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!

  

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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!


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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!

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Professional Pictures

Want to see the pictures my friend Penny took for our family? They are AWESOME. She posted them on her photography blog, so click here and check them out! Here's a sneak peak:

Can you handle that cuteness?!! Check out the link above to see the rest. It's worth your time, promise.



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Santa Time

We did the Santa thing. Granted, neither of the girls are old enough to understand let alone remember it, but we wanted the picture. So glad we did this so that we could remember them in this electronic age *note the sarcasm*. We had to pay $11 for wallet size pictures and when I tried to scan it to put it on this nice little blog, the quality was less than stellar. Not impressed. Of course, we couldn't take our own pictures either so I apologize for the quality of everything today.

My sister was working and was able to take her break so she could join us, which will have to be a tradition I think. It just made it more fun.

Also, I had my camera set to "program mode" and apparently nobody knows how to use that but me so my poor sister's pictures that she took are terrible. Not her fault.

All of that aside, it was fun! We got in line and didn't have to wait too long. Also, please note that we got to use our double stroller for the first time! I fiddled with it for a while earlier in the day to figure out how to put the car seat in it, and it was easier than I had thought it would be so I was pumped to actually see it in action. Hubby, on the other hand, is not so impressed with it. He said it is too big and awkward but he really has no idea how big and awkward double strollers can be so he doesn't know what he is talking about. Ours is pretty comfortable and easy to maneuver.

Enjoying her spot wayyyyy up front.

You can see the monstrosity of the stroller behind us. It's really not that bad. Also? Best family photo we have lately even with a blurry hubby.

Sure, the picture with my sister and my family is better than with me and my family. :) Oh well!

When it got to be time for us to have our turn, Josie was unsure. I had been pointing out what was happening with the people ahead of us and she had watched very closely with a lot of curiosity. She didn't cry (that's my girl!) but she did not want to sit on his lap. We did get her to sit on the arm rest, but we couldn't get a smile. It was a fun experience! Audrey slept through all of it and was oh so comfy in Santa's arms. (Who thinks it's normal to just give your infant to a stranger? Apparently everyone.)

Scanned in all of it's perfection.

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Canvas photo

Not too long ago, I won a giveaway on Callie's blog for a canvas print from Printcopia. I was pretty excited about this since I just had Audrey's newborn pictures taken (post to come with more about these soon) and we had some great shots to choose from.

I've never had a canvas print before, so it was even more exciting to push "Order" when I was done. The very best part though? How much I saved! Check it out.

Gotta love giveaways! Thanks Callie!

I'll hopefully report back with a picture of tthis canvas in it's new home once I receive it and get it hung up. Oh the possibilities for where it should be hung...

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Friday

**My mind is spinning with the news of the shooting at the Elementary school in Connecticut. How can this happen? What can be done to stop this in the future? How those parents must be feeling, I cannot imagine. Prayer is all I am left with and all I can do.**

This week was a good one. We're figuring out little by little how to go about our days with two kiddos and a crazy dog. This is the last week that we had meals delivered by our church friends (amazing, so appreciated). Next week will be me cooking, or at least attempting to, with an 18 month old running around my feet. Thankfully, I figured out that if we let her "help" she's not so whiny and difficult. It's actually pretty fun to talk her through what I'm doing and letting her help with little things.

I had my first (well, technically second since I did have one years ago when I was teaching while in school) piano recital and it went so well. I was nervous about it of course, but my students did awesome and my house is now super clean. I made a bunch of holiday cookies (my baking for the year) and have eaten way too many of them, but it got that itch to bake out of my system and I was happy to share them with these families that I am growing to love. That's one of the best parts of giving lessons - the relationships I get to build with both the students and their parents.

Today I am renewing my driver's license (oh so fun), getting a haircut, getting some holiday Starbucks, and bringing the kids to see Santa at the mall. We're waiting til Hubby is home so he can join us, but I have low expectations. We haven't talked about Santa at all so the only way Jo's been exposed to it is by other people. I'm not against Santa, but it's not a big deal to me like it is to others. I really want her to get that it's about Jesus, so she plays with her nativity scene and walks around pointing out Jesus everywhere. I'm loving that. But yes, we'll do the whole "sit on Santa's lap" thing and try our hardest to get a picture. Let it be noted, though, that we'd TOTALLY sit on Jesus' lap first if we could.

I just gave Jo a haircut. Myself. She just need the back trimmed, and it curls up so much I figured I could just trim it myself and it would hide the uneven cutting that I did. So far, I don't hate it. We'll see though how long that lasts before I'm dragging her in to my hairstylist.

