the better-late-than-never holiday re-cap!

We're half way into January...time to look back on Christmas and New Year's!:) Better late than never, right?
Christmas for our family was held at Alex's parents' home in Orange County. We got a much needed break, spending 3 nights away at their house. We attended church in LA at Bel Air and drove down afterward. Laurel didn't sleep very well while away, everything was a little too unfamiliar. She's spent many afternoons, but not nights, at their house. She wouldn't sleep in their crib, or the pack n play we brought. So...she ended up in our bed...and we didn't sleep:). She's a mover at night! She's always in her crib at our house, so we don't really witness the rolling and kicking and flinging about of the blanket:).
Christmas day was full of family and gifts. Everyone from the Velez family was over, including our 2 nieces. The house was filled with lots of conversation, laughter and little kid squeals - lovely!:) Our niece, Amber, turned 2 on the 26th and we spent that afternoon at an indoor play gym. On the 27th, we braved Disneyland - on a holiday break and a weekend day! It was swamped, but we had such a great time with Rob, Cyndy and the girls, that it really didn't matter! I've always been a fan of Disney, and Alex has enjoyed it in support of me...but he's really taken a new shine to it now that he can see the joy it brings to Laurel. She had a ball!

We returned home that night and Alex had the next week off. My dad came into town and only after a couple of days, we all got sick! On the 30th, I woke up flu-ish, but took in a lot of dayquil so that we could go to Pasadena to see the Rose Parade floats under construction. The lines were long, but it was really interesting to see how everything was put together - some petal by petal. Laurel's favorite was of course the Sesame Street float with Elmo! I succumbed to the flu that night and felt poorly for a few days after. My dad came down with it right after I started to perk up. Alex has an afternoon of ill feelings, but seemed to pass over it quickly. Laurel was a champ and carried on with her play, not getting sick at all.

New Year's Eve and Day were very chill, just hanging at home...mostly because of the sick. My dad stayed a bit longer because he was ill and we were able to have some nice dinners, rent some movies, and went up for a day to Huntington Gardens. Now we've returned to regular life - Alex back to work, calligraphy and Copper Willow for me. Copper Willow has brought in some excitement since the New Year. We sent out new catalogs and have been getting a steady flow of orders from brand new clients. We've had a couple of wedding invitation inquiries and soon, our new products will be sold at the New York and Seattle gift shows at the end of the month. Leora also had her baby last week, on the 7th. Delaney Reese was born 8 lbs, 4 oz, 19 in. So I've been running some things back and forth to and from her house to help out and to bring her the Copper Willow items that she needs.

Laurel continues to grow and progress in her learnings. She has a lot of new toys from Christmas, one being a little Elmo pull-out sofa that she loves to sit on. She enjoys pushing her little grocery cart and her baby stroller. No baby though, she prefers to sit in it herself:). She also got a set of big legos from Aunt Megan and she just loves them! They're played with constantly all day. I'm pretty sure Laurel has gone through a growth spurt. When Megan got back from Maryland (for the holidays), she said Laurel felt heavier and her hair was longer. I know her feet are bigger, we had to move into a size 5 from a 4 this week! Her hair is longer, but she refuses to leave a barrett or hair tie in her hair...I see a hair cut coming to help keep the hair out of her face. Laurel continues to go to gymboree every week and moved into the next age group, 16-22 months. Just last week, she finally learned a motor skill that she skipped and has avoided - crawling! It's kind of a strange half-crawl, but she started crawling through some play tubes that we have at home and at the gym. Laurel's comprehension is quite complete right now. I told her to get me some socks today and she marched off to her room and started pulling socks out of the bin in her closet. She loves to brush her teeth with her new elmo tooth brush and will run off to the bathroom when I tell her it's time to brush her teeth. So she understands a lot. She still says very little, but we'll get there:). "Uh-oh" is still her most predictable word, besides "Mo" for Elmo. Oh and "no, no", of course. She's learning her animal sounds and knows "Mmmm00" for cow, "Grrr" for Lion (she refused "roar"!), her version of a bark for dog, "Ba" for sheep", a quacking noise for duck, and we're working on horse. I think I mentioned before that she likes to shop and likes jewelry, but now she's enjoying putting necklaces on and carrying a purse:).