Reality

James is almost four weeks old. And so we decided on Saturday that we were going to have a family outing and not to the Dr. Eventually we will get back into the swing of things but we have kind of just been laying low and adjusting. Now and then One of us will go out with Addy to do things, but we have been keeping James home, for a number of reasons, but we decided to tackle the world, OK, just the bookstore. Which is one of our favorite places to go.

James all ready to go, he even had little shoes on! He slept for most of the adventure in his little bubble, keeping the germs and cold at bay.

But before we could go out, Doug and Addy went out and cleared the driveway. Addy, was not to sure about her snow suit at first, in fact she was quite upset about the pants, but once they got outside she had a great time, other then the snow slide, she didn't care for that much. We were glad we got to use the snowsuit, but it will have to be retired after this season, the pants are already about 4 inches to short. (Thanks J for the snowsuit We have gotten tons of use out of the coat) We had a wonderful day! The bookstore was a success!

A little blurry, but here is what we have really been trying to do, help James organize his sleep/wake/eat times. And catch a little sleep ourselves. Here I am breaking all the rules, sleeping on the couch (we generally don't do that) sleeping with the baby, again not something we normally do and to top it all off he was suppose to be having wake time, we were chatting, have a good ole discussion and we both fell asleep, Daddy caught it on camera. He'll have plenty of wake time when he is older, it's not everyday I get to hold a sleeping baby, OK, well right now it is, but I am sure the time will pass before I know it, and I will be missing my sweet baby boy snuggling in my arms. Not that I will be making a habit of breaking the rules, as well our two year old is very aware of that!  So it is back to reality for us, first the bookstore, hard to say what is next, but look out world we are on our way!

Week 2 and 3

We are so lucky, really. When we had James my parents were able to come and help us with Addy and for a bit afterwords getting adjusted with James at home. They had to leave for a week or so, and then My Mom came back for a week to help us with the nitty gritty. We sure do LOVE her, and my Dad for loaning her out to us. I don't know how we would have made it without her help. We all cried  when she left. (okay Doug was just sad to see her go, I didn't actually see tears, but the rest of us needed tissues) She was great with playing with Addy, outings, and of course helping with James, and night feedings. We sure wish you guys were closer. We had so much fun with you here, not to mention getting some rest and getting our house put back in order after the holidays.

This is James first bath, which also fell in this week two and three time frame. Addy loves to help with him, anyway she can (she really wants to share her food with him) She has a stool to sit on that we pulled in to the laundry room so she could help, she thinks that is just great!

James is not too sure about bath time though, and we definitely need to teach him not to drink the water he just peed in, but well someday. At least it was watered down a bit.

AH, clean, look at that hair! I swear his hair  keeps getting lighter and lighter with each washing, that Johnson and Johnson must have some bleach in it or something, some rough chemicals I tell you, HAha, all kidding aside his hair is getting quite light and his eyes, which look dark in this picture are now BLUE...

Just relaxing, loving life.

 One of Addy's  December doors, she was a crafty critter that month we ran out of door space (the pictures are really just to document her progress as I don't keep all of the art work)

The other door of art

Our little angel.. what a cute tree topper she makes. Addy, Grandma and I spent a day taking down Christmas, it was a lot of work but as you can see we had good fun too! And we are all loving the clutter free house that is clean most of the time.

Sleeping Slugger, James has decided he likes to sleep on the couch, so he can sleep on his side but I have a bit of an ulcer every time he is on the couch ever since Doug's cousin's kid turned blue a year or so ago, I can't imagine, nor do I want to, so it bothers me, which means he doesn't spend much time there, but he does like it...

More Grandma time, so with a little help from Grandma, who also was kind enough to send Doug and I on two date nights, we survived week 2 and 3 of James joining our family.

A few things we have learned in three weeks time, now that we are a family of four in no particular order

-We really miss having family close by

-Kitchen sinks are designed to flow from one sink to the other so they don't overflow, (this we knew) but the design actually works, thank goodness or we and by we I mean I would have flooded the kitchen. The laundry room sink however is not meant to overflow anywhere but on to the floor, good thing I caught it before it flooded.

- I need to not walk out of rooms before finishing what I am doing, see above.

- Boys really can pee anywhere, within just days of being alive James had managed to pee in his mouth and ear, what a shot! (and to boot we were at the Dr.'s office so we gave everyone a good laugh)

- Just because you could at some point in time do something in the dark with your eyes closed needing no assistance, Practically still sleeping, does not mean you will always be able to, practice makes perfect, and when you are out of practice it must be relearned.

- The neighbors who do not have children keep crazy hours, we had no idea except for the occasional late night party that we have busted up by calling the cops on them, yes we are those people

- The neighbors that have kids which is only two houses, seem to have the same bad nights we do, meaning they happen on the same days, which is just weird, maybe just a coincidence.

- When it rains it pours, how is it possible for two kids bowels to be so in tune with each other, again a coincidence but my word we have a lot of those these days.

