Saturday, January 7, 2012

Christmas 2011

This first Christmas as a family of four was so much fun! We relaxed, visted with family and friends, but most of all, we loved sharing some of our favorite Christmas traditions (and starting some new ones) with Noah and Callie! One of Noah's favorite traditions was to wear his new Christmas jammies all day on Christmas Day (he put them on Christmas Eve night and begged us to let him wear them all day Christmas and again on Christmas night!) Noah was really excited about Christmas this year and was a little heartbroken when we took the tree down on New Year's Day.  He has asked me several times to, "please put the tree back."  Our poor lil guy has to wait a whole year now. He loved opening all his Christmas presents and would marvel at each one and note who "got it for you".  Callie enjoyed all the lights and attention and gave her biggest smiles out to everyone.  Here are some of our favorite pics from the holidays!

Noah's 1st Christmas program at his pre-school.  He was a little shy, but did great!
Noah was focused on ringing his jingle bell

Wrapping a toy to donate for the school charity drive

Noah had fun playing hockey with Nathen and Aiden on Saturday morning.  Nathen is getting in a good stretch before he takes his posiiton as goalie!

Noah wasn't very intersted in putting his skates on, but liked holding the hockey stick.
This pic cracks me up.  Dad is ready to go play and Noah is ready for a nap.
Santa had a small surprise for Noah in the mailbox at Grandma/Grandpa's house almost every day! What a fun Christmas tradition!
 
Grandma and Noah

Al, Auntie Renee and Callie Girl

My silly family on Christmas Eve.  Noah wanted to take the picture "this way".  hahaha.

Callie's first Christmas!! The little flower headband was enormous on her, but I couldn't resist!
Pao Pao and Miss Callie
Christmas Eve Church Service - Noah loved all the songs and singing Silent Night by candlelight

Noah was so excited to unwrap this Disney truck trailer from Auntie Renee!

Putting food (oatmeal and sprinkles) for Santa's reindeer out on the driveway

The stockings were hung by the chimney with care...
   
It was a WHITE Christmas in Alaska!  We had tons and tons of snow this year!

Noah was really into the tree this year.  He loved to play with all the ornaments and turn on the lights!

Mickey Sticker Book from Aiden and Nathen!

Musical seahorse from Callie's Great Aunt and Uncle Reimer!

The Jeep!!!  Counting the days until summer!

Christmas morning smiles

Loot from Santa!

Every year Jan, Renee and I get matching Christmas socks from Santa. 
Santa was not aware that rainbows are also "gay pride" colors.  Too funny!

Callie loves her Auntie Nee

Grandma Jan and Callie

I love snuggling cheek to cheek with my sweet girl

These Cars Look-and-Find books are Noah's favorite books.  Callie looks pretty interested too!
Our Happy Girl

Lazy Christmas Morning

Gong Gong and Callie

Noah got a model car that looks exactly like Gong Gong's car!

Noah's Disney Cars toy collection is growing! 
 If you don't have Disney stock, I suggest you all buy some before the "Planes" movie comes out.

Daddy and Callie (she loves standing on her feet like this)

our sweet girl is drooling tons... we will be looking for her first tooth in the next few months.

Wednesday, January 4, 2012

Quick Update on the Kiddos!

While I am sorting through the gazillion Christmas photos I took (I got a new camera and went a little overboard), here is a quick update on Noah and Callison...

Callison is four months old!
The day after Christmas, Callison officially turned four months old.  We couldn't have asked for a better Christmas gift than having Callie as part of our family this holiday.  I know I write this every month, but she really is such a joyful baby.  She has the biggest smiles and loves to have a smiling contest with anyone holding her.  She is so friendly and doesn't mind being passed around like a hot potato to all the loving aunties and grandparents.

We think she may be teething because she is drooling a ton now! The bibs are out and she soaks them regurlarly.  I am gonna miss her toothless grin but will be neat to see those first chompers come in.

She also loves to pick things up and then put them in her mouth (translation: we have to be very careful about keeping her away from Noah's small toys/legos).

