Elayne's First Christmas!

Great Christmas!

Instead of boring you with a lengthy, overdue, wordy post, I'll just let the pictures do the talking.

Toys from mommy, daddy, and Santa!

Elayne's "big" present from Santa.

The school made this for us! The first of many to come in the future.

Exhausted after her school Christmas party.

Christmas Eve dress her Papa picked out.

Charicature from my work Christmas party.

Funny picture from the family photo shoot.

Relatives from Germany!

Daddy and Elayne after an eventful Christmas Eve.

Tabo's three great-grandbabies.

So many gifts for Elayne!

Phillip got an axe!

Santa came!

Hello baby!

Loving the ball.

Aunt Heather snuggles.

Cousin time.

New convertible car jumper.

Murphy dog spent Christmas with us at the Longs' too!

Both of our children.

I regifted Elayne this year. ;)

My dad's parents celebrated 68 years together!

Snugglie baby!

On the Polar Express train ride!

Cousin Meyer with Papa!

Family <3 p="">

Cousin Griffin loves Elayne.

First picture with Santa. Cold red nose and just up from a nap.

How was your Christmas!?

It's Beginning to Look a lot Like Christmas?

This has been a weird Christmas season so far. I have wanted so badly to decorate the entire house from top to bottom and inside and out. However, sadly, that has yet to happen. I wanted new decorations and to build upon our already great arsenal of all things Christmas. And yet, here we are a little over a week away from Christmas, and I am disappointed in myself.

We have our indoor Christmas decorations up. We look festive at work too. But outside? Outside we have nothing. And I'm afraid it isn't going to get much better.

Thanksgiving weekend was spent at the cabin. Then it iced. Then we have/had a sick baby. And then work for graduation was exhausting. Add that to the extremely short "season" this year, and I feel so bahumbug. So we have nothing outside. And not much inside either.

Hopefully when I get off work Friday, I'll decide to go on a decorating binge and finally get in the spirit this year.

Snow/Sick Day

Last night it sleeted and frozen rained. And it stuck. 3.5 inches to be exact.

Parker cancelled classes. Bright Horizons closed. Phillip could barely get out of the garage - and couldn't get back in. So we're all at home hanging out. Which is great so we don't have to get out in this terrible weather.

But what isn't so great is the fact that our baby girl is sick. Her first virus - probably resulting from her first week at school and being around so many people last week during Thanksgiving.

I had to pick her up early on Wednesday because she was running a 100.5 fever. That afternoon we were luckily able to secure an afternoon doctor's appointment, where they told me it was pretty much just a virus that has to run its course - with the help of Tylenol and Benadryl if it got bad enough.

Yesterday morning, her fever was gone and she had no other symptoms so she went back to school. She seemed to be feeling better - until Phillip picked her up last night. She was running a 100.4 fever, was coughing like crazy, could hardly breathe out of her nose, and her eyes were watering. Therefore, in the ice and bad weather, Phillip ran to the store to get Benadryl.

This morning she seems to be doing better. No fever yet again, but still has the other symptoms. Since we're all home, she gets some good TLC from mommy and daddy - along with being chalked full of meds all day.

Hopefully she kicks this thing sooner rather than later. She's so sad when she doesn't feel good.

Thanksgiving and The Like

Elayne's first Thanksgiving was such a success!!

She got to meet Aunt Tiffany, Uncle Adrian, and Uncle Nick for the first time - I hope they loved her!

Besides Elayne being held all week, me eating way too much, and enjoying all of the family time, we also headed to the cabin with Elayne and Murphy. It was Elayne's first trip, and she did so well! She loved taking a walk around the huge property and seeing a bunch of things she's never seen before. She's really starting to become quite social, inquisitive, and smiley. I love it!

Monday was also her first day of school! Phillip dropped her off and I picked her up. I love her teachers, the program, and everything about it. Yesterday when I picked her up, she held her arms out for me. That was the first time she's ever reached for anyone - and it was me! To say my heart was happy is the understatement of the year.

