Christmas

Here are a few pictures of our first Christmas as a family of 3 (4 if you count Dakota!)

Adalyn's outfit to meet Santa!!

All ready to meet Santa:) (Can you tell how excited she was?)

Adalyn's Christmas outfit for the Christmas Eve service and party.

Christmas Eve we drove home from Louisville in the snow (which took an hour longer than it should because the Kentucky drivers didn't go more than 25mph on the highway!) We had a white Christmas for the first time in forever!! It felt like a real Christmas! Christmas isn't Christmas without snow!

The stockings were hung on the chimney with care...

Our dining room.

Adalyn (in her Christmas sleep sack) and Coda ready for bed Christmas Eve.

Christmas morning! Santa came!!! It was so cozy to open presents in front of the fire!

My favorite Christmas present!

6 and 7 Weeks!

So Adalyn was 7 weeks old on Tuesday and between Christmas and traveling I haven't had the chance to post the pictures from 6 or 7 weeks.  So here we go...

6 Weeks

 Pucker up!

At 6 weeks, Adalyn had grown from newborn clothes and is now wearing 0-3 clothes. (It was hard for me to pack away those newborn clothes and admit that she is growing up!)  She actually is still wearing newborn sized onesies but cannot wear newborn sized pants unless we want them to be high-waters:)  She is so long!  She is wearing size 1 diapers.  The newborn diapers still fit just fine and the size 1 look enormous on her but we found that the larger diapers help eliminate the blowouts!  She is just now starting to smile at things (and it's not just gas!).  She's also staying so alert and is tracking objects.  She loves her little jungle gym and bats at the animals hanging over her head.

7 Weeks

She's even cute when she is screaming! She now has tears and it breaks my heart!

At 7 weeks, Adalyn met lots of new family members at both Jonathan's family Christmas Eve party and also when we went to visit my parents and saw lots of family members in the couple days we were in Toledo!  She is trying so hard to talk.  She moves her mouth all around and tries to make noises.  Sometimes she really gets going and coos back to you when you're talking to her. So cute.  She also seems to try to mimic if we stick our tongues out at her she tries to do the same. She has been on a great schedule.  We are following Babywise and it seems to be working.  She sleeps through the night which is soo wonderful for me!  She even slept all night at my parents' house in a different room and a different bed!  I can't complain over her sleeping 8 hours!!  She is so laid back.  With travelling and being out and about, she just rolled with the flow and went past feedings without crying!  She made the 5 hour drive to my parents' house with sleeping the entire way!  (The way home...not so much. But it wasn't her fault.  We hit traffic and the trip took longer than it should. So by the time we stopped to change her and get her some milk we would have already been home had we not been traveling at rush hour.)

She is so precious and I love this new stage of discovery.  It is so much fun to see her learning...even if it means she won't be a newborn forever!

Merry Christmas!

5 Weeks

So I realize that you may want to read about something other than my child, but right now my life is revolving around my child so I can't really think of much else to blog about! Although with Christmas around the corner I'm sure there will be lots to blog about if I can find the time!  Tomorrow Adalyn gets to meet her sitter who will be watching her when I go back to work.  I'm thrilled about her new sitter.  We are so lucky to have a wonderful woman of God who will be taking care of our sweet baby since I can't. 

Here are Adalyn's 5 week pictures.  She's getting to be such a big girl!! (And she even slept through the night for 8 hours one night this past week!)

Is that a smile?? I can't wait till she smiles on purpose:)  She really is a happy and content baby!

Our schedules have been full with Christmas events already.  This Christmas will be so special!! (Now if only I could find Adalyn a Christmas stocking to hang!)  I think that having a baby really puts the Christmas story into perspective more than ever.  It's hard to put into words the amount of love I have for my baby and to put myself into Mary's shoes...I just can't even imagine!

1 Month

How has it been one month since Adalyn was born?? I knew that time would fly by but this is just crazy! I can't believe how big she is getting (she's still in newborn sized clothes but she just looks big to me!)  She has started lifting her head up and is so alert during the days! (Thankfully she doesn't have her days and nights mixed up!)  I love watching her see lights and colors.  I know that every milestone will be fun to watch!

Here are her 4 week / 1 month pictures!

 Coda really wanted to be in the pictures:)

 Sitting up like a big girl!! I love the surprised expression:) She needs a bow on that head! What was I thinking??

