Christmas recap

Hope you all had a great Christmas! We had a nice time. Christmas eve night was spent with my family as usual, and as usual it was crazy! Every year my mom says she's going to scale back on gifts, and this year was no exception. She informed me weeks before christmas that she was going to just give the adults gift cards, and get all the grandkids a few little things. Again, as usual, she went majorly overboard! I think she just has a very giving heart and cant help herself. :)

Anyways, it was a nice time as usual!

Christmas morning Derek and I got up at 6am so we could get showered and dressed before the kids woke up, then we opened our gifts together as a family. Immediately after that we went to Derek's moms to celebrate with his side of the family. And again it was a nice time!

That night we came home and took down our tree. It was super crispy and with all the gifts we got, our house was a disaster area and we needed that extra space where the tree was to organize gifts.

Saturday, the day after Christmas, Derek and I spent the day organizing all our gifts and playing with our new gadgets and playing with Jadon and his toys. It was a very calm day after having had 2 really crazy days.

We would like to thank our families for all the wonderful gifts and for spending the days with us.

Things are settling back down now, and the house is now mostly organized (whew! I sure do hate a cluttered house!) I got the camera out and took some pictures of Avery last night and tonight. She's growing up so fast... starting to get strong neck and a whiny cry like a girl!

Here's Jadon a couple weeks ago. Unfortunately I dont have any more pictures of him... he's going through a faze where he hates to get his picture taken (unless, of course, i'm taking pictures of Avery.)

This one of Avery was also taken a few weeks ago.
The next 2 were taken tonight after her bath.

Merry Christmas Eve!!

Today Avery is 11 weeks old... I had lost track of how many weeks old she was after she turned 8 weeks. I cant believe she's 11 weeks already... where has time gone???
And Jadon is 2.75 years old... only a few short months and he'll be 3! My children are growing up so fast and I dont know how many times i've said it, but its so bitter-sweet to see your kids growing! I know that in just the blink of an eye they'll be moving out of the house, going off to college, or getting married. It will be so rewarding to see them as successful adults with families of their own, but I will always treasure them being little. They bless me every day just by being.

I cant believe Christmas Eve is finally here! I've been so excited for this day since the holiday season started, because I know that this year Jadon will understand whats going on a little more than he did last year. I cant wait to see his eyes light up in wonder as he comes down to the living room on Christmas morning, and sees that the cookies we left out for Santa are gone, and the tree has lots of gifts underneath that Santa left. I think i'm more excited this year than I have ever been in my whole life! Of course Avery wont have a clue whats going on. But thats ok... just having her with us is the best gift! :)

Merry Christmas to you all!!!

Pictures

I haven't been posting many pictures because i've been working on my yearly slideshow and if I posted more pictures i'd be posting all of the pictures that are in the slideshow... so, sometime at the end of the year you'll get to see more pictures of the kids in the slideshow. In the meantime, here's one of each of the kids...

This one of Jadon cracks me up... the look on his face is so funny!
I've been having a hard time getting pictures of Avery smiling because she's so fascinated by the camera that she just stares... like this picture. She is really fascinated with her surroundings, and seems to look at and stare at everything!

We only have a couple of her size 1 diapers left, and we're finishing them up just in time! The little butterball hardly fits in them anymore, and when she poops, she might as well not even be wearing a diaper because it just explodes out the sides! Its quite messy, but the good thing is that she loves getting her diaper changed, so I get lots of smiles while cleaning her up. :)

Nights have not been going well for Derek and I. Avery gets really fussy late at night (usually sometime between 9:30pm-1am), so when we finally get her to sleep, its at least midnight or later. Then Jadon usually gets up once a night at some point.... he had a couple nights in a row where he was awake in the middle of the night for several hours. Then he usually gets up at about 8am.

Monday night, Jadon woke up at around 9:30pm complaining of a tummyache, so we were prepared for a rough night thinking that he had picked up a bug or something. He slept fine the rest of the night. I finally got Avery to sleep at 1:45am, and managed to sleep from 2am-5am, then woke up and basically dozed on and off until 7:30am, when Jadon got up. Avery slept until 9am. I am really looking forward to them sleeping good someday!!!! :)

I'm happy to report....

... that i'm 4 pounds lighter than I was when I got pregnant! Woohoo! I havent been "trying" to lose weight yet.
What's my secret??? There's several reasons:

#1- breastfeeding!!! Need I say more?

#2- Having two children under 3 years old demanding 99.9% of my time! Right now when I sit down to eat, I have to grab something quick because Avery always seems to wake up or be cranky right at our meal times. So, I dont even have a chance to think about the food i'm eating really or if I feel full. This is a good thing, because now i'm not overeating, which is a problem that I have because I love food so much. I dont have time to think about how good the food is. lol!

#3- I'm just plain busy! Its hard work having 2 little ones now... I look back at before Avery came, and it seems so simple now! Now I am constantly on the go at home unless i'm feeding Avery.

#4- Overabundance of energy- When I was pregnant, I was pretty immobile because I was either nauseated or had a migraine, or was SOOOO painfully tired. I think my body is trying to make up for that now because I have a hard time just sitting down to relax. There's always something to do, and even when I do sit down to relax, my mind is running 100 mph.

