Napping

Christmas pictures are coming soon... in the meantime here is some video I took today after getting Anabelle up from a long nap.

High Chair Hi-Jinx

Lately in the mornings Anabelle wakes me up and the first thing we do is go into the kitchen to make coffee. She has become more patient in the mornings and can now wait the 5 minutes it takes for me to make the coffee before she has her bottle. While I am making coffee she sits in her high chair and laughs at me. Anabelle is definitely a morning person and usually wakes up very smiley. Her new favorite pose in the high chair is to slump over to the side in an effort to get her left foot up on the tray. She then bangs her feet on the tray and gets very excited. This has led me to 2 thoughts; the first is that we have a monkey for a child and the second is how am I going to teach her table manners b/c when she does this behavior I just laugh and grab the camera.

I think that the caption for the next picture should be, "Hey guys party's at my place tonight!"

Love this next pic, she looks so serious, or maybe she's thinking, "Really mom, naked and a Santa hat? What's up with that?"
Anabelle finally was able to fit into her baby overalls the other day, I think they are just so cute! I love overalls and spent a lot of time in them during my high school days. I am happy for Belle to carry on the fashion statement.

Santa

Saturday my mom and I made our annual trip downtown to visit Macy's and go to the Christkindle Market, only this year we had one additional stop-Santa. Anabelle needed to make a visit to the big man and give him her list so we decided to visit him at Macy's. We arrived early to get in line, it wasn't too bad about 30 minutes total. When Belle finally got up to Santa she was very calm sitting on his lap happily while he chatted with her. Santa took his time and explained how things worked with the whole Santa/Christmas thing, Belle listened patiently and posed for some pictures. She did great.

Then after Santa we went and had lunch in the Walnut Room under the tree. We were lucky enough to not have to wait in line. The tree looked great this year, all silver. And the topper was done by Waterford Crystal.

After lunch we headed over to Daley Plaza to the Christkindle Market- a really neat place to walk around and shop and eat. It was crowded and therefore a little insane to try and push the stroller through the masses. I used to make comments about people like me "They're crazy to try and push a stroller through here" now I am the crazy person. Oh well like we all didn't know I am a little crazy =)

After all the walking and shopping we were exhausted and ready for a break so we went to the 8th floor of Macy's to "test" out some furniture. Clearly everyone had the same idea. Now they actually have a stand set up where they sell bottled water and coffee. People were stretched out on couches sleeping and relaxing in recliners with their shoes off. It has become the popular spot to wait for your table for lunch/dinner at the Walnut Room. We rested and fed Anabelle before the trek home. All in all it was a great day eating, shopping, and visiting Santa.

3 months old!!

At the time I took this pic, she was yelling "Hey! I am 3 months old!!!"

Belle dressed up for our Christmas Party

I think she's smiling because she is plotting how to eat my gingerbread house

All bundled up and ready to go out into the cold. Auntie Steph and Uncle Mikey found this awesome hat for Belle-I love it! So cute.

A lot has been going on here at the Delaney house, we have been getting ready for Christmas by shopping, baking, and wrapping, along with spending time with family and friends. Anabelle has been busy as usual playing, eating, and sleeping. She is become more and more active everyday. She now actively plays with toys, trying to reach out for them, shaking them and putting them in

her mouth. It is very fun to watch. Often when I try to get out the camera she becomes distracted by the camera and stops playing. In the following video, I stayed far away on the couch and just zoomed in to catch her in action playing and just smiling away at her toys.

We also have ventured out into the cold weather to take some walks. We have a wonderful thing called the bundle me for when she is in the car seat, it's like a polar fleece sleeping bag that zips around her whole car seat-wonderful!

But she also has a big fluffy snow suit for when we just go out in her stroller. It is one size too big, but I was worried she would grow out of the smaller size before March which is probably when she'll be able to stop wearing it. Anyway it is pretty funny to see her in the snow suit.

Since Thanksgiving Anabelle has also started a new sleeping schedule. She is now putting herself to sleep, which means that at night we lay her down in her crib and she cries for a few minutes and then falls asleep-all by herself. No more rocking her to sleep, tiptoeing to the crib and praying she doesn't wake up when you lay her down. She tends to sleep around 11 hours without waking up, which I think is amazing at this age. The during the day she takes a few baby naps, and usually one big 2-3 hour nap. I do realize how lucky I am to have a baby who sleeps well. Here Daddy is spending some quality time with Anabelle before bedtime.

Finally here is some video from yesterday, Anabelle turned 3 months old, and we were hanging out on the floor.

This weekend is a busy one, Anabelle and I are meeting my mom downtown to go to Macy's and see Santa, then we are going to the Christkindle Market in Daley Plaza, something we love to do every year; we'll see how Anabelle likes it. Then on Saturday evening, we are going to dinner to celebrate Lexi's birthday!! Hope you all have a great weekend, I am sure I'll have pics from the weekend on Monday.

