Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve day I worked my usual 8 hour shift. My day surprised me - it was pretty fun! I spent a lot of time in the electronics and entertainment department trying to put movies away but ended up helping guests all day! I was pleased that the ones who I had interactions with seemed to be in a good mood. I was even thanked by a few for working which I appreciated.

We stopped by a gathering of Jason's family briefly and then spent the night at my parent's house. Kim made stuffed peppers for dinner and we did presents around the tree. Amelia couldn't even get through present opening before she needed something opened so she could play with it:


Joe on his first Christmas Eve:


Family photo by the tree:

Girl's Night

Last Friday night was a little girl's night out at Acapulco! Marie was in town for the holidays and it worked out that several of us could meet for dinner. We were surprised at how empty the restaurant was. They are notorious for slow service (but the cheese dip is awesome and worth it!) so I was a little worried about it being Friday night and the day before Christmas weekend. I figure everyone would be eating out since they'd be cooking all weekend! This was not the case - we walked right in and sat down.

Amelia stayed home with her daddy for the evening. She's not that into mexican food and I also knew Joe would keep me busy enough while trying to visit and eat! He did pretty well though. He slept part of the time even!


I wish we could all get together like this a little more often - it was a good time!

2 Months

Last week Joe was two months old!


We had his check-up and he is looking great. He was 26 inches long (100th percentile) and 14 pounds 5 ounces (90th percentile). We have a fast growing, big baby boy!


We started having some sleeping issues. Joe doesn't like his crib most nights and spends the night in his swing in our room:


It is not an ideal situation or one that we are entirely happy with but it's what we have to do to get any rest. Since I started back at work last week and have been averaging around 3 hours of sleep on work nights (I get up at 3 a.m.) the swing has been a lifesaver. We keep hoping one night he'll realize his crib is comfy but so far it hasn't happened :(

These first two months have flown by - he'll be one before we know it!

Kitty Cat, Night Night

Amelia loves to take people "ny, ny." What that means is she takes you to her room and closes the door and basically holds you hostage. She will even go so far as to "block" the door with whatever she can find. She honestly believes that her sippy cup or step stool will keep you barricaded in her room!

She is always running around the house yelling, "kitty cat, night night! Kitty cat, night night!" Her father has let a kitty cat go "night, night" before. I on the other hand am opposed to it. Here she is seeking out a cat to go "ny, ny."

Searching for Tubing

Do you know what it takes to get these?


A LOT.

This afternoon our cats found the tubes to the breastpump and decided they looked like a fun toy and chewed them up. Sweet. I go back to work in the morning (well, in just a few hours) and definately need that tubing!

We went on with the day knowing that we would be in Woodbury this evening and we would stop in at Babies R Us and get some new tubing. Guess what? You can't buy the tubing there! They have every other replacement part you can think of except the tubing. We stopped in at a few pharmacies thinking they might have some for some reason. Nope.

In a last effort on the way home we stopped at the hospital. They have surgical tubing and that's really all we needed. A few feet of surgical tubing. They must have miles of it in a hospital! The triage nurse sent us to Target. I knew Target didn't carry it because I work there but just in case we went over there. They did not have it.

I called the OB department of the hospital directly and went through it all again and basically said, "I need this tubing ASAP and I know you have it. What do I need to do to get and I am more than willing to pay for it." They ended up putting me on hold and then decided they'd call me back once pricing was figured out. Well, they called back and we went and got it.

We expected just a few feet of surgical tubing. Instead we got a brand new Medela tubing set in the packaging. Apparently there was some confusion on what we needed and the nurses just found the whole thing hilarious because they have cases of what we needed just sitting there. I was not laughing so much but was happy to get what we needed and get home.

I go back to work for the first time since Joe was born in just a few hours and our adventures this evening/night have led to me needing to pull an all-nighter! Sunday is going to be an interesting day for me :)

Christmas Tree 2011

This past Sunday we went to the St. Croix Tree Farm to get a tree for Jason's sister's house! This year it snowed the night before we went - just like last year!

We brought a sled with this year for Amelia to ride around on and she loved it!


She also figured this year that throwing snow is fun!


While the tree was being trimmed our family snuck off to get a picture of the four of us for our Christmas card! All three of them turned out ok but this one was our favorite:


Thanks Auntie Liz for being our photographer!

The group shot this year wasn't as good as last years...


...the spot we chose had the sun right behind us! We'll have to plan better next year :)

This was the second year that I went to cut down a real tree and I am starting to think that once we are living in our own home I might want to give a real tree a try! We never had one growing up because cats got sick from eating the tree and needed medicine etc. For now, we will use our artificial tree which we hope to have up this weekend!

Small Gestures

With two little ones at home life can be really frustrating sometimes. Some evenings, while Jason is at work, all three of us end up in tears because there is just so much going on and so, so much noise (ie- Joe crying and Amelia yelling about something.)

One evening not too long ago we had one of those nights where we were all in tears. I felt like I spent the whole evening yelling at Amelia to stop doing things she shouldn't be doing or telling her "no" she could not have whatever it was she wanted etc. After I put her to bed and put up the baby gate so she had to stay in her room. After putting up the gate and telling her to stop screaming and crying I turned around to see this:


Amelia had wound the vacuum cord up (sort of) for me. All night I was telling her "no" and "stop" and asking why she was not listening. At some point though she saw something that needed to be done and she did it as best she could. She knew I was needing some help so she did it. She was trying to help her mama out. It was such a sweet, small gesture from a sweet, small girl. I need to remember that gesture when we are having a bad night and she is unruly because if I look harder I bet she is helping me out in ways I am not even aware of.

Baby Boys

Joe and his friend, D


These two have lots of good times to look forward to!

Joe's First Month

We've had a busy month! This past Sunday Joe turned one month old. Instead of trying to remember all we've done, here are a few pictures:

First night at home:


Sleeping in the bilibed:


Snoozing:




Halloween:


Siblings:


(I had to sneak this after she fell asleep on the couch! Amelia is not quite ready to be close to him just yet)

Joe met his first friend, D:


Meeting "Auntie M" and "Uncle J":


Lastly, I caught a smile on camera just the other day:


It has been a busy, busy first month full of frustrations and joys. All in all, we are adjusting pretty well to life with two little ones.

We still don't have Internet at our apartment but it is at the top of the "to-do list" finally so hopefully we can get that taken care of next week!

Joseph Leonard

On October 13th we welcomed our new baby, Joseph.



He weighed 8 pounds, 12 ounces and was 22 inches long! Quite a relief for me since big sister was over ten pounds! Labor and delivery was just under 12 hours compared to 28 hours with big sister which was also a relief to me :)

I was induced, as I was with big sister, and it was slow going. Around dinner time I was only 4 centimeters dilated so Jason left to get some dinner at a drive-thru and I settled in to rest. I knew I was going to need some energy later in the night but my body had other plans. Before Jason could even get back (he was gone less than a half an hour) I was in a lot of pain and felt like I needed to push. I was completely numb with Amelia and they had to tell me when to push so this was a whole new thing and concerned me since thirty minutes earlier I wasn't even halfway dilated.

Jason got back, got a nurse and they checked and I was ten centimeters. No one could believe it, including me! Here I was, expecting to settle in for a few hour nap and they were telling me it was time to push? My epidural did not take very well so pushing was much different this time around - much more painful. Maybe the pain helped me push harder because he was out in 25 minutes (vs 3 hours with big sister)!

Going home outfit:


Tuxedo...with tails!