Christmas

Christmas was fun this year. Kylie is starting to understand what Christmas is and all that it entails. She still doesn't fully understand the excitement of gifts, but she loved unwrapping them. Kylie and Jordan got so many fun things from family. I surprised Scott and made a calendar with pictures of us. Scott wanted to get me a photo book of my blog, but he couldn't really put it together himself and so we're making it a Christmas/birthday gift. I already have one book done, from 2011 and I can't wait to start working on the next year. I love the idea of having these photo books for Kylie and others to look at pictures. Pictures are very digital now, but I think it is still good to have pictures printed and photo books are a great way to do so.

We did find that it was a little difficult to try to share Christmas with both families in the same state now. You have to figure out if one side gets Christmas Eve or Christmas day or you can decide to share the days with both families. We decided to do Christmas Eve with my family and Christmas day with Scott's. It feels like it might work better that way, but who knows, we could always change our mind next year.

We had a yummy dinner at my grandma's and then we did a small program of reading the scriptures and playing Christmas songs with bells. Since we weren't seeing my mom on Christmas day, we opened presents from her. Kylie got this fun rocking cow that she loved. We had dessert, played games and then headed home.

 

Christmas morning started later, around 9:00. We had a cherry roll for breakfast, thanks to my mom. After that we opened our stockings and presents. Like I said, Kylie sure enjoyed unwrapping the gifts, but she had a hard time giving her full attention to each gift. She would enjoy some more than others or once she saw one gift, she didn't care to open any more. After opening gifts, we headed to Scott's parents house. Steve was there with his kids and then Brita and her family showed up later in the afternoon. We all just hung out and played games the whole day. Even though it can be tricky making sure that the holidays are split fairly, we sure enjoy living by so much family.

I couldn't get the pictures of us to not be blurry.

Wearing her apron!

The apron I made Kylie.

Ugly Sweater Party

On December 23rd, we had a white elephant/ugly sweater party with our friends. We had a dinner with everyone two weeks before, but wanted to do a white elephant with one another. We had a delicious dinner and a fun gift exchange. Scott & I ended up with some funny gifts. We gave away a Dumbledore figure (that we got from the Omer gift exchange) and a big foot call toy with some candy.  I'm so glad that we have this group of friends and that everyone is able to make time out their busy schedules to get together. I actually took pictures this time!

I made chocolate dipped Oreos and Oreo truffles.

Nichole & her baby Briella and Ellery

Tracy & Joni

Cuddle time!

I got a phases of the moon book with real pictures of a half and full moon and Scott got toilet paper.

The group!

Heather & Helaman.

We have matching sweaters! Aren't we cute?

Wednesday Weekly Recap

Christmas is 3 days away! I still need to wrap all my presents, but I'm excited. I think Kylie will enjoy Christmas this year a little more than last year. She'll actually open presents and I think be more excited about the gift. She is so cute and gets excited and says "Ooo!" each time she sees something she likes. I am loving her enthusiastic personality right now. She also says "thank you" a lot and I love it. I made her waffles for lunch the other day and she said, smiling really big, "Oh! Thank you, mommy, thank you!" I just love this sweet Kylie girl of mine.

At the beginning of December, I took Kylie over to Brita's for a play date with Dylan. She and him are the best of friends and it's fun to watch them play together. Kylie is still learning how to share and take turns, but luckily their favorite activity of chasing each other doesn't involve that. Dylan is really into Star Wars and was Darth Vader for Halloween. They had fun playing with the light sabers and taking turns being Darth Vader.

Charlotte loves Jordan!

Kylie and Jordan had their first bath time a week or so ago. Kylie helped wash him while splashing water in his face. As long as it helps him love water as well, it's fine with me.

Scott is done with school for another 2 weeks! It doesn't seem like he's had much of a break since he's been working so much. This last semester was the hardest semester he's supposed to have throughout the program. He survived, despite taking a 4-hour, 14-page final! Whew! Him and his classmates celebrated once they were done and it was well deserved.

