We had two Christmas ‘celebrations’ this year – one a week early with most of our family to celebrate together, and then we went over to my parent’s house again for Christmas afternoon as well.

Hope had a lot of fun! She was adorably cute in some little dresses, played outside for a bit, enjoyed another horse ride from Sarah,  loved her presents, and had so much fun all day that when we put her in her car-seat to go home she was out cold within 2 minutes.

She has had a blast playing with her new presents, includiong her own little tea-set, and a fun bus to ride around on from her Grandmas, a little piano and a big teddy-bear. Her all-time favorite gift was her very own laptop computer, complete with a keyboard and a mouse, that she can play with just like mommy. She has apparently spent way too much time watching mom work and type away on my laptop … because the first thing she did with her laptop was to start busily typing away with all her little fingers while moving the mouse around then typing some more. It was really cute to watch!

Here are some assorted fun Christmas day photos:

  
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 And of course some adorable Christmas 2009 Photos of Hope:

 
 
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Time sure has flown – one year and four months since Hope was born, and she just gets more beautiful every day.

She has an entire little vocabulary of words now. Her original ‘doggie’ has expanded to include ‘baby’,  mommy, dada, phone, hello, eee (horsie) many other words we can’t yet make out, and some specific exclamations when she hears a phone ring or the dogs outside barking.

She is the first to let us know when the phone rings –  with an excited ‘phone!’ and pointing for us to answer it. Anytime the dogs outside start barking at something, she’ll run up to us and say something excited about it while repeatedly pointing from herself out the window.

 Hope is fascinated with phones. She loves to steal one of our phones and push the buttons, or to listen while someone on the other end talks to her. Some of her favorite toys are old dead cell phones and toy phones to play with. She knows exactly how to pick up a phone, push the buttons, hold it up to her ear, and say ‘Hello!”, just like mom and dad do all the time!

“Baby” is another of her recent words that she uses a lot this month. I don’t know where she picked it up from, as I never taught her this specifically, but she will walk up to me, pull up my shirt, and put her hand flat on my baby-belly and repeat ’baby’ every time. Of course there are the moments of confusion where the calls her own tummy a ‘baby’ as well, or even Richard’s belly a ‘baby’, but she seems to have a fascination with petting and rubbing mom’s baby belly while repeating ‘baby’. It really is cute. She does recognize real babies as well – excitedly pointing out pictures on walls or magazines of babies, or referring to real babies as well with a point and exclamation of ‘baby’! It will be interesting to see what she thinks of her new baby brother or sister when it is born.

A few months back she was not sure what to think of the horses – they were interesting to observe, but up close a little intimidating. That all changed when aunt Sarah gave Hope her first horse ride on Cochise (with cousin Rachel to help hold her on). Hope was nothing but excited ear-to-ear smiles for the whole thing, and we have heard exclamations of “eee” (Hope’s version of horsie) ever since!

 
  
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 15 months finds our little girl just under 20 lbs in weight (19 3/4 lbs to be exact), but she more than makes up for her petite size with a big personality!

Hope is easily walking now, bravely exploring, becoming more and more vocal all the time, and in this photo she is having fun stepping on crunchy  leaves at the park.

She is becoming quite an independent little thinker, and an escape artist to boot – learning how to open gates to areas of the house we try to keep her out of.

I have a bag of “Taste of the Wild” brand dog food for Faith in the house. Faith’s dog-food bowl is in our bedroom, which is off limits to Hope unless we are with her in there. Her recent gate-opening skills have lead to escapes into the bedroom, and hunting forays for food. Apparently we don’t feed out daughter enough, and the ‘wild’ tastes pretty good.

Yum … chocolate crunchy cheerios!

 
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Fourteen months finds Hope happily motoring all over on her own little legs!

Walking, talking, pointing, waving, and even getting brave enough to do a little exploring on her own – she seems to be constantly growing, changing, and surprising us with something new every day.

Joanna had a birthday this month, and we took a trip to the zoo with Joanna and some of my other siblings too. Hope liked all the animals she got to see and point at, and had a blast walking around on her own. Once her little legs got tired she discovered what a view she got from dad’s shoulders – and happily rode up there for the rest of the time.

