Welcome to New England, C!

We got hit hard (as did everyone!) with the snow, and I had to take time off from shoveling to get these pictures with C and her first snow! She wasn't too impressed (and she was only outside for about ten seconds!)

Her latest thing is tucking her bottom lip under like that- so cute!

Snow Angel? :)

I did tuck her into a snowsuit and into my sling and we went for a walk yesterday though and she seemed to like looking all around at the neighborhood covered in white! Funny how on all our walks in the summer and fall, we hardly met anyone in our neighborhood- but with 2 feet of snow on the ground, we met one!

Gives you an idea of how much snow we had!

5 Months Old!

You can't see it, but I made a Christmas tree instead of an Exclamation Point this time!
Merry Christmas!

Do I start every post with "I can't believe..."? Because I feel like everyday I wake up to something new I can't believe she is doing. My little baby is getting so big, and I truly can't stand it.

I visited the neighbors twins and I keep thinking how much I miss that sleepy newborn stage... And C was never all that sleepy! I truly enjoy each day, even though I lament the passing of time. She is so sweet and we love her SO much!

She LOVED the socks. It was hard to get her to look up!

She continues to love to be called "the banana king" (stupid video can be seen here!) She is still working on mastering all her milestones. She is trying hard to sit on her own, but she still has a ways to go (much to her dismay!) She is so smiley in the morning (she's her mum's baby!) and continues to love "nakey" time. (being changed or getting ready for bed!) She hates having her jammies put on- we've concluded it's because you can never get the jammies on fast enough for her- she's ready for what follows jammies- FOOD! She still loves nursing, which I continue to be so thankful for. I cant believe in just a few weeks we will start giving her REAL food. Yikes!

I've got to hit the sack, so that's all for now!Hadn't gotten a daddy-daughter picture in awhile...

Chattanooga

I have many blogs in mind to write right now, hopefully i will pound them all out soon!

Our 3 weeks in TN went by so quickly. And I can't believe it's almost Christmas. After another eventful trip, we finally made it home friday night at 3am! The cat was VERY happy to see us. She's all up in my face even as I type. She tried to get in my lap when I was nursing the baby, she was so happy we were home.

I'm trying to think back on our trip and write about it, but i feel it flew by so fast! We did some shopping at the Chattanooga Market, one of my favorite places~and strangely enough, I even bumped into a girl I knew from Eastern! We both did a double take, and we weren't sure HOW we knew each other, but figured we at least must've met in passing...I figured out later, I'm pretty sure she was my TA for a Theology class! So weird! Especially since Eastern is so small!

We got Brian's mom hooked on Settlers of Catan and so mostly we played that while C took naps... It was definitely a change from being on the go the entire trip like we used to do! It was fun staying home and just seeing C interact with the Grandparents. I'm sure she's going to be bored to just have me to look at now!! Fortunately, it IS Christmas time which means there will be lots to do! (yes, yes, I DO realize we are too much on the go!)

It was especially nice for me to have help changing diapers and rocking the wee one to sleep. Speaking of sleep, we kept up with the Nap training and it is definitely helping ~ obviously, since I'm having time to blog! :) Literally, the DAY I was going to give up on it, she took her first nap without crying in the middle! She is still struggling with her afternoon nap, but hopefully today helps with that! She didnt get a great morning nap (gone are the days I can go to church and her have a nap! She only napped on my chest for about 20 minutes in the cry room) so she was ready to sleep this afternoon! Yay!

I got to (briefly) attend our neighborhood Christmas party last night. {Briefly because we had to put SOMEONE down early due to our travels the night before, and she woke up wanting to eat one last time} It was fun finally meeting a few more neighbors! I hope next year I'll be able to stay longer. We have such lovely neighbors! I'm so glad we live here! I knew the people who live behind us were expecting twins and I didn't see them at the party, so I stopped o ver there today and she DID deliver them a bit early! They were soooo cute. I can't imagine having two though! The first thing her husband said to me was, "So when did she sleep through the night! haha! Poor guy! So if you think of it, say a prayer for Greg & Sarah!

Tomorrow C turns 5 Months old. I can't believe it. I looked at those tiny newborns in total disbelief that my child was like 4x their size! (She was twice their size at birth!) She rolled over yesterday, for the first time I think it was actually intentional. She is definitely trying to figure it out whenever we leave her on her belly!

First trip to see Santa!

We took C down to the Chattanooga Choo Choo for the first time today, and Santa Clause had come to town, apparently! :) C got to meet him. It took quite a bit of coaxing (and finally, praising her for being The Banana King) but we got a smile!

Enjoy!

Just a tip...

