All I want for Christmas

As you might guess because of the lapse in time since our last entry, things have been a little crazy (like they have been for everyone, I'm sure). This past weekend was one of those weekends where you have about 6 different actvities that you want to participate in/have been invited to (even 2 of which you purchased tickets for), and you just have to let it go, pick a couple things and figure you'll catch the others next year. We had 9 out-of-town relatives pass through our doors on Saturday alone. Saturday morning I went to the church to help set up for the annual Women's Christmas Brunch. It looked like it was going to be really neat. I'll plan on catching that next year. Then Brian's mom, Mark, Kelly and the girls all came into town to go to the circus - so we had lunch out with them. Brian's Aunt Mary Jo and cousin Tara also came along to go to the Ohio State basketball game vs. Valpraiso. My Dad and Sue also came in to attend that game, which Melanie and I attended with them while Brian stayed home with Katy. We got to see Greg Oden's debut on the OSU court - history in the making, as the guy in the seat next to us called it. This guy is supposed to be the next Lebron. He's only 18, he shot left handed the entire game because his right hand is still in a splint from surgery, and he still had very impressive stats.

But anyway, in the midst of all this, of course, Katy has been busy growing up. We've decided that if we got her a big box of crinkly paper for Christmas, she'd be the happiest camper around. Give her a stuffed animal, and she will play with the TAG on it for 15 minutes. Anytime we are eating chips or crackers out of the bag, she reaches for it and whines until we give it to her or distract her. Here is an example of her (supervised) play with paper products:

We've also tried a couple of other new "firsts" in the past week, both of which I have pictures of from my camera phone, so bear with me with the poor quality. First we tried sitting up in a restaurant highchair:

Then we decided to be REALLY brave and try the SHOPPING CART at Sam's Club. She liked it as long as we kept moving. She's getting heavy in the Baby Bjorn so we're going to have to explore some other options...