I have some more photos of Audrey for you! I didn't post enough photos of Jo when she was so little and changing so much every day. Here you go.

Love this little half smile.

We've been getting more and more wake time with this girl! It's fun to watch her zone in on our faces now that her eyes are focusing more.

I can't just forget about Jo though. This is what I got from her when I took the camera away from her. She was not impressed.

We rocked matching socks the other day. Yep, I've become that mom. I'm okay with it.

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Little bits of Fun

We get creative around here when we are bored... Josie has fallen in love with hair accessories. She often comes up to me with a clip and says "haya? haya?" (hair) so I put it in her hair and she marches back to her room. Usually she goes back and forth a couple of times before finding something new to play with, but sometimes she just doesn't stop. See below.

I have wrapped a few presents around here. Just a few. I still have at least half left... but doesn't the tree look so much better when it's not so bare down there??

And last but not least: my aunt out in Portland sent us a gift for Audrey's birth and she always has quite the display.

For Audrey:

Here's everything she got. Adorable matching outfit with some fancy pancy socks.

BUT THEN there was this hidden layer underneath. Oh man - big sis Josie was not forgotten!

We haven't shown it to her yet, because we're waiting for the moment when she's bored and being mischievous, but I know she will love it. How do I know? Because you can't put a farm themed toy in front of her without her going bonkers. Yep, bonkers. 

Thank you Aunt Laurel!! You are always generous and we feel the love. :)

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Things to Remember

I went back through my blog posts I wrote when Josie was the age Audrey is now and was disappointed with the lack of detail I had. To avoid this, I'm just going to list a bunch of things here. I'm all about the random lists these days (to match my random thoughts I guess).

1. Audrey sleeps amazing. We thought that Josie was a good sleeper but in comparison she was terrible. Okay she wasn't terrible at all, but Audrey is a champ. She goes to bed for real at around 11:00 and doesn't get up until 5:30. I feed her a tiny bit, never a full meal, and she sleeps until 8:30 or when I wake her up. She does eat more in the morning to make up for it, but then will take a great 3 hour nap in the morning, have some wake time in the afternoon, and naps again for most of the rest of the day. 

2. Audrey is super hard to wake up. I can spend up to an hour trying to wake her and it does nothing. I give up trying to wake her to feed her! She has set her own schedule and there's nothing I can do about it. My body will just have to adjust to it, even though it is fighting to produce more milk than necessary and at the wrong times. Eventually I know it will get better.

3. She's almost three weeks old and still fitting in newborn clothing. Josie didn't ever really fit in newborn clothes so it's a little strange for me to see all of the 0-3 month clothes waiting to be worn and ignore them for now. She's so small to us.

4. She hardly ever cries. At bath time, she wakes up, looks around, makes a few small peeps, and goes with the flow. She really only loses it when I can't get there right away. Otherwise, she just makes a few "warning peeps" that she's awake and hungry and if I'm able to get there within 5 minutes (which is most of the time) she never cries at all.

5. Audrey has a bit of digestion issues. I can tell she's gassy based on her movements. She squirms a lot and grunts while sleeping, so I bought PediaCare Gas Relief drops and it seems to be helping. This being said, she never spits up. In fact, the one time she has, we both were surprised by it and I didn't even remember what to do! She had this look on her face like "what was that?!" and hasn't done it since. I'm sure this will change, but it has caught me off guard. 

6. She has had some terrible baby acne (way more than Josie did). It started on her forehead and moved it's way down her whole face. It's clearing up a bunch, but she looks so splotchy right now. It comes out a lot more when the flash goes off in pictures and in the natural sunlight, but otherwise you hardly notice it. She's still super cute. :)

7. She can be held constantly (loves to cuddle) or set down for long periods of time and doesn't fuss about it. Amazing. Enough said.

8. She's such a blessing to us. She's used to her sister screaming and doesn't even react when there is chaos around her. Josie likes to look at her and sometimes will give her kisses. I can't wait to watch their relationship grow.

9. At her two week appointment, we learned that she hasn't grown in length much but now weights 8 lbs 15 oz (was 8 lb 6 oz at birth). You can definitely tell by looking at her that she has grown a lot! No more squishy face and she doesn't look like a fragile newborn. 

10. Girlfriend has long skinny feet. They are just like her daddy's and look so different than mine and Jo's. I could just stare at her hands and feet all day... so sweet.

That's enough for now. I'll probably do another post like this with more details later.

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