Mamo aka Elmo

Joy LOVES Elmo! And she has since she was 7 or 8 months old, evident when she started giggling when I was carrying her through a store. I looked where she was looking, only to find a big poster cut-out of Elmo waving. Recently, Joy started saying two syllable words. Her first being "uh oh", which was soon followed by "Mamo". In the video below, she demonstrates her love for Elmo with some prompts for the camera from mom.

Joy Says Please

Joy is talking a lot these days. We are trying to teach her how and when to use the word 'please'. Danny caught her on camera saying her 'goofy please' when she wanted me to start a dancing Santa and reindeer. Enjoy.

Christmas with the Rainbows

We spent Christmas with the Rainbows in Madison this year. We enjoyed spending some time at home as well, which spurred us to think about what we would like our family 'traditions' to be in the years to come. The ladies (Peggy, Sarah, and I) started Christmas by going to the Nutcracker at the Overture Center, performed by the Madison Ballet Company. Then we went to Christmas Eve service at Mt Olive Lutheran Church. We opened gifts slowly over Christmas Day, giving Joy the opportunity to play with each gift a bit before moving onto the next. And, Joy learned the word cookie from trying several different kinds of Grandma's delicious Christmas cookies.
Danny and I are on vacation this week. Our plans include: going skiing tomorrow, picking up our new 2010 Mazda 5 tomorrow, getting together with friends, polishing off a few unfinished projects, Joy visiting Grandma and Grandpa Krafve without mom and dad, and celebrating our 7th wedding anniversary. Danny pointed out last night that we have been together for 10 years already.
Below are a few pictures of our Christmas celebration.

Doctor Stats

Here are Joy's stats from her 15 month appointment back on December 13. Sorry so late...

Height - 31.5 inches 75th percentile
Weight - 22.5 lbs 40th percentile
Head Circumference - 19 inches 95th percentile

Christmas with the Krafves

We celebrated Christmas with the Krafves early this year since we will be spending the 24th and 25th here in Madison. We send a big thanks to my wonderful family for saving a day just for us this busy time of year. Joy enjoyed the time with family as well as all 4 dogs that belong to my sisters and their husbands. We shared a delicious meal together, opened a few gifts, and then played outside in all the snow that afternoon. Joy did not want to do anything outside but be pulled around in the sled, only by mom or dad. Needless to say, dad especially, was exhausted after this. You will find a video below of Joy helping Grandma in the house and sledding. The other video is of my crazy fun family 4-wheeling/ATVing in the snow. They were attempting to plow through a snow bank and drift to get to a field road. Both Bart and Jenni's attempts didn't work, but were pretty funny. Somehow, Christi, Aaron, and I ended up on clean-up crew. Enjoy!

Joy Plays in the snow

We got our first snowfall of the season today. We all got bundled up and went outside to play for awhile this morning. Joy did really good walking around in boots that were a little big and really stiff on top of being all bundled up. She looks like a little marshmallow. The highlight for her was dad pulling her on the sled.

Joy Plays Kinect

Well, Danny talked me into getting the Kinect for our Xbox. The plan was for him to sell the Xbox since we have a Wii. I really feel one game system is enough for a household. However, now that the Kinect came out (controller free game system), he had to get it. So, Danny was showing his dad how it worked earlier this week and Joy decided to try it out too. Dad is thankful Joy is too short for her movement to register into the game and mess up his stats. Lastly, I was getting Joy ready for bed when she pulled her usual stunt of running off once she is undressed. She loves to run around and away from us when she is undressed, and this night was no different. Thankfully, she at least has her diaper on in this video. Enjoy!