Harper's First Christmas

  We were back in "the motherland" for Christmas, as Joe refers to Minnesota. Harper did really well during our week-long visit. By the end of the trip I think she was a bit overwhelmed with all the family and changing locations, because she was kind of perma-cranky and having trouble sleeping through the night. Luckily she returned to her normal self on both counts after a few days back at home.

We were at my parents' house first, and thanks to my three nephews it was a very action-packed weekend. Here's the four generations of Lingles. Harper looks like she's sleeping, but actually she just couldn't keep from blinking when the flash went off.

And here's our best attempt to get all four kids in one picture. The boys loved to be as close as possible to little baby Harper.

We brought along Harper's cold-weather gear hoping to get a walk outside or at least a picture of her in a snowbank. There were ample snowbanks in Minnesota, but between cold temperatures and general cookie-induced laziness, we never made it outside for the walk or the picture. Here's Harper testing out her cold weather outfit at home in Colorado before we left. Her arms and legs hardly make it halfway down the sleeves and pants, but she's definitely toasty in there.

Harper suddenly developed a need to by in my lap any time I was within her line of sight while we were visiting. I'm not sure if that was because she was reaching the end of her tolerance for new activities or if it's just a phase. Either way, it meant I got to help her open her presents. I thought maybe she would be interested in tearing the wrapping paper because she loves to wave the newspaper around at home, but she was much more interested in the strings attached to this gift bag. 

Here she is back at home playing with the toy Aunt Melissa gave her, which is one of her new favorites. The green circle part is supposed to sit on top of the yellow part and spin when she pulls it, but the first thing she does when she gets the toy is knock the green part off so she can wave around the yellow thing. Whatever works!

 

The holiday week was also exciting because Harper finally learned to go from lying on her stomach to sitting on her own. She gets up on her hands and knees and very, very slowly backs her butt down until she's sitting. She needs about a yard of floor space in order to accomplish this, so her attempts are often foiled by a toy, chair, or some other object in her way. She's very persistent though, and obviously enjoys the sense of power she gets from finally being able to control whether she's lying down or sitting up. If she learns that she can use that hands-and-knees posture to crawl rather than continue to do the inchworm across the floor on her stomach, Joe and I are really in trouble.