Just the right size

Reed is now the right size to fit the bill of "terrible two". Nora is now the right size to sleep through the night!

Reed has become just the right size to now to get to light switches and door handles. He has learned how to get all of our doors open now. He has been letting himself out of his room when he pleases which is starting to cause some problems. He has been coming into our room in the middle of the night almost every night for a week. He also lets himself out in the morning, a tad too early if you ask me. He also will leave his room after his nap, even when I'm not ready for him to get up. I don't want to tell him that he can't leave cause if there is a problem, I want him to feel like he can come get me. I also hesitate to tell him that he can only get up in the morning when it's light outside cause in the summer it gets light pretty early. It might also mess him up with the nap time during the day. I've considered locking the door overnight so he can't get out at all but that seems kinda unsafe if there is truly a problem. Suggestions?

Anyway, he can also get to light switches. I will often walk in a room with the fan, overhead light and anything else connected to a switch on. Our fireplace is also on a switch and that will be on too. This is also a double edge sword cause it's nice that he can do it himself, however, he will often turn off lights when I want them on or turn things on when I prefer them to be off. I wonder if my power bill will be going up soon...

In this picture, he had unlocked and was in the process of opening the door to let London out. Though it's nice that he can now do that task to help our busy hands, we have to put another lock up high on the door to prevent an escape!

He is also testing quite a few of our boundaries. Ok, he is testing ALL of our boundaries. He has become a bit demanding and I'm sure that is due to a variety of things. I think the biggest thing is that since Nora has been born, there have been lots and lots of visitors and attention from me, Fogg and my mom all being around. Now that Fogg has gone back to work, mom has moved to a new place and gone back to work, it's just me around to entertain him and I can't always do that with a baby and regular old housework. Not sure what it's going to be like when I go back to work! I really don't want to raise a brat, but sometimes Reed gets a bit that way. I'm sure it's a little bit of me not really doing a great job parenting and a little bit due to his age. Doesn't every kid test boundaries to see where they are? The past few days I've been a little bit frustrated and that will cause me to be a little bit short and not quite as patient as I should be to help him through a tough patch. The biggest issues we've been having with Reed is that he will absolutely destroy things, tear into his bucket of blocks or cars and dump them all over. Or want to "help" but it just takes longer and really is destructive. Reed will repeat the same thing over and over which can be a bit grating. Anyway, it's just a challenging time for me to deal with him. I'm trying my best to be a good parent, set boundaries and stick with them yet still enjoy this very short time. Reed is still a super sweet kid and will always give us hugs and kisses and has recently told us that he loves us - which we love! Anyway, today I had to drink my tea from my "Best Mom" mug to convince myself of it.

On a different note, Nora has been sleeping through the night for almost a week. I'm guessing she is around 12 pounds which seems to be the magic 'sleep through the night' weight. She'll do an evening feeding around 9:30 or 10 then sleep until 5:30am. She has also been really happy and smiling a lot. So I decided to test it all and have some dairy yesterday. Well, obviously that is the problem. She screamed for a good hour or so last night then had a hard time getting to sleep. And then she woke up at 3am - bummer. So, I think officially I'm off dairy until further notice. I'll try again in a month or so and see if she has improved. Hopefully she'll get back on her sleeping through the night gig tonight!

Well, that's it for now~

Ski Pics

Forgot to add these in the last post, here is Reed skiing on Christmas day.

Celebrations

I had a hard time getting into the Christmas spirit this year. It just snuck up on me and mostly cause we had a lack of snow, I didn't feel very Christmas-y. Despite all that, we had a great Christmas. On Christmas eve we went up to Snowbasin for the annual Eve celebration. Typically I'm a part of it, skiing in the torchlight parade. But this year, I got to be an observer and participant on the other side of it all. Reed loved watching Santa arrive in the snowcat, light the tree and watch the torchlight parade and fireworks. It was a blast for me to watch the amazement and happiness in his face of it all. He wanted to see Santa but he was pretty mobbed when he arrived. Then we watched Daddy, Lala and Nik ski in the torchlight parade. He kept waving at Daddy coming down the hill. Then we got to enjoy the fireworks. Reed really thought that was great.



