Ina's Hideout

The other evening we jumped the gun on Christmas a little bit and let Ina open one of her gifts (and by that I mean, Didz and I have no self-control and we wanted to play with it, so we opened it and assembled it for her)...

It's awesome. 

Yesterday was a gray, rainy day, so we brought some blankets, pillows, stuffed animals and books and spent the entire morning hiding out. I have a feeling we'll be spending a large portion of our weekend in there, too.

Thank you, Santa!

Weekend Bits

All we did this weekend was this. 

Lately

While Didz is away in Belgium, I've been trying to document my days with Ina so he wouldn't miss out on a single moment... Here's a few glimpses of our days lately:

1. To ensure we don't get too sad without him, there's been a lot of tickles:

2. I've been teaching our daughter to act like a cat:

3. And finally, she's turning into a real person - STANDING UP! Woah:

We miss you, Papa! Come home soon! 

And she's off...

The bug and I had a great long weekend up in Toronto with Didz and his family, but we're back in Cohasset at my parents house while Didz is in Belgium taking care of some unfinished business for a couple weeks. We miss him so much, and I wish so badly we could all be in Belgium together. It feels like we've been back from our European adventure for an eternity already, and even though I'm so excited for what's ahead for us (CALIFORNIA!), I truly and wholeheartedly miss our little Belgium. It's moments like this that I'm so glad I started writing this blog so many moons ago. I'll always have our photos and our stories to look back on. It's the next best thing to being there... 

While I'm here, Ina is keeping me busy. This new crawling stage she's entered is definitely keeping me on my toes. She's a quick little bugger - I turn my back for two seconds and she's BOLTING across the room (usually chasing after the poor cat). It's great... but woah. 

Time to do some babyproofing around here. 

Cruisin'

After a long week, the bug is finally feeling better. Yesterday, she took her first ride on her new trike. She LOVES it (which of course makes her bicycle-enthusiast grandfather very happy). 

I'm not mentally prepared for the day we remove the "mama handle" and she can pedal around herself. Next thing we know she'll be backing the car out of the driveway and driving off. But for now, we're enjoying our little outings around the neighborhood together. 

I mean.... come on, right?? It's pretty much the cutest thing ever.