At her four month well-baby checkup, baby girl weighed in at 11 lbs, 10oz. (5%), 25.5 inches long (75%) and 41 cm circumference for her head (50%).  Her pediatrician commented on how tall she is already!  He encouraged us to try to boost the frequency/amount of her feedings to get her weight back up to the 25% curve she was on at her 2 month checkup. Thus, we shared with him how our baby girl is super sweet and happy unless you try to feed her when she doesn't feel like eating.  It really is the only time she cries or fusses.  He told us not to force her to eat but just keep offering it to her every few hours and see if she will take it. We are certainly in new territory here.  As a baby, her big brother loved to eat and would eat for both hunger and comfort.  All in all, Callie had a great checkup and her doc said she is doing really good!  She is super strong and meeting all her developmental milestones.  If you hold her up in the air, she can hold herself straight as a board like Supergirl.  She also loves to stand on her legs and look around.  She did get another round of vaccine shots which is always hard for mommy to watch, but it is all worth it if it protects her.

Noah is three years, three months! 
Noah is such a little man now and is getting into the curious, ask a gazillion questions stage. :) His number one question, that we hear probably every 20 minutes or so, is "Whatya doing Mom? Whatya doing Dad?"  This is a much more interesting conversation when we are actually doing something.  Once he asked Grandpa what he was doing and Grandpa was sitting on the couch holding Callie.  He probably asked Grandpa 10 times what he was doing so finally Grandpa just started making stuff up since "holding Callie and watching you play" didn't seem to be the answer Noah was looking for. (Update... Noah just now saw me typing this and he asked me "Whatya Doin' Mommy?").  love.

This month, Noah loves peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, oatmeal, dried fruit and Christmas cookies.  We have gotten so many Christmas cookies this year that I am pretty sure Noah now associates Christmas = Cookies! He also loves Pao Pao's cake.

One of our favorite things to ask Noah is what he did at school during the day.  It is so cute to hear him give a recap of his day. He will say, "had breakfast....played outside.... sang song....ate snack.... took a nap...".  His little voice trails at the end as he tells us each part of his day. 

As the final part of our nightly bedtime ritual, we say prayers together.  We always "God Bless" our family, grandparents, Aunt Renee, Al, Lucy (the dog), Godparents and then Noah adds on his close friends.  Aiden, Nathen, Bodi, Kendra and Kailer get nightly shot outs in our house.  A few times, Noah also said, "God Bless Lighting McQueen, God Bless Mater, God Bess Mickey Pumpkin (his orange stuffed pumpkin with  mickey ears from Disney World)!  Our little guy can be so sweet.  I am pretty sure he was stalling his bedtime by "God Blessing" everything in sight, but it was still cute. 

Speaking of bedtime stalling, Noah is the master.  He will pull out all the stops to delay going to bed even just a few minutes. Top excuses include potty, water, a back rub, another book, asking us to "lay down with you" (he means to say lay down with "me", but he says "you"), to asking to say his prayers again.  As a last resort, he will say, "I want to rub your back!" (Wes is always a sucker for this one.)  Noah's back rubs only last 3-5 seconds but he will actually do it.

We feel so blessed to have two beautiful, healthy, happy children. I saw a quote recently that made me smile: "Children are a handful sometimes, but a heartfull all the time."  So true. Our hearts are full.

Saturday, December 24, 2011

Visit with Santa

The holidays are here and that means the annual Santa visit!  With Noah, he did great in 2008, HATED Santa in 2009, we skipped it in 2010 (you wouldn't blame me if you saw how the year before went), and then we tried again this year.

This year's visit to go see Santa went surprisingly well!  Noah actually sat on Santa's lap and had a short conversation with him.  Later that afternoon, Noah woke up from his nap and started crying that he wanted to go back and see Santa AGAIN!  too funny!

Callison was super sweet and smiled a ton at St. Nick (although somehow the photographer missed her biggest smiles).

Wishing you all a very Merry Christmas!!


Thursday, December 1, 2011

Callison is three months old!

Our sweet "Callie girl" is three months old!  She has the biggest smiles and is so easy going.  While she loves being held and played with, she also doesn't mind exploring her playmat or checking things out from her bouncer seat.  This is very nice when one of us is home alone with the kids and we are giving Noah a bath, taking him to go potty, cooking or anything else where it is handy to have to two arms.