Aunt Joanna sure is a lot of fun, and she even lets Hope help her play the piano!

  
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“Doggie” is Hope’s favorite word this month. Did I mention that she said ‘doggie’ even before she said ‘mommy’ or ‘daddy’?

Hope is fascinated with dogs in general. She loves every dog she meets, small or large, and greets all with a pat on the head and an excited ‘doggie! Her favorite doggie is my Italian Greyhound Faith though. Hope plays with Faith, pets her, follows her around, hugs her, talks in her ear, and even takes naps with her. Faith seems to love every minute of it. I love watching them together.

Here are a couple cute photos from this month. Hope napping with Dad. The second is hope proudly hanging on to her loot – she has become quite a little pick-pocket and loves digging in pockets for anything she can pull out and lay claim to. And the third is Hope helping me take puppy pictures. 

   
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This picture has to be one of my favorites though – Hope and Faith napping in the sun together.

Hope is walking easily all over now, getting more and more vocal, and growing in lots of new teeth too. No wonder she’s tired in this picture – she does a lot of running around.

Mom and Dad are having to do quite a lot more running around as well to keep up with her!

According to him, I touch a computer and it breaks. In fact, he almost goes so far as to say that if I look at a computer is breaks.

All I can say is that it must run in my genetics, as Hope is working on her extra-special computer ‘touch’ already – yes – even at such a young age she is getting pretty good at it!

Richard was happily working away online today, while Hope was playing with some toys in the living room with us. All of a sudden Richard’s computer screen flickered … flashed … and went black! (and no, I hadn’t touched or even looked at it). 

He was still staring in confusion at his screen when I looked under the office table to find Hope sitting in front of his computer case with her finger on the power button … Click, click, click … and SUCH a grin on her face!

My little girl is taking after her mom already (insert evil grin here), Daddy better watch out!

Hope had a blast at the beach, playing with rocks and considering being brave enough to get some sand in between her toes. On the towel was save, but it took her a little time to work up the courage to play in the sand.

By the time we left though, she was a salty, sticky, sandy little mess – so I guess she must have enjoyed herself!

We went to the DelMar Racetrack one afternoon - Hope seemed to enjoy hanging out in the grandstand and pointing at the horses. Pointing is another of her new accomplishments. Every-time she sees something she is interested in she’ll happily point at it.

We got to visit Jesse and Lindsay for a couple days in San Francisco, and see the Monteray Bay Aquarium (but a camera malfunction lost all my aquarium photos ). It was a long trip but a nice break.

  
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Hope’s first birthday was (apparently, from the photo) a whole lot of fun!

She is just walking – taking a few wobbly steps at a time – and is ever so proud of herself every time she does.

While she wasn’t much impressed with wrapping paper,  she did get really excited over her new toys! Smiles from ear-to-ear, laughing, and lots of playing entertained us for the rest of the afternoon.

Hard to believe a whole year is gone by already. Our ‘little girl’ is growing up fast.

  
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Eating on her own has fascinated Hope this month. She does quite well at feeding herself. Getting the food from the tray into her mouth, onto all surrounding areas of her face, and into her ears and hair, and any other nearby surfaces.

Unfortunantly (for us), some of Hope’s favorite foods include cherries, strawberries, blueberries, and spaghetti …

A nice bath fixes many disasters!

This is one time when a picture most certainly is worth a thousand words … so enjoy the shots below!

  
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My sister Joy came back from the Philippines for a visit this month as well – it was really great to get to see her again. Our whole family met up in the mountains for an afternoon to hang out with her – here are a couple photos of Hope enjoying the outdoors. I don’t know how I missed getting a photo of her with Joy though :(

  
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I don’t know why everyone thinks I’m so fond of playing practical jokes on people … but Richard’s first words were “Are you serious”?  Shortly followed by “I don’t believe you”.

I guess the fact that I was not (yet) morning-sick in bed constantly made things seem a little more unbelievable to him. Once I managed to convince him I was serious, he was really excited too though. A great Father’s Day Surprise (and he liked the chocolate too)!