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~

Let me count the ways

As mentioned in my last post, I love many things about my kids. I decided to expand upon that with some examples. First of all, how cute is that picture above? As you can see I made it my new title picture cause I love it so much.

Things I love about Reed:

• He loves his sister. He will hug and kiss her many times a day. He also will want to "see her" which means he will want to look at her and touch her head.
  
• He replaces the letter F with a P. "Pire" for fire. "Pun" for fun. "Pall" for fall. You get the idea.
  
• He runs to his dad and gives him a big hug and kiss when he gets home from work. Today he said "daddy's here!" and started clapping.
• He loves being "nakey boy" meaning he runs around naked before and after a bath. He screams nakey boy nakey boy!
• He is starting to tell me he wants to do things "by self". It usually takes longer but it's good for him to at least try to do things by himself.
• He ends most sentences with "huh?" even though it's not really a question.
• He will do status updates all the time. "I wake up" when I get him from a nap. "putting coat on", "eating dinner", "running".
• He loves yogurt but he says gogurt.
• He loves Little Einsteins show. This is good because he can say Sea Anemone now.
• He pretended to pump the other day, just like I do. Then he gave his milk to Nora.
  

Things I love about Nora:

• I am really starting to enjoy dressing her up. The first few months are hard cause you change diapers all the time and holding them a lot so the outfits have to be function over fashion. But now that I've received a ton of super cute clothes from friends and family, I'm having fun with different outfits. Here is one I actually bought her, and there aren't many of those! I just love it! And the shoes are from a friend - too cute!
  
• 

• Her squeaking noises. She sounds like a little squirrel.
  
• Her voice. Though its still infrequent, we are getting more and more of hearing her cooing.
• The way she arches her back when you take her out of her carseat. She pulls her legs up under her, arches her back and throws back her head in a stretch and I just love it!
• The way she twists her mouth when she is waking up.
• She loves the bath. She seems to really enjoy the warm water over her and likes to look around.
• Her blue eyes. They really are pretty. And I kinda love her little stork bite over her right eye. You can see it below.
• When she smiles at me. Priceless.

A co-worker of mine made these for me as a baby gift. He calls them "fist of fury". I absolutely love them! They are made like you'd make the impressions when you go to the dentist. These have the fingerprints and all the little creases that are on the hand. A side note: the hand on the right is just like mine - I tuck my thumb when I'm eating - weird I know.
And here is her birth announcement. Sorry I couldn't afford to send them to everyone in my life so here it is for you to see.
Cheers~

G-Pa visits and Reed skis

My dad came to visit this past weekend to see the little munchkins. It's fun to watch him with the kiddos and imagining what it was like when I was a baby. At one point Nora was screaming her head off and he tucked her under his arm (like a football) facing down and she calmed right down. He said that's what my brother and I liked when we were babies. Funny to think about. We played around the house on Saturday then went to the Ogden Christmas village that night. We did about a 10 minute lap cause it was cold then got some dinner.

Dad with his two grandkids.

Nora looking all cute.

Dad took some pictures of the family for our Christmas card

Me and my baby girl!

Sunday, we went up to Snowbasin to do a little skiing with Reed. Dad and I actually didn't ski at all but Fogg was patrolling so he took Reed for two quick runs. Reed was very excited and kept telling us about how he wanted to go skiing. He actually told me in the car this afternoon that he "want to skiing again". Love, love, love that he loves it. He told me that he didn't want his picture taken so he walked all the way around a table to avoid me. I got one anyway...

Here he is coming down!

He had the biggest smile on his face, though you can't see it here.

Nora was happy to be in the lodge where it was warm - see the smile on her face?

I bundled her up yesterday to play outside with Reed for a few minutes and just loved her little outfit and hat.

There are many reasons that I love my kids, besides the obvious. I love how Reed is starting to talk a ton! The other day he was jumping off the bed and made sure to tell me that he was going to be careful cause if he wasn't he would bump his head. It is made complete by a very cute scrunched nose. I love the he loves Nora and wants to hug and kiss her. I love that Nora makes this little squirrel noises - squeaking almost. And I love how she is starting to actually smile at me. Here is something that I love about Reed. He does little things like this that I find occasionally and they make me laugh. He put his shoes inside slippers. Both of them.

And I love my husband a lot too. Here is his "professional" picture to be put on the website for his new job. I think he's darn cute!

That's it for now, I'm sure there will be more as the Christmas time is full of fun and activities.

Cheers~