Merry Christmas!

Getting things ready for Christmas, planning our tasty dinner, and trying to relax as much as humanly possible.  We had a couple days of rain after a day and a half of lots of wind.  That wind even had the nerve to totally destroy my 'gift-wrapped' front door!  Grrr!  Oh well, it looked kind of nice while it was there.  I only have a few things left to wrap, get a couple more stocking stuffers, then shop for Christmas dinner.  I've declared today to begin Christmas break but we'll get back to our regularly schedule program on Monday so we can take most of the time off while mom is here Jan. 6.  Can't wait for that!

And wow, has time flown by.  Riley is 9 mos. old today!  How can that be?  He now has 6 teeth, just learned to crawl over the last couple weeks, and automatically pulls up to stand at anything that will hold him up!  Sheesh.  Nothing is safe anymore.  He has taken to jarred baby food again and really likes his fruits mixed with cereal.  His favorite snack food is that puffed Gerber cereal snack.  He also loves Chex cereal and Cheerios...anything HE can pick up.  Can't say he likes what happens on the other end in the diaper...poor guy.  Might have to start a little juice to keep the plumbing moving smoothly.  He goes for his check up on Tues. so I am curious if he's gained much weight with all the crawling.  He has such a funny personality!  His laugh cracks us up, his squinting (when you squint your eyes at him) is hillarious, and he's just a very layed-back, happy guy.  I'll  post a picture of him.

I finished 6 weeks of physical therapy last week to help strengthen my back and mainly my core in general.  It helped slightly but I guess the smaller back muscles are compensating for the large ones, making them extra sore.  I loved the facility and really enjoyed all the therapists.  My running has been going great and my times have been getting better and better!  This past week it appears arthritis is flaring up in my hip and after a good run, it begins to ache until I am limping and in alot of pain, especially the next day.  Ugh.  I've taken a few days off running and keeping up with Motrin and time off seems to be helping.  I'm dying to get outside in the sun...come on body, keep up! 

Hoping everyone has safe travels this weekend and/or next.  I'm happy to say we have nowhere to go and will be happy as a clam to sit right here and just hang out.  Merry Christmas everyone!

Riley, 9 months