 That face... I'm in love... *sigh*

 And this picture is to prove that my child really does have a bottom lip:)  She just likes to suck it in most of the time:)  Ok, seriously I could just kiss those cheeks!  I think I will right now...

Christmas Tree Linky

This past month I have missed a lot of things in the bloggy world!  I feel a bit out of it.  But I saw on twitter that The Thrifty Decor Chick was having a Christmas tree linky party and I knew I had to hop in!

This tree was our original Christmas tree.  I started collecting the decorations for this tree in my single days.  I like the dark golds and dark reds.  This year since our house is bigger; I decided I would like this tree in our dining room front window and then I'd like a new tree in our living room!

 If you look in the last picture, in the background you can see my Willowtree nativity scene that I have been collecting since our first year that we were married.  Last year Jonathan found out that Willowtree had yearly angel ornaments that they started making in 2006 (our first Christmas we were married), so he found a website where he ordered the back years and gave me four of these ornaments for a present.  I love them and will look forward to my new angel ornament each year!  I think they show up well on this tree!

We bought a new tree for our living room this year. We needed to get a tree that was a bit fuller and found a great deal on one for 50% off at Michaels on Thanksgiving day!  I didn't know how I wanted to decorate it but I knew I wanted it to be more "fun" than the other tree which is more traditional.  I went to Hobby Lobby to get inspired and decided that I wanted to do lime green and silver.  Well, it looked a bit bland so I added some pops of bright red and now I LOVE it! (Still not sold on the skirt which is why it's not "on" the tree...I'm trying to find some fabric that I can make my own.)

 I knew I wanted to do mesh on the tree but couldn't decide whether to do vertical or horizontal but ended up with the horizontal mesh.  I had originally wanted green mesh but Hob Lob didn't have it.  I got the silver and am so happy I did.  I think it looks way better than green would have!  I also got some fun feathers that I stuck around.  I didn't know what I wanted for my topper and I found these fun pick things at Target and thought they were whimsical!

 I have about 6 or 7 "B" ornaments.  I love collecting them.  This one came from a cutie boutique here in town.

 I couldn't find lime green ornaments that I liked so using an idea I saw on blogs last year, I got clear ornaments and shredded tissue paper and added cute ribbons and I think they turned out great!  I ended up adding the ribbons to the plain white and silver balls too to tie them all in to the theme of the tree!

 After Christmas last year I bought a bunch of fun decorations at a boutique I love.  Don't you love how you forget what you bought after season and when you open up your decorations it's like you opened surprises!! I had bought 5 special ornaments on sale and they all ended up being green so they are perfect on my new tree!

I hope you enjoyed a "tour" of our Christmas trees.  I don't love the effort that goes into putting them up, but I do love looking at them all month (especially this year that I'm home all day for the month on maternity leave!)  We have a bunch of small trees around the house too, but that will have to be part of my Christmas decorations post. 

And I can't write a post anymore without a picture of this cutie.  She was having tummy time today and seemed to actually enjoy it! Such a big girl now!

3 Weeks!

As of yesterday my baby is 3 weeks old!  Where has the time gone??  I know I'll be saying that her whole life!  Adalyn really is a great baby!  She is so content and laid back.  I really can't complain.  She cries if she is hungry or wet or has gas...but really who wouldn't? :)  Other than that she is content!  She pretty much sleeps as long as she's in her car seat when we're out and about.  She usually gets up once during the night to nurse and goes right back down.  I mean seriously...easy peasy!  Since I have said that, she'll probably be up all night tonight. HA!

We are taking weekly pictures of Adalyn and since I have neglected my blog I haven't posted them.  So here are weeks one through three! (Thanks to Billie for the adorable onesie stickers!)

Week 1

Week 2

 

Week 3

My baby is growing!! Did you notice how she fills out the onesie more now than she did in week 1?  Or is that just me?  I can't believe how long she stays awake and alert now!  Last week we went to Adalyn's two week doctor's appointment and she was 7lbs 4oz (only 3oz less than her birth weight! Yay for weight gain!) and in the 50 percentile for weight.  She was 20 1/2 in long and 90 percentile for height.  And her head was in the 10 percentile... her daddy's girl!

We are just so blessed!  I just can't believe how amazing Adalyn is and how absolutely amazing motherhood is!