Happy New Year!

As we prepared to ring in the New Year we had another celebration going on. Evelyn turned 5 months old yesterday! It is amazing to think that 5 months have already flown by. The days and nights run together sometimes, and before I know it, we've logged another week!

Evelyn loves hanging out on her play mat, where she rolls from back to tummy, babbling contentedly the whole time. She now knows her name, and seems to respond a bit more to Evie (Ehvie) than to Evelyn. She gets so excited when she sees Mike and me. She kicks her legs and flaps her arms like crazy! She is all about her feet and especially enjoys pulling her socks off and sucking on them.

She is building so much strength in her tummy, neck, and back and I often see her trying to pull herself up into a sitting position.

Practicing the tripod sit

Celebrating her first Christmas was so special and just added a bit of magic to the whole holiday season. She really enjoyed eating all of the wrapping paper as she tore into her gifts.

In her new dress from Aunt Debbie

We celebrated Christmas Eve with Mike's dad and the Kennedy side of the family. On Christmas day we had a great time visiting with Mike's mom. My parents came up a few days later and we had a belated Christmas celebration with them. Here is Evie working on opening a present from Mema and Tata:

Evelyn continues to be exclusively breastfed, which has been one of the most rewarding and challenging experiences that I have experienced. With the sprouting of her first two teeth came the adventure of biting while feeding. Most of the time she bites when she is full and trying to pull off. If I don't catch her quickly, it means a lot of pain for me. Yowza! She is also so easily distracted by the world around her - which means that any new sound results in Evelyn popping off the breast and look around. When she eats in the morning, it is as though it is the first time she has ever been in our bedroom. She sucks for a minute, pops off looks around, drinks a bit more, pops off again - over and over until the novelty of the room wears off and she gets down to business. We are so close to hitting our initial goal of 6 months of breastfeeding. After that, we will evaluate Evie's readiness to start foods as a complement to breast milk. I hope to make it to a year of breastfeeding, but plan to take it as it comes when I return to work.

Returning to work means that I will embark on the adventure of pumping and working. It also means the start of daycare for Evelyn. I have such mixed feelings about returning to work. I will save my thoughts on that for another day and another post.

Mike and I celebrated New Year's Eve at home. Once Evie went to bed, Mike went to work on a dinner of king crab legs, shrimp, and corn chowder. We followed that up with chocolate soufflé for dessert.

It was a mellow night - with some reminiscing of the 7 years that we have been together, a movie (Revolutionary Road - not the most uplifting choice), and of course watching the ball drop followed by a New Year's kiss. What better way to ring in the New Year than with my sweetie and my sweet girl, sound asleep in the next room! From our family to yours, wishing you the best in 2010!

(On a completely unrelated side note - I am watching Zoolander as I write this. One of the funniest movies EVER and by far one of Will Ferrel's best roles as Mugatu!)