Santa was good this year!

Wow, what a busy week we've had! We had lots of parties and fun times and Noah handled it all great! I'm kinda disappointed that it's all over. :-) It was so much fun, though. It's the best Christmas I've ever had!




It all started last weekend with our massages on Saturday. That was nice to get out together and start the holiday off right! On Sunday, we celebrated with Waylon's extended family over at Aunt Andrea's house. Lots of good food and good times.



On Christmas Eve, we stuck close by the house and did some cleaning and more relaxing. I made a yummy dinner and was very excited about cooking a whole chicken (I'd never done that before) with real gravy! :-)



Christmas morning, we were up bright and early... Noah must have been excited that Santa came... hm, what's his excuse every other day? :-) Noah opened his presents from Santa and was actually pretty excited and interested.



After his first morning nap, we left for Nana and Grandad's house. They had so many great toys ready for Noah! One of his favorites is the Fisher Price Little Superstar Sing Along Stage. I don't know if sitting in front of that thing for the past few days has helped this or not, but his sitting up has dramatically improved in the past few days. Waylon and I also got some great presents and it was so much fun giving, too! Noah gave Nana and Grandad and Aunt Andrea mugs with his hand and footprints on them. Earlier in December, Noah and I went with some other Moms and kids to Amazing Glaze to make them. I was so excited to give those presents!!

In the afternoon, we came back home just in time for Grandma and Papa to show up. They had been at my Gramma's for Christmas Eve night. Around 5:00, Waylon's parents and Andrea and Sean came back to our house and we had a fabulous dinner at our place. Again, I was so excited about dinner (although I didn't do much for this... everyone brought something!) and it was so fun to light candles and set a nice table and all be together on Christmas night. Noah napped during dinner which worked out pretty well. He woke up just as we were finishing, so Aunt Andrea fed him his Christmas dinner (sweet potatoes and applesauce!) while we were all still sitting at the table.

On Wednesday morning, we got up, packed up and headed off to my parents' place at Lake Gaston. Aunt Leah and Uncle Casey met us there that afternoon and we celebrated with them! Noah gave them their mugs with his hand and footprints on them. So fun! Lots of good food and good presents yet again! Noah (yet again!) got lots of fun presents including a toy box - much needed after all the toys he received!! Waylon and I also got some great things! Surprisingly, we weren't forgotten! :-) HAHA.

We actually took Seger with us - the first trip with him since Noah has been born. It was obvious that he was very excited and thankful to be along for the ride. :-) On Thursday afternoon, my dad wanted to start the boat since it hadn't been used since the fall. It was actually a pretty nice day, too so my dad, Seger and I went out on the boat. Seger loved that. He also likes to open presents. When we were opening presents on Wednesday night, Seger decided it was his turn and went over to the tree and picked one out... it was actually his (and not treats). We still aren't sure how he knew it was his... from what we can tell, it didn't smell at all. Anyway he liked that toy so much that on Thursday, he just picked it up, hopped on the couch and just sat there with it in his mouth. It was so cute.


Anyway, all in all, it was a great holiday! Tomorrow is Waylon's last day off before he has to go back to work (he'll have Tuesday off for New Years though). It was so nice to be together for so long but now it's time to get back in the groove (and start eating better!). I only have a few weeks left before I start my new job, too! I have mixed feelings about that.... it's going to be an adjustment but it will be good once we get into that groove! :-)

Happy New Year!!!!

My First Christmas!

Noah's new holiday PJs... thanks 'Aunt' Jennie!!! :-)

Finally!

Our good sleeper is back!! We had been having some major sleeping problems but he's now back to normal. He had started to get better after the teeth came in and then he got much worse again when I was put on antibiotics for an ingrown toenail (yuck!). We weren't sure if that was what was messing him up until I was done with them and he magically started sleeping again! Those 10 nights were pretty bad but we are back to his normal down at 8, up at 6:30/7... no night wakings at all for several nights in a row now! It's so nice. We'll enjoy it until the next big thing happens.... more teeth, sickness, etc. I guess we can expect him to catch his first real cold when he starts daycare, huh?

***Warning -- kids who still hear The Polar Express bell should not read ahead!*** :-)

We are so excited about Noah's first Christmas! Even though he's not going to know much about what's going on this year, it's just a reminder that it's the first of many wonderful Christmas' to come. I was wrapping presents the other night in the bonus room. Noah was already asleep and I was trying to be quiet in there wrapping so I didn't wake him up. I wrapped one of his presents and wrote TO: Noah FROM: Santa. Wow! We are Santa now! Then I was trying to sneak past his room and bring the presents down to put under the tree. It's so fun to think we'll be doing that every year for a while now and eating cookies and drinking milk, too. :-)

I'm also excited about relaxing in the week ahead. Today is Waylon's last day at work for a while - he's off tomorrow and all next week. I finished all the shopping and wrapping and everything is done. All that is left to do is to relax and enjoy the holiday! And what better way to kick off the relaxing than a massage on Saturday? Waylon and I are going together and getting a couple's massage. We are really looking forward to that. We'll be here in Raleigh for Christmas and hosting our first Christmas dinner. We are so grown up! :-) Waylon's parents, my parents and Waylon's sister and her boyfriend will be coming for dinner. That should be a lot of fun. The day after Christmas we will be heading to my parents' place at Lake Gaston to celebrate with my parents and my sister and brother-in-law.