-Burp rags were invented for a reason, we never needed them with Addy, so they didn't get any use, but James, he is taking care of those new burp rags we got two years ago, without any trouble at all.

-One person even if they are very small adds to the laundry significantly even if their clothes are small, amazing, again see above.

-Having our family grow is a great adventure, We are loving every minute of it. We are excited to be getting normal amounts of sleep at our house again I will admit ( not that this is happening yet, but we do look forward to the day), but we can't really complain.

2010 Wrapped Up

I am finally getting our 2010 year wrapped up! (I think, if I actually get to finish this) This is a picture of Addy getting ready to go to gymnastics with Daddy. She LOVES her date night with him and it has really been good for her, she learns so much and is doing a ton of things she previously just would not do. She is also sporting all of her hair in a pony tail, she looks so different, all toddler like...What happened to my baby?

We had a few minutes so she was making some notes for later, what a funny girl, like she is allowed to walk around the house with a pen... I don't think so!

Great Grandma Valere, made this beautiful blanket and lovely sweater (which will be shown off in a later post when it fits) for James, notice who has commandeered the blanket...We pulled out one that was made for her and that seems to have stopped the commotion, for now. The blanket is really beautiful. Thanks to Great Grandma for making it and sending it our way. Our kids are very lucky to have you as a Great Grandma.

The finished product of our study of the life and birth of Christ. This was Addy's job, everyday in December we would read a passage, talk about it, sing a song and put up a piece of the nativity. She was in charge of putting the pieces on the board as we talked about the significance of each. (we did have to do a little rearranging at the end, so that the Baby Jesus ended up in his bed with his parents) She had a great time with it, and seems to be missing getting to put piece on the board everyday, I may try and put something together that goes with our normal scripture study that involves daily pieces to a bigger picture.

Food Storage for the baby? Well kind of. We were hoping that we would be able to breastfeed with James, but alas again things just didn't work out that way, but at least this time we were not blind sighted by it. It ended up that his Daily appointments to the Dr. worked out in our favor. Doug was able to get a load of coupons, high dollar coupons that were about to expire, and use them up, making what is usually one of the most expensive ongoing costs for us in having a baby, out and out cheap! He did so good, I was very proud of him and his shopping. We will be good on formula for quite awhile! Hooray for good coupons, and Doug for getting on it, and doing the shopping to save us a ton!

 Lights on, Door open, Footie Pj's

Three things I think are most memorable about Addy right now. She is all about these footie Jammie's, I tell you, if you see many pictures with her not in them, well then you know we are progressing back into a routine. But in reality she is just plum happy to wear them all day! Her current obsessions also lie with turning the lights on and off (so now we sit in the dark, not because our light bulbs are burnt out, but because Addy prefers the Dark and we are being patient hoping this stage passes, soon) And shutting doors. She loves to collect prizes around the house, including people, so those coming to visit beware, and put them in her room for safe keeping, closing them in, or even putting them to bed (she follows routine to a t) Yep another one we are hoping she grows out of soon.



For Christmas we got a new camera! Which we are very excited about. And I had seen this little outfit quite some time ago, I wanted to get it, but wasn't sure, size, would James really make it for Christmas this year, etc, and to my benefit, I waited long enough I got it on sale and with a coupon! So I paid just over a dollar for it. Which is about the price you want to pay for something your kid is only going to wear once for you to play around with your new camera! He sure is cute in it though!

The dynamic duo! Funny thing, we started with this pose and Addy was adamant it was the only pose to be had, hmmm, such a creature of habit, wonder where she gets that from.

Note the princess shoes, purse, stroller, yeah, that is not something she got from me. She does love her bags and shoes though, such a girl!

And this my friends is how we spend a good portion of our days, READING,(in our pj's) here Addy is reading in her beloved chair, which by the way gets moved from room to room for her reading pleasure.  Usually our time is spent with one of us reading to her, but she enjoys reading or looking at and pretending to read on her own too.

Snow happy to see you. We had a cold spell here, it was frigid and except for Dr. appointments we were not leaving the house, but that doesn't stop the speech lady from coming to us, so Doug had to clear the drive way, he found that removing the snow in chunks was easier to do, and well he has always enjoyed sculpting snow so he made us a smiley face to enjoy (it lasted almost two weeks, smiling at us from the front yard)

Three weeks old,(which should actually be in a 2011 post but since I accidentally put it here it can stay) he is growing and doing well, finally up to 8 lbs. He does his jobs of being the baby just splendidly, he eats, he sleeps, he poops, he grows, what more could we ask for!

Sticky fun! We got a lovely care package from our good friends (thank you Sean and Holly) and Addy could not wait to play with this sticky fun stuff they sent. She loves it. And notice she has real clothes on, we didn't quite get her hair done, but really we are not in PJ's that has got to say something!

To bring in 2011 we all went to bed. Hmmm, yes to everything there is a season and currently our season is to sleep whenever we can.  What a very busy 2010 we had,It was a good year and couldn't have ended on a better note.  We are excited to see what 2011 will bring and to get back into the swing of things.