Bye Bye Aunt Laura

Aunt Laura's holiday break came to an end last week, and she returned to New York. We enjoyed every moment we had with her. Ernie loved it on the days she could wake him up with us, and one of his favorite Laura games was pretending to give her food that she would pretend to eat. The video cuts off Ern's laugh because we ran out of memory (bad parents) but trust me, he could do this for hours.

We'll see Laura again in May!

Ernie's Endorsement of the Week: Crawling!

It happened one morning. Ernie was rocking on all fours like we usually find him in the morning. This time we put his blue puppy on the other end of the crib, and he decided to go for it. So now he can crawl!
We are extremely fortunate that he does not yet realize he can crawl on non-carpeted surfaces.

Ernie's Endorsement of the Week: Clapping!

It happened out of nowhere last night. Ernie got out of his bath, got wrapped up in his towel, and then the overwhelming urge to wriggle his arms out of his towel contraints overcame him. After some meniacal hand wringing to threaten the baby we refer to as "the baby in the mirror" then came . . . IMPACT! Clapclapclapclapclapclapclapclapclapclapclapclapclapclapclap!
We're so excited about it, guess what we're doing right now!?!
Maybe a vid update later. We'll see if we can snag one from Ernie. He's awful busy lately.
UPDATE! Here's a video. Jeremy was trying to finally get a vid of Ern doing his heavy-snorting thing. That's Jeremy trying to induce it in the beginning, then he fools us and claps instead.

Ernie's Endorsement of the Week: Being Thiiiiiiiis Close to Crawling!

This morning Ernie went from sitting to crawl position completely unassisted. Mom sat him down on the reading room rug, went to make his breakfast, and then caught him in a squat/all-fours before collapsing onto his tummy. Last night he wasn't able to settle his body down for all the rocking on all fours he wanted to do at 2 a.m. We're close, folks. Really close. We may yet crawl to Aunt Laura before she leaves for New York.
Sorry no pictures, but we were totally surprised by it. Instead, here's a couple of recent videos: one of Ernie enjoying little orange slices and one playing with Dad and stopping to cluck his tongue at the camera. (This is apparently a Hall trait: they all cluck at babies Mom noticed, and Ernie delighted in it so much he learned to cluck back!)

Holiday Rundown

Pictures aren't loaded yet, folks (sorry!) but we wanted to give a summation of Ernie's holiday break. Well, it wasn't a break for him because he's a baby, but you know what we mean. He spent Christmas Eve at the Mohr home and had a wonderful time with his grandparents, Aunt Laura, and Uncle Tim. Grandpa Darrell got an electric train to ride around the Christmas tree, and a car will be added each year until Ernie is four. Ernie absolutely loved it! Here's a pic from Grandma and Grandpa's camera:

He got some great stuff from the family, including stacking toys from Uncle Darren and Aunt Liz, some cool magnet toys from Aunt Laura and Uncle Tim, a walker and shape sorter from Grandpa Darrell and Grandma Chris, and some fun bathtime toys from Elmer the Elf (long story).

Christmas morning was at home. He loves his xylophone/keyboard from "Santa" and his books from Mom and Dad, one about tractors and the hilarious "That's Not My Snowman."

Then it was off to the Hall household for Christmas. He woke up with a snotty nose on Christmas morning, and kicked off a six day long cold. Luckily, there were plenty of people at Grandpa Denie and Grandma Bonnie's house to wipe his nose on. Highlights from his Hall stash include an electronic phone that looks like the real thing (with more colors and lights, natch) that keeps him from hanging up on our real callers as often, alphabet blocks from Aunts and Uncles as well as The Giving Tree (Dad's favorite book as a child), and a Brainy Baby left brain toy.

New Year's Eve he spent in bed. He never stirred, despite our annual party, and rose at 7 a.m. as the most alert and non-hungover person in the house.

Happy New Year all you Ernventure readers.