Christmas 2013 - Blaire's 1st!

Blaire's first Christmas has come and gone; and as surreal as it sounds, it was Bryce's FIFTH Christmas! Like Bryce's first Christmas, we can sort of consider Blaire's first Christmas a White Christmas. Though we had to drive a few hours to get there, but when we did get to Wichita to celebrate with my Mom's side of the family there were several inches of snow on the ground. 

Leading up to Christmas we did lots of wrapping of presents. This year Bryce was really big into helping with just about everything. Below is a picture of him trying to wrap one of Blaire's presents all by himself. Of course shortly thereafter he got bored and I had to finish the job. 

This year with the addition of Blaire, I ordered us all new custom stockings. I know I could have just ordered a new stocking for Blaire, but since I'm just a little OCD, I had to make sure they all kind of matched. Besides, I shouldn't have to order any more since we're not planning on adding any more to our family. 

Our Christmas festivities began the Sunday before Christmas with a trip down south with my Dad's side of the family. Our initial celebration was delayed a day due to an ice storm that hit. We made it safely down there and the kids enjoyed playing outside in the cold, cold temperatures!

Christmas Eve morning we made some cookies for Santa. Bryce was a really big helper...

Of course when it was time to decorate them he was already over the entire activity...so I handled that part.

Early, early Christmas morning Santa stopped by our house...

Bryce and his sleepyhead self evidently couldn't see the massive amount of toys Santa left, as he started crying and asking why Santa didn't come.

But he quickly wiped the sleep out of his eyes and saw many of the things he had on his list. Shortly thereafter, he exclaimed that "this is the best Christmas ever!" My heart melted!

Of course I planned out a cute outfit for Blaire to wear to our Christmas day activities.

Meeting and being adored by a Great-Grandma

Daddy and his favorite girl...even if she's in frilly clothes!

Of course that outfit didn't last, so our family picture didn't have her in a cute outfit. I did dress her back up in it at a later date so I could get a picture of she and Bryce together. See the bottom of this post.

And for our 4th consecutive day of Christmas celebrations we went to my Mom's house so the kids could open their present from her...she didn't want to haul everything to Wichita on Christmas day.

And for our Christmas outfit redo!

 He sure loves his sissy!! <3 font="">

Two months...already?!?

So today my baby girl is TWO months old! 

Obviously, I couldn't choose just one picture to share!

At two months, she's still in size 1 diapers, though barely! She's also fitting comfortably in 0-3 months clothes but some are starting to get small, especially the outfits with pants. Her two month doctor's checkup was on New Year's Eve, at which she was exactly 8 weeks old. She weighed 11 lbs 10 oz (78%). Her head circumference was 15 3/4" (84%) and her height was...wait for it...24 inches!!! Unbelievably, a child of mine in the <97 4="" believe="" birth.="" br="" but="" couldn="" for="" grown="" had="" height="" i="" in="" inches="" it="" length="" m="" nbsp="" she="" since="" stay="" still="" sure="" t="" that="" way="" won="">

Blaire is smiling a TON! She's cooing at us and we're just waiting for her first awake giggles. She does a lot of chuckling in her dreams, but so far we just get squeaks for laughs. She holds her head up well and keeps it pretty steady, but absolutely HATES tummy time! If you want to ruin her good mood fast, just initiate tummy time!

 

She's still sleeping really well. She typically wakes up around 3 or 4am after going down around 9 or 9:30pm. It's very likely that when she wakes up at 4am, I'll probably just get up for the day. I'm just going to try to move our bedtime up so that I'm not completely sleep depraved.

She's still getting 100% breast milk as I'm exclusively pumping. I have a MAJOR oversupply! In fact, being the spreadsheet enthusiast that I am I can tell you that my current weekly average production is 75 oz! AND since about week 3 I have been seeing an average increase of 5 oz nearly every week. I set a goal of only pumping until June 1st and at that point having enough frozen milk to get her on breast milk until her 1st birthday and I believe if my supply keeps like it has, that I will easily achieve this goal. Right now in the freezer I've got over 1,700 oz and my goal is 6,000. I'm nearly 1/3 of the way there and have been freezing between 40-50 ounces a day. 

How did this happen so quickly?!? Not only is she growing up way too fast, but I'm supposed to be returning to work tomorrow! I say "supposed to" because we have had some snow and ice that have left the roads a mess. So if schools are closed tomorrow, then it's very likely daycare will be closed also. I've been preparing myself mentally all week about returning...so far no tears have been shed but I might break if I don't go back to work tomorrow as planned. Darn my Type A personality!

So to keep me distracted...I'll be posting our Christmas post shortly!