Starting a Tradition

Twas the Night Before Christmas.  Grandpa's first time with a new tradition.

Christmas morning was met with a hot chocolate bar and Christmas music.

Our First Christmas Eve.  

This year isn't turning out like I had planned. This holiday is filled with heavy hearts for my family.  But Its a reminder for everyone: forget about the arguments, it doesn't matter if the kids are cranky, Uncle Bob had one too many beers, or the turkey is overcooked.  Just love each other. 

We made a Mistletoes plate for Santa's cookies with Jessy's baby footprints.  I think its going to be my favorite Christmas plate for quite awhile and a great way to remember her birth day!

We've been making a list and checking it twice, trying to find out who's been naughty or nice!

Jessy's become my little helper in the kitchen with all of the holiday baking.  We have a few more treats to make this weekend and then we'll be able to sit back and enjoy the season (with a Christmas movie and some hot cocoa of course)!

Last night Jessy and I made our Peppermint Kisses Cookies.  She sat in her highchair in the kitchen and sang to me while I mixed and molded!  We have singing competitions of who can be the loudest.  She usually wins!

I've decided I'm going to start taking pictures of the mischief my husband and daughter seem to get into.  I know when it gets quiet in the house, someone is doing something naughty... I just didn't imagine my husband would be the instigator!! 

This Year's Christmas Card!

Merry Christmas!

Great article on a woman being tossed out of a court of all places... Click here.

I have been struggling lately.  My friends certainly don't understand and sometimes my own family members seem to be frustrated with me when I have to time my trips out in public with my baby depending on the last time she was fed. I am not a strong woman when it comes to this.... and that's okay.  I could not stand the humiliation of being told to leave a place. I have at times gone into a bathroom stall to feed my daughter so as not to upset anyone else... Question?  Would you want to eat in a dirty public bathroom stall?

Breastfeeding is the hardest thing I have ever done, you do not have a life, its not just about the milk issue (how many times have I heard, "just leave a bottle with your husband").  I am her security blanket, her comfort when she needs it, her pacifier.  This is how she goes to sleep at night when she is upset or in pain, she doesn't have a binky, I am her binky.  Right now she is constantly going through physical growing changes, teething and mental development leaps.  When she is crying tears of pain from teething, the only comfort for her is to latch for a few minutes.  Not drink, but just latch.  This is part of breastfeeding, its what I committed too when I decided to have her.  But to be honest, it's extremely lonely.

She has herself on a wonderful schedule of going to bed at 7pm and getting up around 7am.  And she NEEDS to be in bed at 7pm.  No matter how much I want to socialize in the evenings (and believe me, I miss my girlfriends TERRIBLY) I can't justify messing up her schedule and having her be miserable.  I have a super amazing good baby.  Why would I want to take that away from her for my own selfish desires?

In the grand scheme of things, its a blip on the calendar.  Things will be more "normal" soon. And I hope my friends will forgive me...

This weekend was ice cold... actually it was ALOT colder than ice with windchill temps in the minus 25!! So we didn't leave the house with the babe. But we finished the Christmas decorations, adding some lights outside (we made our own lighted trees that turned out great!) and starting our batches of Christmas goodies to give out. Of course I was just told by the doctor to stop eating gluten AND dairy because our babe may be having a reaction to one of them. Do you know how tough this is?  Of course my husband has been generous enough to be the Christmas goodie tester... and you know quality control means having to test a million a few times. Isn't he just the best?

If you do have to go out in the cold, these little suits by Old Navy are the best!  It makes her look like Ralphie's brother from the Christmas Story!

We celebrated our first Thanksgiving as a family of three.  We visited our family for a few days and then headed home to start making Christmas treats and decorating the nursery!

I made some of these peanut butter balls

And decorated the nursery with some reindeer garland, flannel polar bear crib sheets and little Christmas signs around the room. Its looking very festive in the house!

I've read those posts about "25 Things Mother's should tell their Daughters" or "28 Things Father's Should tell there Sons". My mother died when I was 9 years old.  My father raised me and he is my best friend.  So naturally I believe in the relationship between my husband and daughter and what it will be, something he can't comprehend yet, but eventually will come to know.

I decided to write my own set of rules for them.