Next we headed over to the Branch's for our new tradition of having Christmas Eve snacks and fun times. Reed loved running around having far too much candy.
Christmas morning we went skiing as we have for the past 5 or so years. Reed did 5 or so runs on little cat and did a great job. He was skiing all by himself by the last few! We couldn't be more proud. I even got to do one run (yes, only one :(). We had a yummy lunch then headed home for naps and getting dinner ready. James and Michelle and Nik joined us this year. While we finished up prep for dinner, James and Reed had a great time making a gingerbread lighthouse. Fogg's cousin sent it to us and James was so excited cause he has always wanted to do one and we were happy to let him. Reed loved putting things on it. They were both very proud of the final product.






After dinner we opened gifts in record time. I was proud of Reed for waiting so long to open them. He tore through them all in about 15 minutes then had a fun time helping everyone else open theirs. We had a fairly low key Christmas in that we didn't have a ton of presents. It was great to be so minimal. We will strive every year to be even more minimal than the year before.

We rounded out the night by just hanging out with our friends and enjoying their company. Nora's gift to me was sleeping through the night for the 3 night in a row! Well, at least till 5:30. And she went to bed so easily (also a great gift).

Cheers~

Getting ready for Christmas

Here is Nora in an outfit from Lala that I love. Look at her big smiles!

We had a Christmas party for our mom's group that I attend. We had yummy food that Elaine made for us and Ramesh read the kids a story after we sang some Christmas carols. Here is Reed flirting with Sadie Kappes. He likes the older women apparently.

Reed didn't want me to take his picture.

Reading the Christmas story.

I think this picture is funny cause Reed is yawning and Nora is crying. Such is my life...

On Friday night, we went to our church Christmas Eve Service, though it was actually Eve Eve. Anyway, we got all dressed up and here is our cute little family.

Fun things tonight and tomorrow, update you later!

A busy weekend

We had a very busy weekend, one thing after another. First, Friday night we had some friends over for dinner and had a great time hanging out. Saturday morning, I went to an exercise class then we headed up to Snowbasin for a little skiing with Reed and to visit Santa.

Each year, we go and visit a ski instructor who looks a lot like Santa and dresses up every year, named Tim. I have a picture of Reed every year with Santa Tim. This year, Reed is really into Santa and was really excited to see him. He completely clammed up though when Tim came near and held him. At least this year he allowed Tim to hold him, last year he was a bit frightened of him. As soon as we walked away, Reed kept talking about 'my Santa'. We haven't pushed the whole Santa thing but he sure does love him. In fact, we've had a lot of discussions with each other and with our friends about how to deal with Santa. We really want Reed to understand the real reason for Christmas - Jesus. But Santa is everywhere so we have to deal with it some how. We decided that we would always be honest with him about Santa and his history which is Saint Nicholas - a real guy who would give toys out at the beginning of December and how he became something that kids believe in but what we are really celebrating is the birth of Christ. I really want him to understand that its about giving, not receiving. We will be giving away some of his toys to needy kids this week. I want him to think about "Christmas" every day during the year, not just in the month of December. Anyway, I still want him to enjoy the events and traditions of Christmas like visiting Santa - especially a skiing Santa!




Later on Saturday, we went to Hazel's birthday party. Hazel has generously given Nora all of her old clothes so I'm set for at least 2 years with cute girl clothes! Hazel's mom, Marit, wanted to hold Nora and immediately Hazel wanted to hold her too. She did great and wanted to hold her a long time.

Later Saturday we went to an Ugly Christmas Sweater party. I'm bummed with didn't take any pictures of the ugly sweaters we had, it was classic and a blast. We were all getting tired by the end of the day and we burned out a little earlier than usual.