I've been so tired lately. Too tired to remember cute stories to post on the blog. Too tired to post a wordless wednesday picture even! All because C hasn't been napping well. Baby "bootcamp" fixed her night sleep fairly easily, but her naps were still terrible. I've read several books and still felt like maybe i was doomed.

Enter my friend Susanne's blog!

thank you thank you thank you Susanne! She wrote a blog on working on stopping the swaddle. If you can believe it, all the books i've read go on and on about how swaddling is a wonderful thing (it is!) but NO tips on how to stop! So after going back and forth with her a bit, I'm now sitting here wondering if i need to wake the child up! She's taking her first nap that is longer than 50 minutes in over a month!! I'm in shock.

(In fact, I went and checked on her and made sure she was still breathing!!)

So check it out. She covers LOTS of great topics, not just sleep issues. I'm so thankful!

http://blogginaboutbabies.wordpress.com/

Traveling with Tiny Tonk

C's nickname from her southern-style grandparents is Tiny Tonk. This comes from B's Uncle, who calls B's Mom (did you follow that?!) " Tonkins", so C is "Little Tonk", but "Tiny Tonk" has better alliteration. So what better to go with "Traveling" than "Tiny Tonk"! She's QUITE the traveler. We finally had a traveling mishap- it was bound to happen eventually. It made me VERY thankful that i have such a good baby!

We traveled to the southern style Grandparents for Thanksgiving. We used a voucher, so we didn't get to pick a convenient flight time, nor a direct flight. Our flight originally was taking off after C's bedtime, so when it got delayed, I got really worried. But She did GREAT, and ended up only taking a 20 minute nap on the plane at about 10pm. Fortunately for us, our lay over was near our good friends K&C. K picked us up from the airport (she even did some sleuthing to figure out when our flight was coming in, bc my phone died so i couldn't call her!). We thought we could just live without changing our clothes, until we realized we had checked our carseat! So we had to wait around for that...by the time we got to K&C's & got tiny tonk in bed, it was 1230 (6hrs later than normal!) and she had only slept 20 minutes. She slept in a suitcase (thanks to MckMama for the idea!) where she slept great! I was expecting several wake ups, but instead, (unfortunately!) we had to wake HER up to make our AM flight.

She again did great with us toying with her schedule. She made it to the South & then did well 2 hour ride to Nan and GP's. She finally had a freak out at 5pm (when we were planning to put her to bed early- apparently we were just a few minutes behind when she wanted to go to bed!) She cried (and by cried, I mean full out screamed & wailed) during her entire bath, for the first time since she was 1 week old. She has always loved her bath and it usually calms her down (hence why we went for it!). Yah, that didn't work out so well! But she did go down easily and didnt get up till the morning! Yay!

She's transitioned just fine down in the south. I was worried about her sleeping in our room and whether or not she would take naps, but she's done great! She loves all the attention (she's so happy to have someone other than me to look at!). Grandma Jean (i'm still rooting for Gigi for her grandma name) got her a pop a tot for christmas & i had it shipped to my in law. (thanks Jen! she posted about it here). She's definitely small for it, but she loves it! The first few days it took her a bit to get used to it, but now she sits in it for quite awhile. The idea is that she could stand, but she can't touch the bottom! But she is able to sit back in it (kind of like a baby swing) and enjoy her toys for awhile.

I'm SO glad we got this! It's allowed me to get to play several rounds of Settlers of Catan (a game i got B for Christmas, but gave him early so we could play with his fam on Thanksgiving). I'm a total addict now! :) if your family likes games, i recommend it!

Thanksgiving here was very yummy and full of fun (Catan!) and FOOTBALL. I love football, grew up watching NFL but never college. Well if you like College football (as B's family does) Thanksgiving is your Football WEEK. I actually ended up being a bit "footballed out" by the end of the weekend!

Nan has taught me to make bows, and i am SO thankful cause I was going to go broke buying them for C! (she needs to grow hair ASAP!) We are going to perfect bow making later today I think! Yay! And then we are going to try to make C a little shift dress! Yay for craftiness. I'll be posting pictures if it turns out well! :)

We had our first ever diaper "explosion", on our Thanksgiving outfit, only minutes after we put it on her! We didnt even have time to get a picture! We put it on her again to go out to the market & B snapped a quick pic. I'll upload it when we get home!

Nan and GP are impressed with how much C has grown in just a month! She is really playing with her toys, smiling at them and at us more... she is so interactive now! Her newest "trick" is that she has started grabbing at the pages of books when we read to her! It seems like she is turning the page & it is so cute! She's also always chewing on her fingers and toys. No teeth bumps yet, but we will be on the lookout! :)

I can't seem to post pictures from B's Computer, so don't forget to go to our Photo site to see some recent pictures of Tiny Tonk!

http://gallery.me.com/mrsgoose