20 Rules for Fathers of Daughters

1. Love her Mother. She will learn to love by watching you and her mother.  She will watch how you hug her, kiss her and laugh with her.  Those moments will shape what kind of man she finds worthy to be in a marriage with. Love with your whole heart and express that love each and every day.

2. Take her out for ice cream. She will always remember those fun spontaneous moments of being with dad.

3. Teach her how to save money. It will be invaluable as she grows older.

4. Take her to the football game. There is something about sharing a day of hot dogs, sunshine and football with your father.

5. Paint her fingernails on Saturday night. Because she’ll always remember the tenderness of you doing it, long after the polish chips away.

6. Tell her to protect her heart. Especially when it comes to relationships.

7. Show her how to walk into a room alone. Teach her confidence in who she is and what she has to offer, to look people in the eye and always have something interesting to say.

8. Let her dance in the rain. Dance alongside her, without the umbrella. Teach her that there are moments to close your eyes and lose yourself.

9. Share music. Take her to the boy band concert, buy a shirt and scream along with her, she’ll remember it for the rest of her life.

10. Let her win, sometimes. She needs to know that big things are possible after perseverance.

11. Teach her about family. Let her know family is always worth fighting for. Family is always worth standing up for. At the end of the day, she has you to fall back on, and pray to God that you will have her.

12. Don’t be afraid to take risks. Encourage her to follow her dreams and take reasonable risks in furthering her education and experiences to make them come true.

13. Listen to her now. If you don’t listen to the little things now, she won’t share the big things later.

14. Teach her how to shoot a gun. Show her how to protect herself so that she doesn’t grow up in this world frightened and scared.

15. Give her bear hugs. The kind that squeezes her insides and makes her giggle. The kind of hug only a daddy can give.

16. Give her baths. Because Mom can’t do everything damn it.

17. Play tea party with her. She’ll compare every “date” to the first one she ever had - you.

18.Tell her you’re proud of her. She will work hard to hear you say it.  Say it often.

19. Teach her about God. She will learn about the Father’s love by the example you show her. She will learn about God’s forgiveness because of your own.

20. Be her hero. You are anyway. Don’t disappoint her. Prove to her that Daddy’s are the biggest heroes of all. It doesn’t matter if she’s 2 or 32, you’ll hold that title for the rest of your life. 

Tis the Season!

Okay so I couldn't wait to start putting up the Christmas decorations.  When you can find time with an infant, use it!!  I put up the tree, made some little displays like this one.

We made a wall of lights that looks pretty spectacular.  We just have a few finishing touches to do outside and it will be ready to light after Thanksgiving.

And of course a little snuggle in bed during a cold winter's night...

Products You Need?

Talk about crazy products!  I just happened to run across this one.  Really?

I could think of a few people this might be good for....

Poor Baby

We have our first ear infection... It absolutely breaks my heart but we've got our ear drops and we should be doing much better in a few days!  

Nothing better than playing with Daddy after a warm bath when you're sick.

I'm so excited for Christmas decorating.  I have a million ideas and can't wait to get started. 

I made this chalkboard design to put by the nativity scene, figured out how to do a wall of lights (it's going to be crazy amazing) and talked about where we want to put the Christmas tree... the hardest part is finding the perfect family stockings.  Not sure that will be accomplished this year but we're on the hunt!  

Oh and I need to download our Christmas playlist!  HO HO HO!

Duck Duck Goose!

We took Jessy to see some ducks and swans in the park.  

She was very interested.... and so were they!

What a busy weekend!  On Halloween, Jessy and I made cupcakes and took them to daddy's work and then visited two great grandma's and grandpa... we had lots of cuddling to do that day.

Saturday we spent Fall cleaning to get ready for the Nanny!  We finally found one and this week is Jessy's last week in Daycare.  We can't wait to have her home and healthy!  

After cleaning we watched some movies and relaxed... of course dad got a little bored.

Sunday is Football day at our house and of course we are always cheering for our Seattle Seahawks.  They were losing by 2 touchdowns at halftime so Jessy decided to make up the "Rally Pose"... yeah.... we can't get her to STOP doing it.  Of course we came back to win the game in overtime.  **She'll be available for bookings every weekend, just contact her daddymanager.