She is sleeping through the night which is perfect timing for me since I went back to working full-time on Nov 21st.  But I should clarify that her "night" usually begins at 11 pm and ends around 6 am when I get up.  She tends to take a nap from 9-11pm and then is ready to party just when we are trying to go to bed.  Thankfully, we just swaddle her, turn on her "sleep sheep" white noise maker, lay her in her crib, turn off the lights and go to bed.  She seems happy to fall asleep on her own.

Her biggest milestone was that she rolled over on December 1st!  My mom called me at work to let me know and when I got home she did a repeat performance for Wes and I.  Our little girl is on the move!  She is also grasping things too.  At her two month check up, she weighed in at 9lbs 9oz.  Our pediatrician commented on how she was an overachiever in the motor skills department.  We are so impressed by how quickly she can do things.  When we put her on her tummy, she can push herself way up on her arms to look around.  She is gonna keep us busy for sure!

All in all, our baby girl is pretty content and happy.  Unless of course she is getting ready to nurse (insert big sigh here), then she can sometimes get fussy.  Nursing has been a hit or miss from the get-go with her.  She absolutely refuses to nurse unless she decides she wants to eat, even when she hasn't eaten in several hours.  This is tough when I meet her and my mom at lunch or try to feed her before I leave for work.  She also won't nurse if there is a lot of activity/noise going on around her (TV, playgroup, her crazy brother yelling/running around). Our picky eater!

Callie also seems to like her big brother.  The other night, Callie was giving Noah the biggest smiles while we were reading books.  Noah said, "Look, sissy is happy.  She is smiling at me!"  I have also caught the two of them playing together. Callie was sitting in her bouncer seat and Noah sat in front of her and put his feet up to hers.  Then the two of them happily played footsie.  I wanted to run to get the video camera, but I knew the moment was likely shortlived and didn't want to miss it.  So I just watched them play for a few seconds.  too cute.  It will be fun when Callie is a little older and they can really play together.



Callie has the most infectious smile! Sometimes my cheeks hurt from smiling at her so much.

Noah loves to sit near his sissy


A car in one hand, sissy in the other!


Playing with Bram, Callie looks like she just got caught. hahahaha

Her shirt says it all... we are so in love with our sweet Callie girl!



Thursday, November 24, 2011

Thanksgiving!

This year for Thanksgiving we stayed home and spent the holidays with family.  It was nice to be with family, although I was wistfully remembering that last two years we spent Thanksgiving in Hawaii with our good friends, the Dodges. Now both of us have added baby girls to our families since then.  So much can happen in one short year!

Thanksgiving morning, my mom stopped by the house to give Noah a special present from Vegas.  A big Mickey Mouse plush toy!  It was so cute to watch Noah show Mickey around our house, his bedroom and play with him.  He acted like Mickey was a famous friend who was coming to pay him a special visit!  Now Mickey has been added to the large reportiore of his bedtime pals (puppy, his water and his three "danks").  A few times a week, Noah will wake up around 3-4am and crawl into our bed.  He does not come empty handed.  He will make several trips from his room to toss up his danks, toys and water into our bed and then lastly climbs up himself. 

We had Thanksgiving dinner at the Oistads' with my parents as well as Wes' godparents.  The spread of food and desserts was incredible and we all enjoyed each other's company. After dinner we were looking at the Black Friday ads and I spotted a crazy good deal on Barbie dolls and games at Walmart starting at 10pm Thanksgiving night (which is just a few miles from my house).  I had already planned on skipping the early morning shopping madness on Friday, but I thought I could "swing by" Walmart really quick at 10 and just pick up those few items. Yeah, right! When I arrived at the store at 10pm, there was a long line of cars the parking lot was completely full.  I lucked out and a car was leaving so I got a spot pretty easy.  I headed into the store and there were no carts! I had to go back to the parking lot and find one. When I headed back in, it was pure chaos.  I will spare you all the play by play, but long story short, all the advertised specials were scattered around the store and I ended up leaving without the items I wanted.  What a nightmare.  Never again!

Noah showing Mickey around the playroom!



Pao Pao and Callie on Thanksgiving

She loves her Pao Pao

Gong Gong, Pao Pao and Callie girl
Auntie Renee can always make Callie smile!

The Grandmas

Don and Bonnie Bladow (Wes' Godparents) and Callie

The Oistad Fam (even Lucy!)

Our family + our newest addition Mickey Mouse

Our little architect!! Noah has been having so much fun building with legos and blocks the past few months!