Smile

Anabelle has really gotten much more smiley lately. It seems that when she is awake, fed, and feeling good she just smiles at you the whole time. I took some video this morning of us just hanging out on the couch.

Thanksgiving in Houston

The Saturday before Thanksgiving I woke up with fearful thoughts of my child screaming her way through our 2 1/2 hour flight to Texas. Even the idea of going through security made me a little nervous. Gone were our carefree days of skipping through the airport with empty arms and plenty of time to enjoy a coffee and look around the gift shop before boarding the plane. We now had a BABY with us -cue the dramatic music.

Getting out the door that morning went much more smoothly than I anticipated. Mostly thanks to my mom who had stayed over the night before to babysit for us and so she was there the following morning to take care of Belle while we got everything ready, and then drive us to the airport. Thanks mom! Once at the airport we were pleasantly surprised to find that everything went quickly and easily. Anabelle was in a good mood, and right on schedule to take a nap during the flight. We were able to get through security without any issues (I wasn't worried about being frisked or anything it was more just the hassle of unloading and reloading everything while everyone around you wants you to hurry along) So we finally got on the plane and I gave Anabelle a bottle as we were going up, she drank the whole thing without a peep and promptly fell asleep. She slept for the whole flight waking up when we touched down and the captain said "Welcome to Houston" She was looking around and checking it all out, and I was relieved. We had made it and managed to not drive everyone around us crazy. We even got several comments on how good our baby was. Duh... I knew that ;) Here is Anabelle on her 1st plane ride.

Our time in Houston went by quickly with Anabelle getting to meet lots of new people, and see exciting things. It turns out our baby travels pretty well, and she did a good job of staying on somewhat of a normal schedule and sleeping well. John's parents live on a golf course which combined with some beautiful weather makes for a great walk. Here Anabelle and I went out to enjoy the sunshine.

Anabelle met her Grandpa Ken for the first time, they spent lots of quality time together.

Here Anabelle's Aunt Mary (his brother Mike's wife) who has had a lot of experience with babies (they have 4 wonderful children) rocks Belle to sleep after a long day of visiting with family.

Anabelle's cousin Taylor holds her while she's sleeping.
Here John's Uncle Kenny hangs out with Belle. He first met her when she was just a few days old, she is much bigger now.
Of course we played lots of poker while down in Houston, and Belle wanted to get in on the action. Referred to as "Chicago Belle" she was quickly realized to be part of an elaborate scheme where she would give a sign as to what her Daddy's cards were by the number of bubbles she blew. Many benefitted from this tell.
While on our visit, we also enjoyed some time on the golf course. I was happy to sit out and watch (I'm not very good at golf), Anabelle and I rode along in the cart. We had a lot of fun watching Daddy, Uncle Kenny, Grandma and Grandpa play. Here John concentrates on his swing.
Uh-oh... I knew this might happen. Most of you know John as a pretty mild manner guy, but put him on the golf course and he goes crazy. Here he is on a rampage after his ball hit a goose on the fairway. Ok not really, but John assures me that this actually happened to him one time at the Village Links in Glen Ellyn.

Anabelle was quite comfy in her Baby Bjorn, while we rode along in the golf cart.
Here Anabelle is sleeping in her pack and play, she did great sleeping in a new place, and really seemed quite comfy. John and I both think this position is funny, and it's how she ends up sleeping most nights.
Anabelle was sure to spend lots of time cuddling with Grandma!
Thanksgiving morning arrived and Anabelle was ready to eat, too bad no teeth yet. She had a lot of fun hanging out with everyone. She was even too excited to take a nap, who would want to miss all of that fun?

Yumm....turkey! Can't wait till next year when I can try some.
Anabelle has 2 Uncle Mike's (my brother and John's brother) Here she is giving her Uncle Mike a big smile. Everyone joked she was thinking "Hey I like this guy, he is bald like me!"
Before Uncle Kenny went back to Chicago we went to lunch at a restaurant on Lake Houston, Anabelle liked looking at the reflection on the water.
After a very full week of visiting with friends and family, and spending time with Grandma and Grandpa it was time to head back to Chicago. Of course I was wondering can our flight home go as smoothly as our flight into Houston? We got through security and to our gate with about 5 minutes to spare, which was okay because the flight was pretty early (7am) so we didn't want to spend any more time at the airport than necessary. We boarded the plane and Belle started to get fussy, uh-oh. She continued to whine and fuss for about 5 minutes while everyone else boarded the plane. It wasn't a full flight, so it was kinda good that she fussed b/c no one sat by us. Then she quieted down and of course someone sat in our empty seat. Oh well. Again Anabelle drank her bottle on the way up and slept all the way till we touched down in Chicago. Yeah we made it without any complications! While in baggage claim, a news reporter interviewed us on holiday travel. Anabelle has already been on tv at only 2 months old. I put the video on my last post if you want to check it out. Thanks Sue and Ken we had a great trip and really enjoyed our time in Houston! It was great to see friends and family that we don't get to see often enough. Here Anabelle relaxes in her Christmas pj's back at home.