The first week of December was the only time we were able to go see Santa and I'm glad that it worked out! Our local grocery store, Smith's, is having Santa at their store every Tuesday until Christmas. It was 5-minutes away and free to take pictures, so we went and did it. Kylie got her candy cane and decided not to talk to Santa until after we left the store. She started saying "Hi, Santa! Bye, Santa!" when we were in the car on the way home. Ha, what a silly girl.

And here are cute pictures of Scott with his kids.

On the 18th, we attended a murder mystery party for my friend Amanda's 30th birthday. There was only 1 or 2 people who have been to one, so it was nice to know that we weren't the only ones who didn't know what was going on. It was different, but fun to try something new. Scott was the inspector so he had to do a lot more talking then me. I'm glad that we could be there for Amanda and celebrate her 30th birthday with her.

Amanda and me

Janora, me, Amanda

The group!

Jordan is 2-months old

Jordan had his two-month check up on Monday. He did great the whole time, even with his shots. I'll say this every month, but he is just growing too fast. He is such a blessing in our lives and I am so glad he is part of our family. Here are some things about Jordan at two-months.

• He is starting to coo and smile a lot more now. He is becoming such a ham. I could spend all day just smiling, cooing and interacting with him. I also could have sworn that I heard him do a little giggle the other day while he was sleeping. Of course, he hasn't done anything like it since, but I hope that he laughs earlier than Kylie did (she didn't laugh until after 6 months).
• He is such a strong boy! He can hold his head up really well and can hold it weight while standing for a few seconds. 
• He is still waking up every 2-3 hours to eat throughout the day and night. Since starting breastfeeding up again (more on that later), he seems to want to eat more often. I like it because I'm breastfeeding him, but it sure isn't fun to not be getting more sleep at night. I hope he'll start sleeping more soon. I need my sleep!
• He really is such a happy, easy baby! We have been blessed to have him have such a mild temperament. Kylie has always been active and moving and it would be very hard if Jordan was just like her as a baby. I just love that he'll go with the flow.
• Jordan's stats from the doctor's: Weight 11 lbs. 13 oz (38%) and Height 23 inches (45%)

So like I mentioned before, I started breastfeeding Jordan again. I tried when he was first born and even with using a nipple shield, it was hard to get him to latch and stay latched. Hormones and emotions are all over the place the first few weeks and the stress of breastfeeding does not help. I started pumping and feeding him with a bottle. I was pumping enough for him to eat, so he was happy and I was happy to not be stressed out every time I tried to feed him. Exclusively pumping worked really well. The only time there were issues was when I went on vacation to Missouri and couldn't pump as often as I needed to. I also loved that while pumping, I was able to pump extra and start freezing some. Scott's sister Brita talked to him about convincing me to try breastfeeding again as it would free me from being so tied down to the pump. Surprisingly, I decided why not and Jordan latched right away! Some babies don't latch or care to breastfeed after being bottle fed, since they don't have to work as hard to get their food. Jordan was fine with it and continues to be able to go back and forth between the two. I still give a bottle right before bed and then whenever we're out somewhere. I'm not comfortable to breastfeed in public yet, since it's only been like 2 weeks since starting. It's only been two months, but I'm proud of the fact that Jordan's had breast milk this whole time (with the exception of a tiny amount of formula the first week he was born). Two months is more than I was able to do with Kylie. Also, the fact that I have a frozen stash and am still adding onto it is another amazing feat. I'm just proud that feeding him as gone well so far. Now, here are some cute pictures of our adorable Jordan.

Snow Day

We woke up Monday morning to a few inches of snow! Kylie had a blast playing in the snow when we waited in line at the aquarium, so it was no surprise that she wanted to play in it right away. Luckily, I had bought her some snow pants and gloves the week before, so she at least had those to play in. She'll be getting boots and a coat for Christmas. It was cold, but she had a lot of fun just kicking up the snow. It also snowed the next day and so Kylie played outside two days in a row. Once she gets her boots and coat, I can see her playing outside every time it snows. We might even have to try sledding, but we'll see.