Greetings from TLF

TLF = Temporary Living Facility, which is just what it says: somewhere to live temporarily while coming or going. Includes paper-thin walls and neighbors who yell at their children late into the night.

Well, it's almost here. The long anticipated move to NC is right around the corner (we should be fully settled in time for Christmas). Our apartment has been emptied and scoured from top to bottom. I was worried about how Macy would react to having so many strangers in our house taking all of her stuff away, but she was at her most flirtatious. She wandered from room to room getting in everybody's way and telling them all about her stuff they were packing. She loved exploring through all the boxes and having a little more freedom to roam around the house sitting on everything, pushing things over, digging through cabinets, etc. Here's an awesome video of a new game she learned.

She is happily sitting on the bottom shelf of the bookcase looking distinctly proud of herself because she didn't have to pull everything off of the shelf to get there this time.


Striking a pose in the new coat Aunt Kaitlin bought her and that she finally got to wear because it is finally cold outside.


And here she is finding food at TLF (we were working on moving our leftover food from the cooler to the TLF fridge and she found cheese). This one is mostly so you can check out how well she's walking—shoes and all (also note how much better the lighting is in TLF than it was in our apartment; sad).

And Macy in a developmental nutshell for those who care:

Latest walking developments include

• going from sitting to standing on her own (without climbing up the couch or something first)
  
• crouching to pick something up (she could do this from the beginning but she has perfected it and never falls over now)
• mastering the art of walking in shoes of all things
• remaining steady on tile or linoleum with only socks on (still working on this one a bit)

Her new teeth (the top middle two) are getting longer every day and I think she's working on another, which will make it a grand total of five.

She still says "Hi!" constantly and to anyone who will listen, but not much else. She babbles incessantly in what sounds like sentences, but there are definitely no other intelligible words. Today we went out to dinner and there was a little girl about her age a few tables over. They kept yelling (pleasantly) to each other and it made everyone around us laugh. She's very social and, like I said, will talk and smile at anyone who will pay attention.

Well, that's about it for us. Hope everyone had a happy Thanksgiving! I finally succeeded at making an edible apple pie, so it was good for me.