Once again, it was just the three of us and our cat, Xander. The day before Christmas it rained and we mostly stayed inside. Except when we ventured out to the Barnes&Noble to use my 25% off coupon (yeah, my pile of books waiting to be read is growing). And we stopped by the Blockbuster and rented a whole bunch of movies - Bourne Supremacy, The Simpsons, Ocean's Thirteen, and Pirates of the Carribean: At World's End. All - 2-day rentals. It's a good thing Blockbuster relaxed their late-fee policy somewhat - no way we could watch all these in 2 days.
On Christmas morning we opened Mark's gifts first. He got a big toy piggy bank from his great Grandma Phyllis. Now, her gift was carefully wrapped in pretty wrapping paper and had a little red bow on top. This being Mark's first X-mas, he thought that he was supposed to play with the wrapper and the bow and, happy and easy-going child that he is, he was only too happy to oblige. As a matter of fact, he was so distracted by the red bow, that it took us a while to get his attention to a gift our neighbors got him - a Build-A-Bear teddy bear. The teddy even came with its own birth certificate and that's how we found out that it was exactly 10 months younger than Mark. Still no name for the little bear, so we're open to suggestions. 
I got Chris a cezva for making Turkish coffee, an old-style coffee grinder that really powders the beans, and half a pound of Columbian Supremo. On a picture it looks like some funky stuff, but I assure you, it's perfectly harmless and totally 100% coffee related. And Chris got me 3 gifts. One of those he gave me last week 'cause he just couldn't keep a secret. It was a box of locally-made chocolates - yummy! The second gift was a book from my Amazon wish-list. It's only the end of day 2, but I'm almost done with the book - it's THAT GOOD! And finally, Chris got me a really nice yoga mat (I'm sitting on it in this picture) and it was my favorite color - blue and green. Now I just need to find time to do yoga. 
Xander got a gift of our love and also a new box. He loves all boxes and bags - gets into every single one of them. So this time he squeezed himself inside the Build-A-Bear house and looked out of its window on us opening our gifts. And what about our gift for Mark? Yes, we did get him a really nice gift. But we decided to save it until the New Year's since he now has a lot of new things anyway. So we're going to keep our gift a secret just a little while longer. But it's something really awesome!
Mark's been kinda cranky lately (can't tell by this picture). Might have something to do with him teething again. Yes, his 6th tooth pocked through 2 days ago. So, armed with all those new sharp teeth, Mark munches on Cheerios and apples and bananas and even hard cookies. He loves finger foods! Of course, most end up not in his mouth, but all over the floor and on his clothes. We have to change his outfits after each meal, seems like. And a bib provides very little protection against a spoon-full of Organic Pasta Primavera. 
Mazltov, Mark now travels around the house. He doesn't crawl nor does he walk. But he bounces on his butt in the funniest way. In the past few days he really perfected the technique. He's a Grease Lightning of butt-scooting. And because he travels so much now, he gets into all the places that were out of reach before - cat's water bowl, kitchen cabinets, file drawers, magazine files, you name it. So we did some urgent baby-proofing. He's also getting better at standing and taking little steps. And he tries to dance a bit. One of his interactive toys plays an alphabet song and Mark wiggles his butt and bounces on his feet when he hears it. Other times he moves his hands up and down along with the music. Oh, an a huge news today - he waved "bye-bye" to me when Chris was taking him on a walk! How cool is that?!!!
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