fall highlights

Well, winter is practically upon us!  Today, Rebekah saw her first snow.

We haven't been good about updating over the past few months because we've just been plain busy.  Nathan was in charge of a product launch at work and was putting in a few more hours to get that accomplished.  Praise - it was a success!  Kristin has been working hard to get as much done on her dissertation each day as possible.  She is absolutely determined to graduate in 2013.

Since we'll have lots to write about in December, we thought we'd do a picture recap of the past few months to get everything up to speed.

First, Miss Rebekah turned 8 months old in October. 

That month, she also learned to clap!  She practiced her new skill all the time, even when she was crying.

She finally discovered her headbands and decided she wanted nothing to do with them.  So, now that she won't wear a bow, we get congratulated on our "cute little boy" at least once a week.

She also learned how to read....just kidding!  She does love books, though.

For Halloween, we continued our annual tradition of pumpkin carving.  This year, Nathan designed a real winner - it's Goofy! :)

Nathan dressed up as William Wallace (aka. Braveheart) in an attempt to win a costume contest at work.  He wore his kilt, my Moby baby-wearing wrap, and designed his sword and shield from our old fence.  He ended up winning third place!

Our little Pebbles also dressed up!

Kristin...well...she just dressed like a mom.

In November, Rebekah turned 9 months old.  This was a big month for her!

She joined her dad for some X-box time and even got her own controller.

Thanksgiving Day was lovely.  We were in Oklahoma visiting with Nathan's family, and Rebekah enjoyed playing with all of her cousins.  It was the first time she was actually old enough to interact with them.  Most of all, Rebekah loved eating.  Over Thanksgiving weekend, she learned to eat "real" food - she had macaroni and cheese, turkey, dressing, mashed potatoes, sweet potato pie, chicken strips, French fries, and a hot roll.  We, in turn, got to change out lots of interesting diapers.

She interacted with her first dog over Thanksgiving weekend.  She crawled up and pulled his ear.  He handled that well enough that she was able to sit on his back and "ride" him for a few seconds.

She also learned to sit up from a crawling position, to begin pulling up on furniture, and to destroy everything in sight.

Our little adventurer loves growling at her toys and climbing over any obstacle course Nathan happens to set up.

Because she now gets into everything, we ended up setting up our Christmas tree in our bedroom where she can't get to it.  We take her in for "visitation" about once a day, but otherwise it's ours to enjoy.

We're excited about celebrating our first Christmas as a threesome.  We utilized the Christmas decorations at church to take some pictures on her 10 month birthday.  She made everyone smile with her Mickey Santa hat!