Audrey - one month

You are one month old and an amazing addition to our family!  I can't believe you've already been in our lives one month, it has flown but yet in some ways it's hard to imagine our lives before you were here.

The most astonishing thing about you so far is how amazing of a sleeper you are.  I am stunned.  Even in the hospital you were a great sleeper and slept on me for hours night and day.  It hasn't changed.  I haven't let you go too long at night and been waking you up to eat, but the few times I have, you've slept 7 or 8 hours easily.  I'm pretty sure you'd do this every night if we didn't wake you up.  In fact, I don't recall more than once or twice where you've woken us up to eat at night.  When we do wake you up to eat, you barely open your eyes and are right back to sleep.  Some days I swear I don't see your eyes open for 12 hours straight.  I feel so spoiled and am hoping it lasts, but don't want to get too used to it!

You are a very mellow baby.  I wasn't expecting that, since you were so active in my stomach, but so far you've been very easygoing and calm, which is good with your whirlwind brother demanding so much time.  You like to just look around and watch us all.  You love your swing, like your bouncer seat and are calmed down by your pacifier.  You eat every 3-4 hours, around 3oz each time.

I wear you sometimes in the Moby and you seem to do okay with it.  I don't know if you love it but you do pretty well and I really like it so we'll keep at it.  It's really easy to take you places because you are so mellow.  We've been tons of places with you and you basically sleep the entire time. 

I just started putting you in the 3 month clothes instead of newborn and you look so cute in them!  There's still some extra room but I was ready for your adorable new clothes.  At your 1 month appointment you weighed 8lbs11oz and were 20.5".  So just slightly bigger than your brother was at his.  I love seeing your legs and belly starting to get some chub on them. 

Everyone comments on how alert you are and the eye contact you have.  You seemed to really wake up around 1 1/2 weeks and now are just watch everything going on around you.  You absolutely love the peacock toy and are absolutely mesmerized by it.  You were able to raise your hand to bat at it yesterday, which really impressed me!  You smiled for the first time at 3 weeks, on Christmas Eve, at me.  

I am so happy to have you, little girl, and can't wait to see how you develop every month!

A look back - Barrett's first birthday party

With the craziness at work that is always January for me and Tim, I never got a chance to write about Barrett's first birthday party.  So, much belatedly, here are the highlights of the first birthday party.

The theme was Winter One-derland and I used the colors turquoise and red.  I think it turned out pretty well!  With a December 23 birthday, it wasn't easy to come up with a date for the party, especially since all our family had to come in from out of town.  I didn't want to ask everyone to come in in December, with all the Christmas business, so we postponed it until New Year's Day, figuring that's usually a pretty quiet day for everyone.  Of course it meant Tim and I spent New Year's Eve taking down Christmas decor and hanging birthday garland, but oh well!

Food

I made potato soup in the slow-cooker, ham and cheese grilled sandwiches (recipe here), meatballs in the slow-cooker, a veggie plate and dip, cheese and crackers, bread and hummus and the below penguins and igloo dip. We also had a hot chocolate bar, which was absolutely awesome.  We got both regular and white hot chocolate from Dunkin Donuts and set up a topping bar with chopped andes mints, crushed peppermint, marshmallows and wafer cookies.   It was turned out to be a highlight of the party for the guests and absolutely delicious!

Aren't these adorable?  Our little army of penguins and their igloo.  The penguins are olives with carrot noses and feet and stuffed with cream cheese.  The igloo is  a blue cheese/cream cheese dip, decorated with a cream cheese exterior.

 The cake - half chocolate/half vanilla with strawberry filling and buttercream frosting.  Yum!

And the smash cake for Barrett

Decor

I made these snowflakes that we had hanging around the house.

 and here's a close up

The month-by-month banner I made of our little boy.  It really showed his growth each month.  This was taken after he got a hold of it and ripped of the bottom 2 pictures.  

 And the banner I made and a few of the generous gifts he received!  I was in love with this banner and we kept it up to celebrate his birthday for a month or so afterward!

I also made some garland out of red, light blue, white and turquoise felt circles and had this hanging with ribbon over the windows and doorway, but didn't get a picture.  You can kind of see it in the kitchen window in the background of some of the other photos. 


Here's my new one year-old. 

 And to show off his shirt a little more!  Notice the snowman in the shape of a "1"!

Unfortunately half way through the party Barrett started to get really flushed and cranky.  After not being much better the next day, we took him to the doctor and he was diagnosed with RSV. Fun!  It took a really long time for him to recover.  I was sad that he got sick during his own party.

sad and sick birthday boy

We ended up doing his cake a little later in the week, after he started to feel better. He hadn't really had any sugar before his birthday, so he wasn't quite sure what to think of it.

Trying to figure out what this thing is in front of him

Trying it and clearly liking it!

The beginning of the end.  We had to pull the rest of the cake away before he either ate or wore the entire thing.

So there you have it!  It took a lot of planning and he won't remember a moment of it, but we had fun and it was a great celebration of his first year of life!

Smiles!

 Audrey gave us her first smile on Christmas Eve and it was a beautiful sight!   I was able to capture her first smiles on camera tonight.  Such a sweet and happy little girl!

2011 - Year In Review

What an awesome year it has been for our family!  

January - we rang in the New Year with Barrett's first birthday party on January 1. Lots of family and friends gathered together at our home to to celebrate our little boy turning one.  This was a tough month, since both Tim and I were crazy busy at work and little Barrett came down with RSV, which we battled the effects of for months later. 

February - snowbound!  We also celebrated our 5th wedding anniversary with a too-rare date night.  Barrett took his first steps and started the craziness of being a walking toddler.

March - we found out we were expecting baby #2!  Barrett and I surprised Tim with the news one morning and we were so excited to start thinking of another baby joining our family.  We took Barrett for his first haircut, which now that I look back at pictures, perhaps we should have done sooner.

We also attended my sister's wedding in St Louis and Barrett and Tim were able to meet my grandmother.

 

April - we celebrated Easter with my parents

May - we officially told our baby news to everyone.  We celebrated Mother's Day with a trip to Starved Rock and enjoyed being outside after a long Chicago winter.  We also traveled to St Louis for Memorial Day, where Barrett went to a beach for the first time.  He wasn't so sure about the sand and water!

Proof we would do anything for our son

June - I went to my alma mater for a wonderful 10 year reunion.  We celebrated Father's Day with a trip to a car museum.  And the most exciting thing of the month was finding out we were having a healthy baby girl!

July -  We spent a lot of time outside in the backyard pool, enjoying the nice summer weather.  We went to my work party and, after a somewhat hesitant start, Barrett discovered his love of bouncy houses.  We also enjoyed the fruits (veggies?) of my labor as my garden started bearing delicious vegetables for us to eat.   Barrett started exhibiting more toddler-like behavior this month, which was a bit of a challenge, as meltdowns and tantrums became more commonplace around this house.  I visited his school for an ice cream social with his friends.

August - We took a family trip to a local zoo.  We took lots of outdoor walks and went to the neighborhood playground regularly.  Barrett really started becoming more playful, including discovering his secret hiding spot.  We began working on cleaning out and organizing our basement.  We never did create our hoped-for play area down there, but are very happy that at least it's organized now.

September - This was  a busy month for visitors, with both my sister's family and my parents coming to visit.  When my sister's family was here, we visited a train restaurant, which ignited Barrett's discovery of his love of trains. 

Tim sold his beloved Eagle Talon after much nagging a convincing argument was made, but Barrett enjoyed his turn in the car before it left our driveway for the last time.  Isn't she a beauty?

October - Fall arrived!  We took Barrett trick-or-treating for the first time.  We enjoyed a trip to the apple orchard/pumpkin patch. I realize now I never posted about our trip the the orchard.  Whoops!  We went with some friends of ours and picked a ton of apples and had a great time. 

We visited the local childrens' museum, where Barrett was mesmerized by the train exhibit.

November - My due date came - and went. My parents came up for Thanksgiving and we anxiously were on baby-watch pretty much all month. 

December - and the year ended with a bang and the arrival of our new daughter!  Audrey Katherine arrived on December 1 and we spent the month adjusting and enjoying her.   Barrett turned 2 and we celebrated his birthday and Christmas in St Louis.  Tim started a new job in downtown Chicago, which we've also had to adjust to, with the added commute time and the stress with starting a new job.

We said goodbye to 2011 with a wonderful dinner with great friends and were tucked into our beds, asleep at midnight. 

What a great, eventful and blessed 2011 it was!