Yesterday Phillip dressed Elayne in the funniest outfit ever - I'm still laughing. I told him to grab her dress and the sweater behind it that matches. It's an adorable white and pink dress with a pink cardigan to go over it. When I picked her up yesterday, they handed me a bag of "messed up" clothes and I instantly knew what he did. He grabbed a different sweater - a bright red sweater dress. So essentially, Elayne wore two dresses to school yesterday. Luckily the teachers figured out there was some sort of Daddy dressing mix up and said she needed to take the sweater dress off because it was "dirty" (aka it looked weird and they didn't want us to feel bad). Too funny.

I love our happy baby.

Oh! And in other news!!! She is sleeping through the night pretty consistently now! Hooray!

Now of course, once I brag about this, we'll be going back to midd of the night feedings. Great.

Things THEY Don't Tell You

Who IS this "they" who never tells you anything? (ex. They don't tell you this stuff…) It's the same person who knows everything too. (ex. You know they say…) So someone knows everything but refuses to tell you. Cruel.

I could hunt this person down and kick them.

But that would be entirely too difficult for this busy mama who only seems to have time for laundry, cleaning, and homework these days. Oh. And she's going back to work full time Wednesday. Holy. Crap. How will I find time to do anything!? Much less find time to hunt "they" down...

Now that I've been a mom for two and a half months, I've learned several things. I'm still not even close to knowing enough and I know I will forever grow as a mom. However, there are a few things I have under my belt I'd like to share… This will keep you from having an unhealthy vendetta against "they" like I do.

Here are my parenting tips and/or things that I didn't know that I now know and will pass on these learned experiences to you. Wow that was an awful run on sentence. Oh well, I don't have time to edit it.

Filthy House Filthy Clothes
Laundry never ends. Ever. I am constantly washing clothes and what I need seems to always be dirty. All I do anymore is clean the house. It's always messy. This weekend I was able to do a deep clean but I know it'll start back up within a couple of days.

Feedings
I was prepared to get up every 3-4 hours. Totally prepared for that. But what I wasn't prepared for was the fact that it takes babies like 30-45 minutes to eat their share for that feeding - and I have a good eater and I'm not breastfeeding. Apparently if you have a slow eater and/or are breastfeeding, you could spend over an hour feeding the baby. So that's where the lack of sleep comes from.

SIDS Mattresses
The new SIDS recommendations are great. They really are. The numbers have decreased by leaps and bounds. But for real, my crib mattress is harder to deal with than our Queen mattress in our bedroom. You see, the mattresses have to fit exactly into the crib. And the sheets have to fit exactly onto the mattress. So changing the bedding is seriously the hardest part of parenting. Ok, I kid… it's not the hardest part, but it really is hard! I don't remember who suggested the following tip to me, but I'm pretty sure I owe them my sanity - Put a mattress pad on the mattress, then a fitted sheet, then another mattress pad, then a second sheet. Guys, as painful as that process is, it will save you when the baby decides to explode on the mattress in the middle of the night (sleepily toss the top sheet and pad in the washing machine and you'll be back to dream land) or when you have a lazy laundry day and don't feel like pulling that last load out of the dryer at 10:20pm. Also. When you change the sheets and do all that layering, take the mattress out of the crib. They are relatively small mattresses so don't torture yourself by trying to make them in the crib like when you make bigger beds.

Save The Manuals
Yes, you did your research and purchased the top-of-the-line swing that grows with the child and eventually even converts to a mini fridge for their college dorm room. Kidding. Or maybe I'm not? They really have come up with crazy items these days. And yes, you had the hubs assemble the swing and found the perfect place in your house for it before baby arrived. But once the baby is born, your brain turns to mush and you forget what in the world that swing actually does, much less how to make it do those wonderful things. For instance, two and a half months later, I realize our bouncer has two reclining positions. Thanks, Graco.

Stack Wipes Containers
You never know you're on the last wet wipe until you pull the last one out. So what's a mom to do when that happens mid-diaper change? I had excellent advice to always put a spare wipe container ready to go under the open one. This is a great piece of advice and I recommend it to everyone!