Baby Christmas! Juliette at 4 months

Christmas-ing with a baby did NOT disappoint. 

I've previously stated that every baby hat should be required to include ears, because little babies who look like bears or cats are the unequivocal best, but I may need to amend that statement to allow for baby-sized Santa hats, which clearly are also the best.

Juliette is too little to "get" Christmas, obviously, but she still had a lot of fun with her new presents. The best one was actually a hand me down we've had for quite some time but she was too little to use until now - a jumpy exersaucer we brought out Christmas morning as somewhat of a coincidence. But holy cow we could not have given her a better present - she is IN LOVE with this thing. She already wants to be standing at all times, and this gives her the autonomy to do so and ALSO jump around, and turn in any direction she pleases - she is in heaven.

She's in a really fantastic phase right now where she is learning things so quickly you can actually SEE her figure them out. It's so fun. Her current favorite thing to do is blow raspberries - my parents got her started on it when they were down for Thanksgiving, and she has been devotedly practicing ever since. It's often the first thing she does upon waking up (after a big good morning smile) and I've heard her practicing them alone in the dark, in her crib. All that practice is paying off:

She's currently EBF, but we got the OK from the pediatrician to start her on solids if we want. I'll probably wait until ~5 months since she seems fine with the current set up, but she has started grabbing for anything we're putting in our mouths:

Caviar and beer... girlfriend has good taste ;-)

Of course, she wants to put EVERYTHING in her mouth, so I'm not sure how much credence we can give to her apparent interest in human food.

She is a nearly universally happy, cheerful baby (especially now that she SLEEPS! I know it's not for everyone but holy crap I want to marry Dr. Ferber.. more on that in another post, hopefully) - she's impressively laid back and easygoing. She doesn't mind being held by complete strangers, she rolls with the punches when her routine is changed, and overall she is just a really pleasant little person.