We are soon upon my favourite time of the year: my birthday. Hehe ok thats only half true, I also love Christmas! Snow, hot coco, all the twinkling lights. Its such a magical time of the year full of love and family. I certainly can't wait until the years first real snow. Cadence will have such a good time! And to see the wonder in her eyes when she touches it, tries to eat it and just discovers it will be so fun to see.

We have been so busy at the house, redecorating and getting ready for the holidays. We re-arranged our living room so there is more space to move around. We finally got our new dresser so our room doesn't look like a frat boy lives in it. I picked up some wall art that was super discounted that just ties it all together. Not that it was ugly before, but I feel so much happier in our cozy little home.

Our decorating is nearly done. I've hung our stockings, put together all the 'under the tree' decorations, and we're just waiting for the tree before we can hang lights etc but otherwise we are all done. Even the presents are wrapped! The dogs are always in and out of the presents, I think they like the texture of the padded snow.

This past weekend we celebrated my birthday. I'm going to be working next Saturday night to cover for the office Christmas party so we won't have the chance to celebrate then. Cadence went over to Nana and Papa's for the night while Chris and I went shopping and then out for dinner. It was quite an expensive day but I'm pleased with the results of our shopping. We bought a Nikon SLR so we can get some great pics of Cadence as she grows up. Chris is learning the ins and outs of the camera while I'm just taking random pics of whatever I see laying around the house. So far so good!

Cadence has started solids for real as of yesterday. Since she turned 4 months I've been giving her cereal on and off whenever I thought maybe she'd like to try it. She was supposed to start solids when she turned 6 months (Nov. 10th) but we haven't seen our family doctor and I wasn't sure what kind of schedule to put her on. I read somewhere to feed her some solids an hour after she has a bottle. That seems crazy to me! I'd be stuck home all day just feeding a baby! So what I've done is I give her fruit in the morning before her morning bottle, then a vegetable before her evening bottle and lastly some cereal with her bedtime bottle. Not in the bottle, in a bowl and spooned into her mouth. Results? She is a fantastic eater! And obviously has a preference for the sweeter fruits. She doesn't make much mess either until she's had enough and then she will just spit the food out. But for 2 days she is doing great!

We've been struggling with what I like to think of as the 6 month sleep recession. She was waking up anywhere from 1am-3:30am, not screaming or anything just suddenly awake and playing in her crib. Now if you've met our kiddo, you would know that part of her playing includes shrieking. Shrill shrieking. So while she wasn't freaking out, Chris and I have been taking turns resettling her because her giggling and shrieks are loud enough to distort the monitor and we can hear her in our room. I hear it gets much worse as teething kicks in but I am hopeful that she will have maybe one fussy night a week and then be golden the other days. A girl can dream, right? Tomorrow is a big fun day! 6 month doctor visit which means ouchie boo boo shots. Poor kid. But we act like its not a big deal and she takes them like a champ. I should probably hit the hay now, even though its early, I may not see much sleep again in the next few days. Good night everyone!