Now I just need to incorporate a little exersize into this lifestyle! I started doing some situps the other day, but it still feels like my pubic bone hasnt grown back together yet and it hurts when I do situps, so i've just been doing crunches instead. Also, when i'm holding Avery, I try to incorporate a little exersize into it. Also, as Derek and I have always done, I try to park a distance away from the building where i'm going, so that I can get a little extra exersize walking to the building.

Unfortunately after you have a baby, your body doesnt look the same as it did before the pregnancy. Even if you lose all the weight, you've still got extra skin and fat around your middle, and things just seem to shift around. It is SO worth it though.

2 mo appt

Avery had her 2 month appt today, and she is growing like a weed! She's 12lbs 1oz now. Almost double her birth weight... babys usually double their birthweight by 6 months. She's also 23.5 inches long now too... 4 inches longer than she was at birth. Both her weight and height are in the 50th percentile, so she's doing quite well.
The doctor says she's eating so often during the day because she is sleeping so long at night, and at this stage, she is going through a major growth spurt so she's gotta keep up her calorie intake somehow!

We also have to do some at home physical therapy with her, if you will. She tends to look only to one side, and kindof rests her head that way. Most likely do to how she was laying in the womb. Anyways, we have to stretch her neck the other way and try to turn her head in the other direction when she sleeps and stuff. The reason its important to do this is because the muscle on the one side of her neck wont grow as long as the other side. The issue has a name, but I cant remember what the doctor called it.
Also, she's got a nice case of cradle cap, which I've been aware of for awhile now, but just thought it was something that would fix itself. Doctor said that it wont go away on its own, and can even get worse.... so now I have to wash her hair daily and put baby oil on it and scrub her scalp to get the flakes up and comb them out for a couple weeks.
The other day I discovered a red patch on the back of her neck, which I have figured out is a stork bite.

Other than that, she's doing really good. She had to get 5 immunizations today, and an oral immunization for rotavirus. She's been pretty cranky all day from those, and has slept ALOT. Poor girl, those shots are so much more painful for mommy than they are for baby. :(

Thats about it! We've been really busy here... of course life in general is much busier than it used to be now with 2 little ones!!
Here's a picture of Jadon and Avery together... I think he is beginning to warm up to her some ;)

Busy Busy Busy

Its been a busy week, and i'm sure it wont slow down much until after Christmas.
We got our tree a week and a half ago... I love having a tree in the house because it smells so nice. Jadon has done well with it this year and has not bugged it much. He even got to help us decorate it this year! We still have quite a bit of Christmas shopping to do, but thank goodness for the Internet and online shopping!! Going anywhere these days is quite a task and challenge, so online shopping takes on a whole new meaning for me now! :)

The kids are doing good. Jadon is completely in his terrible two's stage now, and completely exhausts me everyday- physically, mentally, emotionally, etc. EVERYTHING is a battle with him.... he says he wants something, then when you say ok he has a fit because he doesnt want it anymore, and that process repeats. Over and over, with everything. I really miss my sweet, cuddly little man. I look forward to when he comes back again!
He has not taken a nap for the last couple weeks... this is something i've been dreading, but saw coming for a long time. I still send him to his room for awhile to play so that I can have a break and get something done in the house. He's not too happy with this arrangement, and I have found him several times on top of the changing table in his room playing with the blinds.
He also doesnt tell us when he's pooped, and I get a whiff of him and go to change his diaper, but find that he has been marinating in it for awhile, and now has a diaper rash.
We are hoping to start potty training after the first of the year, but I'm not sure if he'll be ready. He has no problems going pee in his potty, and seems to like it, but he is scared to death of going poop in it. I dont see the rush in getting him trained anyways, other than for Derek and I so we dont have to change his diaper anymore. Everything i've read on potty training suggests not pressuring your child into using the potty- when they are ready, they are ready. Obviously he will someday use the potty...its not like he's going to be 15 and wearing diapers still if I dont train him before he's 3. ;)

Avery is doing good! She's such a little chunk... I call her my little meatball. Shes just about to graduate to size 2 diapers now. I'm guesstimating that she weighs somewhere in the 12lb range. She has her 2 month well baby checkup next week, so i'm eager to find out. She's also getting long too! I held a tape measure up next to her yesterday when she stretched out, and it was 24inches. Of course, that could be way off, but we'll find that out at her appt as well. She is really smiley, and it takes almost nothing to get her to smile. She sleeps really well too. She slept 8.5 hours the night before last, and last night she slept around 8 also. Of course, 2 nights ago, neither of the kids wanted to sleep... so Avery finally went to sleep at 2am. Jadon had went to bed and slept normally that night, until 1am, then he woke up and couldnt go back to sleep. Needless to say, I didnt go to sleep until after 4am that night, then Avery woke up at 6:15, so I had to feed her, and Jadon got up at around 8am. So, we only got a couple hours of sleep that night. It was a miserable night.
Anyways, Avery is wearing 3 month stuff now. She's growing so quickly... she should be... she's been eating every 1-2 hours during the day this week, so I hope that she's just having a growth spurt.

Well, it was a miracle that I got to type all that out, so I think i'll leave it at that.