Christmas.

I've been less than motivated for this post. There are just SO MANY pictures and I haven't felt like a "review" post at all. So I"ll let the pictures do the talking and comment here and there. Feel free to skip this post as it is mostly just for my own memory.

We went to the farm (Mike's aunt's home) for Christmas leaving on Sunday after church. After a mad dash around the house to pack (is it ever not a mad dash with two kids and a dog?) we finally got on the road and the girls were perfect for the whole drive. My view of each of them with the mirrors showed two babes sleeping peacefully the whole 2.5 hour trip. 

Once we got there, we had enough time to just hang out and visit, and aunt Ardell got to meet Audrey.

The next day (Christmas Eve), I dressed the girls up in matching outfits but wasn't able to get a decent picture. I probably won't get a good one of these two together for a couple of years by the looks of it.

It was below 0 (or at least felt like it) for the whole trip so we spent almost all of our time inside. Our antsy 1.5 year old needed some fresh air so she got to go on a tractor ride with aunt Ardell. Lucky lady! She seemed to like it!

waiting for Ardell to come get her

Aunt Elizabeth and Uncle Greg (hubby's sister and bro-in-law)

hubby, Grandma and Audrey, Grandpa

 I won't lie - you will notice that he's holding a Kindle... I also had a tablet and there was another Kindle floating around. Let's just say that a lot of Sudoku was played this weekend.

We tried to recreate a picture from a couple of years ago by putting on a scarf on good old Buckley (he is still around, I promise! Just not getting the photo attention he used to)

The kids got one present early from Grandma and Grandpa. First, Audrey was given her new stuffed toys. When Josie saw this, she immediately wanted the toys, so Grandma tried to distract her by giving her the new horse stuffed animal. Josie thought we were trying to trick her and therefore wanted nothing to do with this horse. It was so funny. Eventually we showed her Audrey's horse (same thing, different color), and Josie was fine with that one, so we ended up just switching the girls' horses and everyone was happy. Who would have guessed that a black horse could cause so much chaos?

Audrey with her horse once everything settled down

I wanted at least one picture of me with each of my girls 

It was so fun to dress the girls up for Christmas Eve church. I really think that kid's all dressed fancy is the cutest thing and take every opportunity to do it!

Audrey, 5 weeks old

Dean, (cousin) 6 months old

Josie, 18 months old

After church, we took some family photos.

Please look at baby Dean's face!

I did it!  A picture with each girl. :)

After church, we opened presents! It was so fun, of course, because Josie was so into it. I love looking at things through her eyes and it was so fun to see her excitement and wonder at what in the world we were doing. She ended up helping almost everyone unwrap presents and was generally just impressed with everything.

Watching Daddy open his gift from the girls - slippers

Can you stand how cute she looks? The tigger slippers absolutely made her day. She loved wearing them and has them on almost all of the time. We are a Pooh-loving family (extended family, even!)

Opening the gift we gave Dean - a mini toolset! If hubby can have his way, Dean will be a contractor just like his uncle ;)

Hubby's other gift, a waffle maker (he loves him some waffles). To be fair, he also got to go pick out a new pair of cowboy boots... so his gift wasn't that lame.

And what did I get? You won't believe it. Hubby got me autostart for our new vehicle!! The best part is that he had it installed weeks earlier and I almost figured it out. There was a blue light that blinked inside after it was installed, and I noticed and asked hubby about it. He made up some story and I didn't say much so he just assumed that I was onto him. He needn't have worried, though. I had NO clue.

His parents also got us a Roomba. This.thing.is.awesome. It's basically a robot vacuum that goes around the house randomly and vacuums whenever we program it to. No more lugging that old vacuum up and down the stairs for this girl! It fit well underneath beds and couches and has sensors so it won't damage anything or fall down the stairs. AWESOME. My mother-in-law and her sister each have one too so they knew exactly how much we'd love it.

The next morning (Christmas morning), we did the stockings thing. No fireplace or hooks meant we needed to be creative, so we used the back of the dining room chairs.

Josie was not interested in them at all, so we really had to entice her to check them out. I won't lie and say they were the most awesome stuffed stockings ever, but we have to start the tradition somehow, right? Each girl got a Disney movie and a few other little things to fill it up.

We spent most of Christmas day just enjoying our new gifts and each other's company. Eventually hubby's grandparents from his dad's side joined us (they only live a half hour away) and we had the big supper meal (Lamb this year). It wasn't too bad, either! I don't remember eating lamb before, so I was a little nervous about it.

Josie watching herself on tv (we hooked up the video camera and watched some pictures/videos from the year)

Pretty sure the boys had more fun playing with the kids' new toys than the kids did!

I think this was the best trip to the farm we've had yet. Josie was so fun, stayed out of trouble, and kept us busy, while Audrey was sweet and slept in someone's arms almost the entire time.


Want to leave a comment? Click on the title of this post and scroll to the bottom. You'll see the comment section there. Can't wait to read what you have to say!

Remember Christmas?

I have a ton of updating to do regarding Christmas, and it may get a little overwhelming around here. I'm already overwhelmed just thinking about it! 