We are still working on solids and slowly adding different foods. It's fun to see Noah's reaction to new tastes. So far he's only had rice cereal, oatmeal, apples and pears and last night we gave him squash for the first time. He made the most horrible face at first - guess he was expecting a sweet fruit - but he really liked it! He's just like his mom and dad... loves to eat!

Here are some pictures for you to enjoy...

Nana and Grandad feeding Noah

This is after I let him try to feed himself oatmeal! :-) Meeting Santa for the first time - he's a weird lookin' dude!
Crazy-face Noah in his favorite toy :-)

Busy Busy!

Okay, I'm horrible. It's been forever since I've posted. Things have been really busy recently. I'm going to try to make this update quick... which I'm sure is okay with you since all you really want are the pictures, right?? :-)

We went to MD again last weekend (the weekend of the 8th). Waylon and three of his friends had tickets to another Redskins game, so I tagged along and we all stayed with my parents. It was lots of fun! It snowed the day we went up there so there was 3-4 inches of snow on the ground which was fun and beautiful! We don't get to see much snow here, so that was nice. All the pictures below are from that weekend.

Another big update... I'm officially starting back to work in January! I have mixed feelings about this but I think it's the right thing to do for everyone. It's just going to be really hard at the beginning. I couldn't ask for a better situation, though. I'll be working 3 days/week and I'll even have maximum flexibility in my hours on those days. And the best part.... my boss will be the same guy I've been working for 5 years! I actually already went in and worked a few hours last week! My official start date will be January 15th though.

This past weekend was really nice, too. We stayed close to home and got lots of things done around the house, got some shopping done, and saw Santa yesterday, too! I have pictures of that but will have to post them later this week (they are on the other computer and I'm ready to go to bed!!).

Enjoy the pictures and I'll post more soon.

Noah playing with 'Uncle' Josh

With 'Uncle' Dave (Noah has lots of 'aunts' and 'uncles')

Noah with Daddy at the Columbia Mall

Grandma having lots of fun feeding Noah

Gotta love that bib

Papa hypnotizing Noah - this inspired me to get my guitar back out - he loves it!

Noah in his new bathtub that Grandma got to keep at her house

Checking out snow for the first time

Thanks, Grandma and Papa, for the Jumperoo! It took about a day for Noah to figure out what to do in this but it's by far his favorite toy now!!

Noah with 'Aunt' Julie

Noah wearing Papa's scarf

Fun Weekend and Rice Cereal

Yay!! I love 'solid' food!! :-)

Okay first of all... does anyone else watch Notes from the Underbelly? Last night's episode was about how one of the characters keeps a baby blog. Waylon and I were laughing so hard cause we are those crazy parents!

Anyway, we had a great family weekend... very relaxing! We went and picked out our tree, ran some errands, got a few things done around the house and decorated for Christmas. At one point, while we were pulling out the decorations, Noah started getting fussy, so I sat down and rocked him and he fell asleep in my arms. The house was so calm and peaceful... Waylon was looking through decorations, Seger was asleep on the floor, Noah was alseep in my arms and Christmas music was playing. I could literally feel my heart swell and got really emotional thinking about all the years ahead. I feel like my life has just begun.

Okay enough of Cheesy Robin! :-) Here are some pictures of the weekend....

Picking out Noah's first Christmas Tree

Seger snuggling up to Noah

We'll save the real picture for his prom date!
Last night we gave Noah 'solid food' for the first time... rice cereal mixed with breast milk. The recommended mix for the first feeding was really soupy but tonight we made it a little thicker so that was fun. He was very interested and caught on quick. In between bites, he was moaning for more! Tonight he was really starting to open his mouth wide for it. I'm still not sure how much he's really getting in but it's fun!... for us anyway! :-)

One of my first bites

Daddy feeding Noah tonight

Lastly... teething... oh, how we miss our perfect little sleeper. Noah has been waking up many times through the night on and off for a while now. We aren't sure if he's still hurting or if he's just gotten used to waking up a few times throughout the night. That's the hardest part... not knowing what is wrong or if there is anything wrong at all. I guess we just have to do the best we can, right? Here is a new picture of his teeth... slowly but surely they are coming in!