Oh my, Ohio!

We're having a great time here in Dayton. The flight went well and Willa was a trooper considering we had to wake her up at 4:00 a.m. to make our flight! Ryan got here safely a few days later and we had a nice Christmas complete with the (in)famous ham and potato cheese puff.

Toddling around at Carriage Hill.  Willa was more interested in chasing after a barn cat than in looking at the mangy animals (see second picture).  The horses looked cold and miserable in the mud, and their thick winter coat wasn't helping appearances. Still, she is getting to be quite the walker and is very proud of herself.

Going for a walk one day and needed scarves.  It's not as cold as it could be, but it's still colder than we're used to.

She looked so adorable trying to walk with this giant neck brace, right after I took this picture she lost her balance and her top heavy head hid the cement. There were lots of tears until I took her to look at a nearby inflatable snowman.

Exploring grandma and grandpa's house!  Lots of cupboards and drawers to open; lots of general mischief to make.

She's only fallen down the stairs once, so far.  There were a lot of thumps as we ran to get her so she must have been pretty high up :(.

 Brushing her teeth.  If only she did this so well every night.

What we've been up to

At the last minute, I realized that I had enough time between my last day of teaching and Christmas to snag a quick visit home to Utah. Traveling is easier and harder as she grows. I downloaded a bunch of Sesame Street podcasts onto my ipod and that somewhat helped entertain Willa. And yes, I felt self-conscious pulling out this antique when everyone else around was playing with their slick ipad.  I think she's so cute with her little earphones on.

 We had a visit from a 5 month old baby while her mom went to help in another child's classroom. The baby was an angel, Willa was.... not happy to see me holding another baby. She was happy, however, to play in the baby swing again after the baby had left. I put her in and then a few minutes later realized that she was about to jump out the front!

Yesterday we went to the children's museum with Willa's new friend Molly and her mom. We met them a few months ago at the library and have slowly been venturing on some outings. Molly is still stationary for now, so I didn't get a photo of the two of them together. We had a great time and the babies happily played for an entire hour without any fussing - a Christmas miracle!

They have these little doors that are baby size; Willa is very into opening and closing right now so she loved them. She's also very into collecting "treasures" so often we'll find her little push stroller filled with various diaper creams, wipes, baby monitor, or whatever is particularly exciting.

Last, but not least, it wouldn't be Christmas without posting our Wolfman Jack Christmas photo from a few years ago. Ryan made us get rid of these sweaters in the last move :(. Willa and I are leaving tomorrow morning for Christmas in Dayton (Ryan will come a few days later) and we are very excited for some cheesy potatoes and ham!

A Christmas Tree

We have never gotten ourselves a Christmas tree until this year.  Our last apartment was too small and we were always going to a family's house, anyway.  I planned for the same routine this year, especially with a busy baby who would destroy a tree; however, Ryan surprised me by being the festive one and said that we should stop hum-buggin' and get ourselves a tree.

Here we are at the Christmas tree lot, picking out our perfect tree!  Ryan just finished shaking the snow off and is holding it up so we can see how tall it is.

Yep, this is the perfect tree!  Tying it on the roof for the drive home.

Make sure those straps are tight!

Trimming the tree

It was touch and go for a while.  There was a big argument at the tree lot about whether it was too tall or not.  I said that we should just get it because it was so obviously the perfect tree, if it was too tall then we could just lop the top off and give it to our butler, who might give it to a rabbit, and a little mouse might end up with the very top. Ryan really didn't want to have to cut off the top, though, with all that mess and sap.  Luckily, this one just barely fit.

Here's a recent picture of Willa.  My sweet angel-baby has become a demon toddler with the onset of walking.  She especially likes screaming in the grocery cart because she wants to get down and push the cart herself.  After I took this photo, I noticed that there was still dish detergent in there that she was eating and I had to run and call poison control!  The first of many such calls, probably.

Turkey Trot

Ryan really wanted to restart his tradition of running a Thanksgiving morning Turkey Trot, so we found a race and signed up!  We both ran and I pushed Willa in the stroller.  We're glad we did it, but if we do it again, we won't go with high expectations.  It was a HUGE race downtown and the course just wasn't wide enough so it never really thinned out.  I dutifully lined up towards the back, since I had a stroller, and was seriously dodging people the entire time just to stay at a slow jog.

Ryan didn't fair much better, he got first in his age group and eleventh overall, but he couldn't even squeeze his way to the starting line and when he looked around he was disconcerted by the number of elderly and young kids who were at the start with him and whom he had to dodge around.  However, we both agree that running a 5k is nice and short, so much less to worry about, and less to suffer through.  

We got an annual pass to the Children's Museum for $60!  It's supposedly the best children's museum in the country and the entire second floor is an area just for toddlers.  Here is Willa loving the uneven surfaces that she could crawl on.  I have come to the realization that I am a person who likes to get out and do things.  So, now I have one more fun place for us to go where she can crawl around and explore.