If you remember, we went and took pictures with Santa a couple of weeks ago and had pretty decent success. I was not, however, impressed with the price of the pictures, but enough about that. 

Our city has a park that puts on "Santa's Village" every year, and I had a good friend in town that wanted some quality time with me and the girls, so we all got together and went to check it out. Between three adults, we were able to wrangle Josie and Audrey without too much difficulty.

Let me tell you, we were so impressed with this place! They take donations of money and food instead of charging an entry fee, so we brought a few cans of food and didn't have to pay a ridiculous amount. 

The group (minus Jerri, our friend/photographer of the moment)

A little tour:

Arts and Crafts had their own building too.

There were trains, letters to Santa, elf meet and greets, and a place for donations.

Two reindeer were hanging out ready to meet the kids.

Josie LOVED the trains. She could have probably watched for hours.

And then she met Santa again. OH FUNNY. This time she knew what was going on and was not having it. I set her down, we got the picture in about 2 seconds, and snatched her up again! She was a bit dramatic if you ask me.

Then we met Mrs Clause, who helped us decorate cookies and instructed us to write letters to Santa 

I assure you, Audrey was with us and seemed to enjoy it, even though she slept through it all!

  

We got a random person to take a group picture. We'll be back next year!

  

Want to leave a comment? Click on the title of this post and scroll to the bottom. You'll see the comment section there. Can't wait to read what you have to say!

Merry Christmas!

Our Christmas card for all of you virtual friends. Merry Christmas! 

Remember the reason for the season (sorry, I couldn't help myself, I love that catchy little phrase) - celebrate Jesus today!


Want to leave a comment? Click on the title of this post and scroll to the bottom. You'll see the comment section there. Can't wait to read what you have to say!

Audrey Joy - One Month

Audrey turned one month old on the 18th of December. Whoa that month seemed to fly by! 

After a terrible first two weeks of breast feeding, we got on the same page and have had no problems at all. By the rate she's growing, I know she's getting plenty of food and she seems happy. Just this week, I noticed that she's starting to outgrow her newborn clothes so I'm excited to start having her wear all of her new 0-3 month clothes. They've been staring at me in the closet this whole time. 

She definitely doesn't look like a newborn anymore! It's crazy how much they change right away. I have the fabric I used with Josie for her monthly pictures, so I will try each month to get as close to a similar picture as I can just to see the differences between them. 

Audrey, One Month

 We're finally getting more wake time with Audrey. We've settled into a good routine that vaguely looks like this each day:

Wake up around 8:30, bath, wait for mom to get Josie breakfast, eat, hang out til nap time.

Nap time usually from 10:00-1:00 (sometimes a little later), eat, stay wide awake until around 3:30 or 4:00, sleep hard, nap time.

Nap time usually from 4:00-7:00, eat, stay wide awake again until 10:00, eat/dream feed, bed time.

Her nights are great! She either wake up once at 2:30 and again at 5:30 (she often skips the 2:30 one though) and is only awake for about 10-15 minutes total. We had a few hiccups in the beginning with falling back asleep restfully, but she's got that down now. No more "false alarms" where she acts asleep but then cries out once we are in bed ready to sleep ourselves. Glad that's done.

She does awesome with tummy time. I can't believe how tolerant she is when it comes to being left face down on a rug or blanket with hardly any neck control. She's gotten pretty good though. I will have to start watching for her to roll over (no more just trusting she won't move!).

We've only had a couple incidents with Josie being too aggressive around her sister. It's never intentional; she's just stronger than she thinks and throws things too often. Usually it's a book she's bringing to me with too much excitement. Only once has she actually made Audrey cry. It was no big deal but I'm hoping that seeing Audrey cry out helped Josie see how hard she was throwing down the book! Nothing I say makes a difference. Girl likes to read I guess.

It took a solid three weeks for her to figure out how to really cry. She was so quiet right away and just made little peeps here and there. Now she lets me know much louder what she thinks, but she's pretty easy to calm down and we hardly ever have to resort to the "shushing" sound that we had to do with Josie. (Shushing as loud as we can in her ear to act as white noise to calm her down. Worked awesome for her). I've done it with Audrey a few times and it does help, but most of the time it's not needed.

She loves to be held. Baby wearing happens a lot more this time around and I'm so thankful for my Moby wrap. (I have a cloth that is the right length but not actually a Moby wrap, and just recently got an actual Moby wrap. They both work great.) She falls asleep best laying on my chest (not daddy's, just mine) and loves to be swaddled up nice and tight. Since I have the time, I am fine with holding her for part of her naps. I mix it up enough that she doesn't rely on it, but we both really enjoy a good cuddle.

Here are some outtakes to our photo shoot. I really wanted a picture that was similar to Josie's, so even though some of these were good, they didn't make the final cut. Let's not talk about how poor quality they are or how the lighting is completely different than Jo's pictures.

And lastly, here is a side by side shot of the girls at one month old. What do you think? We hear that they look identical and that they look nothing the same, so weigh in with your opinion!

Pretty good first month if I do say so myself!

Want to leave a comment? Click on the title of this post and scroll to the bottom. You'll see the comment section there. Can't wait to read what you have to say!