Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, people!

I hope everyone's had a wonderful Christmas and New Year! Sam's first holiday season was so exciting, but started out with a big BANG - if you'll pardon the pun here:

Christmas Eve she crawled to the edge of our king bed and fell off (which stands about 3 feet high) FACE FIRST and her first bloody nose came to be. I felt so horrible all day long, as this could have been prevented. Everyone says it's not the last and I know this and dread it but oh well - such is life in the fast lane as a kiddy! She still has a faint blue and yellow mark across the bridge of her nose. Thank God she didn't break it - we were both afraid we'd spend our night at CHEO.

Sam almost stayed up for the New Year but fell asleep at 11pm. I even shed a couple of tears, just thinking back on the year and how it went by so fast and now we have this amazing little girl. I can't keep up with the milestones lately. This is what she's accomplished in the past month:

• knows how to give kisses - big open wet ones!!!!
• knows words like Dada, Mama (doesn't say it yet), cookie, Max, jump and peek-a-boo (give her a blanket or she'll grab one and suddenly puts it over her own head and want to play with you!)
• pulls herself up furniture, walks around it, shifts herself between it and even lets go to stand by herself for a couple of seconds.
• climbs stairs like crazy
• recognizes tunes on her playtime CD...Particularly loves "Six Little Ducks" (I'll sing it to cheer her up - it's a miracle song)
• laughs at her Baby Einstein videos and recognizes their characters.
• rolls a ball to you if you sit on the floor with legs apart.
• drops ball into her toy with holes and watches it spiral to the bottom..picks it up and repeats it over and over.
• you really have to keep any kind of paper product away from her or she'll consume it in a split second! She likes toilet paper rolls and books in particular.

I'm hoping to stick with a couple of goals for this year. I'd rather just do them than talk about them. Except for one, which is getting back on track with my fitness and healthy eating. Wayne and I have always eaten fairly well anyway, but after this Christmas - EESH! The CHOCOLATE I CONSUMED WAS RIDICULOUS!!! not to mention delicious! LOL! My best friend Tracy wants to follow through with the same goal. She bought pedometers for both of us to track our daily steps. The minimum is supposed to be 10,000 per day so let's see how we can make this. Will sometimes have to end up on the treadmill for the rest! We've agreed to blog our steps each day. I'm hoping I can do this, as it's challenging just to sit at the computer for a moment with Sam around. Speaking of....she's having a fit right now so I'll blog ya later.

Heidi