Sunday morning we had breakfast then headed to church. After church we went to some friends of ours house. I taught them skiing for the past few years and we have become friends. They bought a beautiful new home in Huntsville and we went to check it out. It was seriously gorgeous and we would love to live there (in our dreams of lots of money anyway...).

Then it was home for a few hours before we went to our friends, the Duran's, for dinner. They have two boys - Ashton (5) and Carden (3 1/2). Reed looks exactly like them and sure does love to play with them. Here they are having their dinner, we thought it was funny how they were all sitting the same way.

We went home to recoup from such a busy weekend! Nora is doing a little better lately with sleeping and general crankiness. I attribute that to the meds she was given and the fact that I've cut out all acidic foods and dairy. Now I'm just hoping that we can work on getting rid of the middle of the night feeding.

Well, off to finalize my Christmas shopping, baking and cleaning!

Different Strokes

I was thinking the other day about how different these two kiddos of mine are. Mostly their sizes! At Nora's 2 month appointment, she weighed 10 pounds 13 ounces. Reed weighed 13 pounds at 2 months. I don't think they look anything alike either. Reed had lost all his hair right away and Nora still has some along the sides and back of her head (though she has lost quite a bit from when she was born). Here are some pictures of each of them at 2 months to compare:

Reed

Nora

I also took a picture of them in the same outfit - one of my favorites - an owl on a branch. Here is Reed at 4 weeks old in the onesie. I actually had one from when he was 2 weeks old in it, but the picture got corrupted so it no longer exists. Anyway, it's getting a little tight here at four weeks, it fit well at two.

And here is Nora is the same onesie at 9 weeks.

A Big Day

Today was Reed's first day at preschool. What preschool starts December 13th you ask? Well, it's just sort of a daycare that does a preschool curriculum all the time. I am starting Reed at a new daycare due to my current one closing after I had Nora. I wanted to find somewhere for Reed to get preschool type education when I go back to work. I found Children's Classic which I can bring both Reed and Nora to when I'm ready. It's also only about 8 minutes drive from my house and our neighbor attends there as well. I'm really impressed with them so far. Anyway, I thought it would be good to have Reed start going before I go back to work to help ease him (and myself) into a routine as well as give me some time 3 days a week to rest, run errands, get stuff done, etc. I'm only bringing him for the preschool hours in the morning until I go back to work, in which him and Nora will stay all day.

Anyway, today was Reed's first day there. I took a picture (or many) at the door as my parents did with me on the first day of school each year. Granted, mine were taken outside the front door (and Reed's will be too when he starts in the fall when it's nicer weather). But it happened to snow today and I wanted to get a picture of his cute new school shirt without a coat over it. He was really excited about going to preschool, he was even willing to let me take his picture (a rare occasion these days).




Today is also Nora's 2 Month birthday! I can't believe she is already 2 months old! In some ways the time has flown by and in others it seems so slow. She has had a hard time, as mentioned in previous posts, with sleeping. She will have a very fussy time at night which we deemed the "witching hour", but it will last for several - even 5. I've tried a lot of things to get her to calm down and nothing seems to do it, even holding her. I've taken her for a drive, used a vibrating chair, the swing, walking around, holding her upright, burping her more, giving medications - nothing works. We just wondered if she was a fussy baby. Then I thought that maybe she had reflux or a problem with my diet. I cut out dairy for a week and that made a small change. At her two month appointment yesterday I asked her doc about it and he thinks it's most certainly reflux. He gave me some meds for her to help and suggested I stop having acidic foods. After only four doses, she seems so much happier! After only 2 doses she went to sleep so much easier than usual! Hopefully this is the corner we needed to turn to get things on track. So now I can have dairy again, thankfully.

Here are some pictures of her today in her cute new outfit.






Also, this past weekend we went to the neighbor girl's birthday party at a place called Kangaroo Zoo. It's a warehouse full of bouncy houses of all kinds. Some with slides, some just bouncy houses, some obstacle courses, some for small kids. Reed loved it and had a blast.

Ok, gotta roll, cheers~