Moving On

...and it's a good thing because it's a mere ten days away!

We are going to D's Christmas party for work on Saturday night. With our two kiddos. Should be an interesting time. It's our one and only Christmas party this year because D was working during the other two to which we were invited.

I'm all done shopping, but I have a few handmade gifts I'm leaving until next week. I'm doing Advent envelopes with M this year. He loves opening our junk mail, so I'm sticking a few chocolate coins or (organic) lollipop in an envelope along with part of the Christmas story and letting him open it up each day. I have a few crafts planned, but he's so not into crafting right now. Well, my idea of crafting at least. He uses the crafting supplies...in his own way. It's always a fun time.

Also on the agenda for this weekend (besides another good sale at Once Upon A Child!) is making gifts for the kids' Sunday School teachers, our neighbors, and our local librarians. I found this cute idea of making pies/apple crisp/gingerbread in little mason jars. I wanted something yummy but not too detailed since I'm making fourteen (or more) of them. Might take a while with M "helping" but he loves sliding his stool over to where I'm working and jumping right into whatever I'm doing. We have a few more Christmas-y things planned before celebrating Jesus' birth with our families. Promises to be a fun time!

He's actually using these crafting supplies as they should be used...at this point in the project, at least! I love watching him work :)
Mom found this tabletop tree for him because he was way too interested in our tree. We took some Micah-friendly ornaments from our tree to hang on his. We use it as his nightlight and he just thinks it's the coolest thing ever. Merry Christmas to him!
Grams bought us this festive poinsettia plant. Love them this time of year. The candles around it spell NOEL.
Found Christmas in My Heart during one of our library adventures and found out that it's number nine in a series of fifteen or more. I'm enjoying the short stories and will probably be making this a December tradition. The other book has a daily reading about Jesus' coming, also a great read for this time of year!
My (slight) obsession with children's book continues into this season. I dug out all the Christmas books I've been accumulating and stuck them in a (clementine) box under the tree. We read a few of them each day and M is starting to piece together the Christmas story.
This year's (very adorable) present. Happy, healthy, chunky little girl, couldn't have asked for a more perfect blessing!

I dislike two piece outfits on babies for two reasons: they don't seem very warm and socks always go missing. Like here, for example!

11 pounds, 10 ounces, 22 1/2 inches

Lylah will be eight weeks this week, almost two months! Hard to believe. She's doing great and seems to enjoy life outside the womb. She was thoroughly enjoying life INSIDE the womb, so it's good that she's enjoying her new surroundings, too. I really have to finish up her hospital post, but this'll have to do for now!

* At her one month mark, she gained exactly three pounds and grew two and a half inches. She really likes her mealtimes and will eat every two hours during the day and a bit more right before she sleeps for 5 to 6 hours at night. With M, I fed on both sides, but just do the one for her right from the start and that seems to be all she needs. I know my milk came in really fast and really furious this time around, so that's probably why. She doesn't feed nearly as long as her big brother, which I appreciate :) She'll still pull herself off when she's done, but won't if she has fallen asleep. In which case, I have to time her and make sure she doesn't overeat. When she does overeat, she's really gassy and uncomfortable, poor girl, and one of the only times she's fussy.

* Her "fussy" times are when she wants to eat, when she's been up too long and can't put herself to sleep, when she's gassy, and hmmm, that's about it! These periods don't last for long and she's easily soothed most of the time. She really is a perfect second child!

* She is very smiley, especially after she has eaten. It melts my heart each time: when I get her up to feed her at night, you know she is very hungry, but she'll patiently wait for me to change her diaper and she'll throw me these huge, gummy smiles while she's waiting. She is just so sweet!

* She adores her daddy and is already wrapping him around and around and around his fingers. She responds instantly to him and he is loving every minute of it, especially since M was more difficult (probably due to the lack of bonding in the beginning since D was working so.many.hours as an intern). I'm already telling her to tell him what "she" wants so maybe he'll get it for "her"/me :). It's very cute to see and I'm so happy for him to experience this unconditional love!

* She coos and talks when you talk to her and she looks you straight in the eye when you talk or when she's talking.

* She H.A.T.E.S. the carseat. It's the only time she'll hysterically cry. I thought she might have a back problem at first, but she loves the swing and she's on her back to nurse sometimes, so D assures me it's not that. Someone suggested carsickness, which might be a possibility. Or she just doesn't like being strapped in (the straps touch her cheeks because they are so huge). Whatever it is, I think it's the Lord's way of keeping me from going shopping :)

* She is definitely a gift from God and we are enjoying our little girl and how M interacts with her. She is such a good baby that transitioning to having two children hasn't been difficult at all. It's rather nice, actually! I told D that if I was guaranteed another one like her, I'd have another one right now!

One of the gifts from D's co-residents:

Well, we are back home now and enjoying the new routine we've established. D had four days off for Thanksgiving and then worked the 5pm-11pm shift all last week, so we had A LOT of quality family time that we weren't used to, but thoroughly enjoyed. This week he's working late four out of five nights, so when family time ended, it really ended!

Lylah is an amazing little girl and continues to amaze us with her gentle personality and her many grunts, groans, and stretches. This little one is sleeping through the night already (for a few weeks now), but has creeped up to sleeping NINE hours at a time! Enjoying it while it lasts :)

Micah is such a great big brother. He has a special place in his heart for her and enjoys kissing her and hugging her. He's always asking where she is if she's not in sight. She loves watching him play and move about, so all is good in sibling world. Micah's vocabulary has exploded and I'm always asking him to repeat what he said not because I didn't hear him, but because I didn't know he knew those words and how to use them in that context! His newest thing is to put the stool that Dad built him under any and every lightswitch so he can flip it on. I'm constantly shutting off lights in rooms that aren't in use!

We're all enjoying this time of year and had a lot of fun setting up our Christmas tree Friday morning. Micah was beside himself with excitement and really couldn't contain himself throughout the entire process! I'm in the market for a little tree for him so he'll stop touching all the stuff on our tree! I've put Christmas books and his Fisher Price Nativity Set under the tree, so he's having a good time with those...when he's not touching the ornaments!

Thanksgiving was a bit different this year in that we went up to David's sister's home about a half an hour away for dinner and then went to Mom and Dad's for dessert later in the day. Micah LOVED playing with Ari and all of her toys. He's constantly asking to go see Ari's house. We had all slept in that morning, until after 9 I think, so M didn't get his usual nap and did quite well. In the car on the way to Mom and Dad's, I was telling David that I guess M didn't need a nap after all and turned around to point out how wide awake he was...except that he was sound asleep in his carseat! And Lylah was asleep in her carseat, too! So we had a nice, quite, adult-conversation-filled ride. I almost wished the ride was longer! Of course when we got to Mom and Dad's, there was no more sleep to be had for either of them. Here are so pictures from the day:

I refuse to show this picture of M in an all pink room to my father. He'd have my head.
Really enjoying all the new toys!
He and Ari were at a kid's table and he didn't do too well eating because he wanted to go play. "All done now, Mommy. Micah go play."
Place cards M and I made when we learned about the Mayflower together
Four Generations Pictures. Only missing one with my Dad's mom which I hope to get when she's up this summer!


Our New Family Picture :)
Our Sweet Lylah-girl who is turning into quite the chunky-chunk!