Last night was the first full night that Jessy spent in her crib.  And she did fantastic!!!  I on the other hand, not so well. Our bedroom seems so quiet with her gone, it really does break my heart a bit.  I'm sure I slept worse then when we were getting up every hour.  I'm not quite sure how to feel... I should be so proud and I am but I'm also very sad.  So it gave me an excuse to go get her and bring her to bed when I got up for work this morning... after all... I don't see anything wrong with crawling into bed with daddy when mommy goes to work. I'm pretty sure daddy love it too.

Jessy is now going through her 4 month mental spurt which means waking every hour for the last two weeks, hoping its over soon.  I've finally accepted my husbands help and he gets up every other time with her since getting in the habit of feeding her every hour to get her back to sleep just might be a problem down the road.

She's already showing the rewards of this growth spurt, holding her head up like a champ and she learned to roll over!

Saturday the family took a stroll for the last nice warm day of the year.  Winter completely hit yesterday with 45 mile an hour winds and rain all day and night. 

And even though I thought for sure I would miss that horrible hair loss after pregnancy, it began on Friday.  I'm pulling handfulls of hair out of my head.  While I did try to get sympathy from a bald man, he did encourage me by telling me I could always get a blond wig and try something new!

We visited the pumpkin patch to get our carving pumpkins... I think I found the cutest one of all.

The booties she is wearing are called Zutano's.  

They come in a large number of colors and patterns as well as materials.  They are the best thing ever as they don't fall off of her feet!

Anyone who says "Don't cry over spilled milk" has obviously never breastfed and pumped.

Things I learned this weekend:

Flannel sheets feel amazing this time of year.

The best place to change a baby in the car is in the trunk. Why I've been using the backseat this whole time is beyond me! 

You shouldn't take a baby to a Seahawks game... Ever. While she was great, Hawk fans stand the entire game... Didn't realize how BAD my arms were going to feel!  Or my back for that matter. 

My husband is still handsome even with green hair! 

 

Her first school art project! (Yes we call Daycare "school"). 

And yes it's pinned on the fridge.

We're still fighting a cold in our house but Jessy is such a trooper.  We went to visit grandma great on Saturday morning, then went to breakfast and off to the craft store to do a little Halloween project.  This is one that we finished.

Our babysitter called us sick so we still have only had one date night since Jessy was born. Hopefully one of these days we'll get to go to dinner.  We finished our first movie rental since we had a baby... that was an accomplishment!  Jessy enjoyed her chair while watching some Football on Sunday.  Yes she is THAT adorable.

And then had a nice hot bath before bed.  All-in-all a pretty good weekend!

We had an eventful Anniversary weekend!  A normal trip to Seattle takes 2 hours, after 5.5 hours we finally made it... after canceling our evening plans with our friends since it was getting too late and we missed half of the horse races, we finally made it to our hotel.  Jessy was a dream the entire weekend though. We bundled her up and took her for a walk in the Seattle evening to get take out food.  

I had our hotel room filled with cheese and crackers, chocolate covered strawberries, champagne, even had a wedding cake made.  We were so exhausted after the trip that we fell asleep only to wake and eat it all for breakfast!

A little cracker with your cheese

We went shopping for a few hours and then headed off to the Mariners game during one of the worst storms of the year.  But we were bundled and cozy!

Happy Anniversary

Today is our One Year Wedding Anniversary.  I love my husband so much.  He is such a patient, gentle, loving man.  We were a bit crazy for getting pregnant on our wedding night, so much for that first year of wedded bliss!  Pregnancy hormones for 9 months then the baby arriving and sleepless nights.  Never did he complain or say a negative word.  

Honey, I love you and I’m sorry for all the times I went crazy snapped at you from being sleep deprived.  I can honestly say that I love you more today than I did a year ago.  You are my best friend and there is no one else in the world that I would want to go through these sleepless nights with!  Now if only you could breastfeed….

Since we've only had one date since our little munchkin was born, my husband and I decided to have Friday lunch dates.  It was a beautiful day on Friday so we met in the park and had a picnic.  I have to admit it felt just a little bit strange being together with no baby!

This weekend I started cleaning out the flower pots and bringing in the fall with a few decorations inside and out.  Of course Sunday is football so we had a great relaxing day with plenty of naps and a few flying lessons!

Pretty sure she's going through a growth spurt and gaining by the hour!