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Merry Christmas!

We are celebrating the joyous arrival of Lucy Janina Anderson – our cousin Megan and her husband Pat’s baby girl who was born on Christmas Eve morning! Maeve is so excited about her new playmate and we parents can dream together of all the fun they will have. Some pictures of this precious addition to our family are in the gallery. We also are rejoicing in the surprise arrival of our cousin Anne from Colorado…and still stunned that we pulled it off!

We are thinking about all our loved ones who are not with us this Christmas and wishing all of you the best that the holidays and the new year will bring!

With love,
The Altmans

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Christmas prep

We are ready…bring on the family and festivities! Well, we’ll be more ready tomorrow as the first wave arrives. Maeve and I stayed in today nursing our colds. I consider ourselves really fortunate that Maeve is going to be 27 months old this week and this is her first major cold – and by that I mean just a heavy cough with congestion and a slight fever. She is basically herself though with just a little less energy this morning (no complaints here about the sleeping in or the extra snuggling). After nap I asked her if she felt sick and she said “No, feel happy,” so I think she’s on the mend!

We had a busy and fun weekend last weekend, with a friend’s birthday party at Pump-it-Up (a big indoor play place filled with inflatables like bouncy houses and slides), then Mommy had some much-needed girl time with April, and Karen, Mike and Sierra joined us for a visit on Sunday! In between all that, Mommy also go to enjoy tea at the Drake for her friend Georgia’s birthday – it was so festive and she even made a new friend.

We’ve been doing lots of reading with Maeve and enjoyed going to story time at the library on Monday. We checked out Clifford and Thomas the Train books after reading some Christmas stories and singing carols. Maeve is pointing out the letters in her books and lining up the magnets on the fridge, saying “that spells” something. Usually she says something random – “W-N-P-Q-D, that spells Mommy,” but she has correctly identified her name, dog and cat. She really surprised Daddy with “P-A-N-D-A, that spells Panda” the other night when they were reading her Panda the Train Engineer book! Her new interest in the show Super Why shows lots of letters and spells out words, so I think that is helping too.

We got lots more snow yesterday and there is more coming – hopefully we’ll be feeling better to go out and play in it this weekend. We are wishing safe and happy holiday travels to all, and can’t wait to see many of you in the next couple of weeks. The Baby A. and Christmas excitement are building, so we can’t wait to welcome the next events!

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The snow has arrived…

It snowed lots in Snowmass and now the snow has arrived in Chicago as well! Maeve is quite taken with it this year and loves to tromp around in her boots and pick up snow to eat and throw. We had a wonderful trip to Colorado with highlights including the aforementioned snow that arrived on Thanksgiving night, doing a “Guess Baby A.’s arrival date” pool, a treehouse fort for Maeve to climb in, rides on the Gondola, the hot tub at our perfectly amazing condo, our night out with the cousins to play pool in Aspen, good local beers and some truly remarkable meals.

Maeve’s first words as we stepped out of the Aspen airport were “I love mountains!” so that set quite a positive tone. Her main activity at the condo involved Dora stickers – putting them on every surface (or person) she could find. Our main activities were taking pictures (posted in the gallery), drinking, working on a puzzle and playing cards. Maeve didn’t eat much during the trip, but was maybe the only one to enjoy the Thanksgiving cookies that were expertly decorated by Aunt Peggy and Nanna. Maeve was perfect on the flights and even laid down to nap in my lap on the way home. All in all, it was a grand vacation and we hope to return – to ski next time!

Since our return, I have been busily organizing our home and Maeve’s winter class schedule which will include The Little Gym, music (the one constant), mixed media-painting, and gymnastics. We might do another yoga class too, either at Bloom or the Y. We are preparing for family visits during the holidays, and need to get our tree this weekend… In addition to some fun playdates this week, we have some holiday parties and another birthday party to look forward to as well! All of this is sure to get us into the Christmas spirit…