Thanksgiving arrived just a few weeks ago, and the holiday season officially kicked off! Or so they say - somehow it seems like Halloween kicks off the holidays since as soon as the candy is off the shelves, the Christmas decorations pop up in stores! Anyway, I love the holidays, so I'm happy for it to gear up anytime.
As is tradition, we spent the actual Thanksgiving holiday with the Brown side of the family. The food is always delicious, and the fire is always going (I'm usually found perching near it, one of my favorite spots during the winter!). Cassidy had so much fun playing with the toys at Grammy and Grandpa's house - this year they set up Erik's old wooden Brio train in the basement, and she and her Daddy spent a morning building a track complete with ramps and curves and all sorts of town accessories. I think Daddy might have enjoyed it a tiny bit more than Cassie(!), but she had fun watching it all take shape. I'm sure next year she'll get to be the engineer's assistant. (I wish I would have thought to take a photo, but somehow the masterpiece came and went without getting documented! Next time for sure.)
Once we work up our appetite for a second round of turkey, we always head over to Rockford to visit with the Reder side of the family. The Harding Family was there as well, so it was a fairly full house! We had another great meal and spent a good chunk of time watching football, taking naps, and catching up with each other. We also took in the latest Bond movie (Quantum of Solace I believe it's called?) - entertaining, but as the guys all said, not as good as Casino Royale and getting a bit further away from the Bond of the past.
Unfortunately, Cassie brought a terrible winter cold along on our Thanksgiving visit, so we had to follow her around with a tissue box and keep the tylenol dosage going in order to keep her smiling like her regular self. She managed as best she could, and three weeks later we're all finally feeling better in our house! But it seems I only came home with 1 actual Thanksgiving photo - Grandpa Reder in his annual role as turkey-carver, with Tracy and Steve lending a hand. Here it is!
Over the past couple weeks as we prepare for Christmas, Cassidy has continued to make us laugh with her latest "stuff." The other night, she discovered twirling - and she hasn't stopped since. At first she'd slowly step her feet around until she competed 1 circle, then we'd clap and she'd giggle like crazy. Then she realized if she kept twirling, the room would spin and things would feel funny - so that's her new favorite move. She'll go around and around until she loses her balance, and she cracks herself up every time! It's pretty funny, at least to mom and dad. She practices many times each day.
We've spent a lot of days indoors lately with the bitterly cold temperatures outside. So, mom has been searching high and low for new activities to keep Miss Cassidy occupied. We decided to make homemade playdough. It's an old recipe of my mom's that she used to make for us when we were little. It uses basic kitchen ingredients,
so it was perfect for a day when we didn't want to trek out to the store. Anyway, we made 5 colors and Cassidy enjoyed smushing it around on her highchair. She's a little too young to be entertained with it for long, but it worked for part of a morning! She did try to eat it a few times, but thankfully it doesn't taste great so she didn't consume very much!
Sometimes on the weekends, Erik and Cassidy have "secret daddy time." This is when mommy gets to run errands on her own, and Cassidy and daddy tear the house apart and find as much trouble as they can together until I get back (ha). Then when I come home, I get all the details of the fun! The past few times, I have arrived home to a large fort, usually made from pillows and sleeping bags and any other item that seemed to fit their architectural vision. They go in their fort and read stories and play chase. I love to see them having so much fun together!
We also recently had our first sledding adventure of 2008. Cassidy was only 6 months old last Christmas, so she never made it out on a sled. This year, we've borrowed a great toddler sled from a neighbor who's outgrown it - she seemed to have fun! She was a little awestruck at the ordeal - she often just stared at us as we laughed, tossed snow and took pictures. Our side street never gets plowed right away, and there's hardly any car traffic - so Daddy did the hard work by pulling Cassidy up and down the streets, over bumps and hills and doing spins. Our neighbors and their 1-year old son Jacob came out as well, so we made it into a little sled race. When everyone was finally tuckered out, we came in for hot cocoa and Cassidy got a warm bath before bedtime.
Cassidy is starting to communicate with us more and more these days. She will say "no" and shake her head if she is not interested in that particular book/food/drink/etc. Right now, it's refreshing, because it's not in a defiant way (at least not yet!) and we finally don't have to guess what she wants! She also says the names of her favorite characters: Elmo, Foofa (from Yo Gabba Gabba) and Ming Ming (from The Wonder Pets). Other words she uses each day: more, off, sheep, night-night, eyes, nose, mouth, baby, apple, owl, shoes, giraffe ("raff"), ball, uh-oh, shhhhh, light (especially when she sees all the Christmas lights), and cold - when we go outside, she says brrr, brrr, brrr - I guess I've been saying that a lot! I also find her singing songs when she plays - so far I've heard the tune for Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star and the Itsy-Bitsy Spider.
Well, that's about it for my summary. Since we're prepping for a move in a few short weeks, we have many things in storage - including Cassie's baby book, so I haven't been able to write things down lately! I'm trying to document things wherever I can. Those of you that have moved probably know exactly what I mean...
And speaking of the move, we're closing on the new house in just 2 weeks - time to start packing! Here's where we are heading...
But before that, we are very excited to celebrate Christmas with family - so many fun things to look forward to in the coming months. Happy Holidays!!!
Last night, Santa made an early stop at Cassidy's house! Since we'll be traveling for the Christmas holiday, Santa made arrangements to drop down our chimney a few days in advance. As soon as Cassidy came down the stairs this morning, she noticed the presents under the tree and went right over to investigate. She picked one up and brought it over to her mom and dad for some assistance. We tried to tell her to tear into it, to rip open the paper and see what's inside - but she didn't seem to get that idea and instead just said "off! off!" meaning she really wanted us to help get that paper off so she could get to the good stuff. She seemed to love everything she opened - favorites appear to be her new giraffe stuffed animal ("raff" - she's 
giving him a hug in this photo), her Wonder Pets snowglobe and her new kitten keyboard. The keyboard is in the shape of a big purple kitten and plays various instrument sounds. What makes it extra-special to her is the "kitten mode" in which every note played comes out as a "meow." She also really loves the attached microphone. She didn't notice that part at first, but at some point this afternoon she made the discovery that her voice comes through that microphone, and she has been addicted ever since! She can hardly get a word out, though, because the second she hears her voice bellowing through the speaker, she falls into a fit of giggles. Here's a video:
