Holidays wrap-up. And the startling realization that my baby is no longer a newborn.

I swear, it happens to me every year...December and Christmas just fly right on by, with hardly any time to just enjoy it. Next year all I want to do is sit in front of my beautiful Christmas tree, drinking hot chocolate and watching Christmas movies. (Yeah, like that's really going to happen with a 15-month-old running around the house, undecorating my beautiful Christmas tree, spilling hot chocolate everywhere and yelling during the movies. And oh my gosh, YOU GUYS. My baby will be 15 months old next Christmas!)

Anyway, we were able to get a lot of celebrating in, mixed somewhere in between bouts of illness (John had the most horrible of horrid sore throats for a couple of days and Max and I have been fighting colds for about a year now, it feels like), me officially quitting my job to become a full-time mom (post to come later about this one, kids) and John and I continuing to figure out this whole parenting thing.

 I absolutely love my Christmas tree. It is a hodgepodge of ornaments, but most of them have sentimental meaning behind them. We got two new ornaments for Max this year:

To my great delight, I discovered that Max liked to hang out on the floor and stare at the Christmas tree...saving my sanity and also allowing me to actually eat using both of my hands on more than one occasion. Sometimes he even took naps in front of the tree.

We had kind of a low-key Christmas, present-wise, which I thought was just perfect. I'm sure we could have gotten away with not getting Max anything, but I think he was pretty stoked about his new binkies, pajamas and outfits. Next year we'll splurge and get him some boxes and wrapping paper to play with, don't worry.

We spent Christmas Eve and Christmas morning/afternoon with my family before venturing up to Logan to spend the rest of the week with John's family. I may or may not have spent the majority of my time there staring out the window at the hordes of deer (including a couple of rather large bucks) that converged in my in-law's backyard. Because apparently I've never seen deer before. It's not like I live near the mountains and see them on a regular basis or anything.

And somehow in the middle of everything, I realized last week that my boy is no longer a newborn. He has started grabbing anything he can get his chubby little hands on and he tries to put everything those hands get a hold of into his mouth. We are assuming he has started teething as evidenced by the constant crazy-long strings of drool that hang off of his chin and soak his outfits every day. And he has become somewhat mobile--he kicks his legs all day long and as of Monday can roll over from his back to his stomach! (We're still working on getting him to roll over from his tummy to his back--I have found that he'll tolerate "tummy time" a little bit better if I have him try it out while he's only in his diaper. I swear, that boy is so much happier if he doesn't have on any clothes. Maybe we have an exhibitionist on our hands.) The other day I left him flat on his back in the middle of his crib and went into the other room for one second, and this is what I came back to. Naturally I took pictures before I helped him.

Max is also becoming much more vocal and makes the sweetest little coo and gurgle noises I've ever heard. (He also makes these high-pitched screams and squeals that sound very much like a feral cat...) He has finally started laughing and I'm pretty sure that the heavens open when he giggles. He especially loves to laugh for John.

Apparently all I'm good for is SUSTAINING HIS LIFE by, you know, feeding him with my own body. No biggie.