emma yesterday. Immediately after naptime, I put her in her Elmo shirt, handed her the Elmo doll and asked her to pose for me. I'm only sharing one of these because I want to use one of these for the invitation to her 2nd birthday party and I have to keep at least that one secret. But just LOOK at her! I love it ... I want to do photo shoots with my daughter every day. One in her Christmas dress, one in her Christmas jammies, one in the OshKosh overalls I just got her ... yeah, it's endless.

I had my 30-week prenatal appointment on Monday. This is gonna be a combined post for Monday and Tuesday. And then here's where I reveal my slacker attitude and tell you that I didn't take any pictures today (Wednesday). Darn. It's not even 10 days in and I've missed a day. Oops. Anyway, we had my appointment with Dr. Webb and everything was good. Heartbeat was 150 (it's been the same nearly every time!) and my belly measured at 32 cm. I'm still about 6 pounds below where I was at this same milestone marker with Emma. But I did gain two pounds in two weeks. Hmmm. Dr. Webb is always nice and obliges when I ask for pictures. :)

But check out my cutie-patootie and her static-cling pigtails!

Her pigtails were flying all around like crazy on Monday. Full of static and they were cracking me up. How does this relate to a December Daily post, you ask? What does it have to do with this great month? Well, I'll tell you. We're having "bone-chilling temperatures" this week (that particular phrase courtesy of King5.com). Record-breaking temps. It's so cold that we've all been feeling the change in moisture in the air and things are really dry and staticky (yes, that's a word I just made up). I don't claim to know how all those things work, but I do know that our hair is wild, our skin is dry, we're wearing multiple layers and turning the heat up a lot more often than normal. So ... the staticky pigtails help illustrate the fact that winter truly is definitely HERE now!

See? Check those babies out! Yikes! Love 'em.

And I'm so pleased that I caught this moment on camera. She's watching her shadow on the carpet. She started dancing around all slowly, moving her arms up and down. She was mesmerized with how her shadow mimicked her movements.

And another thing that (very abstractly) illustrates our December Daily activities. We went to Petco and got Bailey some Christmas gifts. She's been out of her plush dog toys for a long time now and it was time we got a few new ones. She was positively giddy when we gave this one to her early. In fact, right now she's sleeping with it under her head like a pillow. Emma thinks it's really fun to steal this away from Bailey -- she loves running away and teasing Bailey with it because then Bailey chases her around the kitchen/living room/hallway loop. It's pretty entertaining to watch, too. Apparently it's a toy the whole family can enjoy. :)

I'm sure I will have some pictures to share from our special day tomorrow. I can't wait to tell you what Emma and I get to do! It is sure to be an incredibly memorable day for both of us. :)