The following post was actually written on the evening of December 1, 2008:

The weather is finally cooling down.  Yay!  Time to bust out the warm clothes.  And, of course, with that cold weather is the knowledge that Christmas is coming.  This is my very favorite time of the year-always has been; always will be.  There are so many reasons why (I will inevitably bore you with an entire post detailing a few), but there is one that stands out this year.

I love the fact that I will be spending the holidays this year with my family, which grew two adorable members this past year-our nephew Jack, and our precious daughter, Cate.  Cate is going to make Christmas better simply by being here.  She's made our family complete, and she brightens the world around her.  Add to that the fact that she already has way too much cuteness and personality for her own good, and we could not love her any more than we already do!  Here are a few updates on our little monster:

- She is smiling more, though we're not entirely sure it's ever intentional.

- She loves music.  She's definitely a Phillips.

- Her eyes morph from blue to green, and sometimes, they even look brown.  Of course, I'm hoping they'll be brown to match Nate and I, but how cool would it be if they just continued to change for the rest of her life?

- She has a little lion stuffed toy thingie (that's sincerely the only way I can describe it) that she enjoys.  She stares at it and makes funny noises.  If you saw this thing, you'd stare at it and make funny noises, too.

To add to the holiday cheer, if you would like to see some of our family Christmas pictures, click here.