Santa made his rounds to Team Bolens' house and he was pretty generous this year. It was also V's first Christmas experience and she made out like a bandit with all of her loot! Mommy and Dad thoroughly enjoyed themselves introducing her to the traditions...even if she won't remember any of it next year.

Our present-unwrapping event actually lasted from about 10am until 4 or 5pm. Its just tough to fit a lot in when you're on a 3-4 hour eat-play-sleep cycle! V got up around 7 but by the time she was dressed and finished eating it was getting on to be her nap time again.  She isn't really what you would call a morning person. While she is on a 3-4 hour schedule during the day, she is only awake for about 90 minutes first thing in the morning. Almost as if she's getting up for a new diaper, some food, a quick snuggle and then OK, put me back to bed for a bit.

So while V was napping, J.E.B. and I ate our Christmas Breakfast (he had cinnamon buns and I had toaster strudels. YUMMMMY!) and then played some video games (what else would we do?!). Once she got up, we were prepared to jump into the gift-opening as soon as she was done eating.

We have a Santa Hat and this year it was my turn to play Santa and hand out the gifts. After the gifts were sorted, we dug in. Unfortunately a 6-month-old doesn't exactly tear into her gifts with gusto so after opening 4 or 5 with Mommy's help, she was ready for another nap! It was almost torture for me to wait until she was up to finish opening our gifts, so J.E.B. kindly suggested we open the rest of ours while she slept. Ahh, what a great husband!

Our nice Christmas morning.

Not exactly "snow clouds" are they!

V and her mountain of gifts. This was shortly before she went down for nap #1.

Silly Dad!

I've also posted some videos from Christmas and earlier in the past few weeks. J.E.B. has started or at least encouraged a habit with V that we're not sure we are happy about. He has started mimicking her as she talks to him. Well that has spiraled into her "talking" whenever she can, including as we're trying to feed her which makes mealtime a bit long. And she is really stretching those vocal cords as far as volume goes. It is really adorable, but I don't know that I like living with 2 pterodactyls! The video of J.E.B. feeding her on Christmas is a great example.

Some other recent pictures.

A new way to carry her in the wrap-thingy. She's sitting on my hip and loves this new way. I like it too.

She gets so attentive when he reads to her. While I'm not sure With The Old Breed (Eugene Sledge's WWII experiences) is a good book for a 6-month-old, at least she's interested in books! 

My friend Amanda gave us a winter jacket set that was too small for her daughter. Its still a little big on V, but she seems excited to have it!