Early December update

We are deep in the throes of Christmas around here. Maggie wrote her letter to Santa and we mailed it in the giant Santa mailbox at Macy's. She was pretty excited about that. Here she is giving a thumbs up to her Santa letter.I don't know if you can read the letter so I'll type out what she wrote:
"Dear Santa,
Hi, I'm Maggie. I wanted to tell you that I have been a very good girl this year. Can I please have bride and groom barbies, some wedgits, more art project things, smelling stickers (orange, apple, and other fruits), lip gloss, and lipstick? Thank you and please have a wonderful Christmas this year.
Love,
Maggie"

If I could write a follow-up letter to Santa it would say:
"Dear Santa,
Yes, Maggie has been a very good girl this year. Please ignore her request for Barbies, or ANY dolls for that matter. Her dolls have taken over our house.
Enjoy the cookies we'll be leaving out for you and make sure your reindeer eat our reindeer food.
Love,
Courtney"

We had my dad and brother, Spencer, over for dinner two nights ago and my dad mentioned something and said it was cheap. Maggie bolted upright and said, "MOM! You LOVE cheap things!!!!!" We cracked up - and she's sort-of right. I LOVE a good deal!

Maggie said something else funny the other day, but I don't know if it'll come across as hilarious in writing. She walked up to me and Grant and said, "I realized that this shoe was different from that shoe and I said to myself, 'That's not right!'" It just cracked us up to hear this little 4-year-old say, "I said to myself"!

Here's our other little sweetie, sleeping in the sling on a walk a few weeks ago on a really nice day.
We had another appointment with our beloved geneticist, Dr. Summar, this week. We thought it would be our last appointment with him before he moved to DC but while we were there he said he would be here the second week of January and would we mind coming back in then so he could see us one last time? We said, "OF COURSE!" Maggie and I made some homemade toffee for him, Finn's nutritionist, and his nurse practitioner, all of whom we just adore. At this last appointment Dr. Summar had someone shadowing him (maybe a med student? or maybe an undergrad?) and when he walked into the exam room he told this young woman to get comfortable. He said, "This family and I are really close so we always talk for a while." I just thought that was the sweetest thing to say! As far as Finn's health goes, his developmental and neurological exams show that he's developing normally and his head circumference has increased, which means that his brain is growing (yay, brain!). Unfortunately he hasn't gained any weight or grown lengthwise for the last two months so they're going to be keeping a close eye on that. Meanwhile I'm trying to feed him as much as he will eat and trying not to freak out about it. His team definitely wasn't freaked out but it's hard for me not to feel anxious. He is very, very happy most of the time so obviously he's not starving or he'd be a lot more fussy. Also, he's had a cold for the better part of the last two months so they suspect that contributed to suppressing his appetite.

He's getting really, really close to crawling and loves to get up on his hands and knees and rock back and forth. His teeth also seem to be so close to coming in. They haven't broken through the gums yet but I can see them right there and they're really red. He LOVES giving lots of kisses and hugs (although to the untrained eye his kisses may look like he's trying to suck on our faces).

I'll leave you with a funny Maggie photo. Do you remember the elf costume I made her last year? Well, it still fits but is WAY shorter and she puts it on at least once a day. We went to a party a few weeks ago and she said, "I want to be fancy at this party. I better wear my elf hat." Here she is wearing the elf hat and doing her "how's my style?" pose: