Happy New Year!

I am so happy that the new year has started off with happy news in blogland, with a sac for Kerry and Mark, a baby on the way for a friend of mine who's tried for a long time, and everyone else's babies thriving and doing fun new stuff. Here in Denver, Micah hit the 17 month mark last week and has been full of fun lately. I took my first "staycation" (unless you count my maternity leave that I had to use vacation time for!), and we spent the week doing fun family activities with my sisters, nieces and nephews. No Christmas for us, but we were lucky to spend the weekend in the snowy mountains, seeing fireworks on a ski slope, eating bad chinese food, and taking Micah out in the snow. He went on an 8 mile snowshoe trek with Daddy and did great, despite falling out of the backpack due to a wardrobe malfunction -- the snow was deep and fluffy, and he was unphased (what a trooper!)

His spent a lot of time with his four cousins, who range in age from 4.5 to 7.5 and who all wanted to love him to death, but he pretty much did his own thing: exploring, riding the life-sized stuffed collie at Grandma and Grandpa's, tucking in for a full meal when the other kids were done in 30 seconds. Other highlights of our staycation were a trip to see the special holiday light display at our zoo, a New Year's Eve party that ended at 7 pm local time (mommy was asleep by 9), a fancy tea outing with my nieces, mom, and sisters, and a bedlam-like photo shoot with all the cousins.

Micah's new cute tricks include reaching out to hold mommy or daddy's hand and commanding "Walk," getting most of the food from a bowl to mouth via a spoon, pulling books off a shelf and backing up into the waiting adult's lap (though he often looks at one page and wants another book), learning to point to eyes, nose, mouth, hair, and belly on cue (tho' he calls everything on the face "ays"), giggling hilariously to "this little piggy" (and repeating "weee weee weee" to himself at random times), bopping along to music whenever he hears it with the request to "dance."

Not so cute tricks include banging on our antique glass display case when he wants attention and thinking it is a game when we sternly say "no" and chase him away, frequent love bites on mommy or daddy (note: don't pretend to nibble on your adorable infant, for he will surely gnaw on you in return when he has teeth), wanting to dip his hands and feet in the cats' food and water at every opportunity, and literally melting down onto the floor when he wants something we don't understand. Toddlerhood, nous sommes ici!