'Tis the Season

A peek into some of our Christmas celebrations so far........

Cuddling up after decorating the tree to enjoy the soft white glow of the lights.

Reading Christmas books together by the fire.  Another day Jayden had the idea to sit by the fire and tell stinky and scary stories.

                     

Jayden had his preschool Christmas program.  They sang songs and I have never seen Jayden get so into it before.  At church every Sunday he usually just sits there, occasionally singing the fun songs.  But here he knew every single word and was loving every minute of it.  Of course, the noisemakers and jingle bells may have had something to do with it.  His favorite song was "Happy Birthday Jesus."  It was followed by a potluck.  Most of my pictures turned out pretty bad because I didn't have a very good seat, but Josh and I thoroughly enjoyed the program.

For my birthday Josh got tickets for White Christmas, the musical, per my request.  I was very much looking forward to it because it's my favorite Christmas movie, but we were kind of disappointed in it.  If I didn't know the movie so well, I'm sure I would have liked it more, but they changed quite a few things.  It's like when you read a really good book and then watch the movie and it drives you crazy because it's so different and it's just not as good.  It was still fun to go see and dress up a little and get out for a date.  I didn't get any pictures of us though because the babysitter showed up early and Josh wasn't even ready.

The rest of this doesn't have anything to do with Christmas, but I thought I would throw them in here.  Sidney was leaning on the door with her legs crossed and it was so cute, but by the time I got the camera she wouldn't cross her legs the right way.  Still cute though.

This is the kid's favorite things to do with Josh.

I was walking upstairs and heard the kids being pretty quiet and found Jayden reading to Sidney.  He gets rewarded for every 25th book he reads.  He usually reads about 1 to 4 books to me each day, or more when he's really close to that 25, but the other day he read 9 books to Sidney without me asking him to do it and was pretty proud of himself.

Jaydenisms

Jayden's vocabulary is expanding, but that doesn't mean he uses the correct words for the right situation.  For example......He was buckling his seatbelt and it was getting twisted and he couldn't get it done.  In a rage of frustration he yelled, "This is so distracting!" 

Sidneyisms

I was cleaning up after dinner and Sidney was following me around sticking her belly out saying something.  It took me a minute to understand what she was saying and then I realized she was saying "Full. Full," in kind of a grunty little voice.  I don't know why I thought it was so funny, but it was.

Stats

Jayden's 5 Year Stats:
33 lbs.-5th percentile
41 inches-15th percentile
My poor boy.  He's going to be a shrimp.

Sidney's 2 Year Stats:
25 lbs.-25th percentile
32.5 inches-30th percentile
The doctor said she'll probably be bigger than Jayden.  We really got everything backwards with our kids.

Since she just had a birthday here's the latest on the little lady.

• When she says "okay," she says it, "otay."  She has the sweetest little voice I've ever heard.
• She knows most of her colors, her favorite being pink, and she's starting to like purple too.
• She has been potty training herself for a couple of months.  About 90% of the time she has to poop she tells me so she can go on the potty.  The only time she forgets to tell me is when she is playing and having too much fun.  She doesn't tell me she has to pee as often, but I'm just letting her go at her own pace.  I'm not ready to push it yet.  And when she's tootin' away, she cracks up laughing.
• Her favorite thing to do is to cuddle up and read books.
• Before our trip in October she always went to bed perfectly.  We would lay her down and then she would go right to sleep without making a sound.  Since we got back over a month ago she has screamed and screamed at bedtime and naptime for 30 minutes to an hour.  I think it's because we slept in the same room with her for 2 weeks, so we thought once she got used to being back home she would get back to normal.  No such luck.  She has skipped her nap some days too, and I'm dreading the day she stops altogether, which is probably soon if she is anything like Jayden.
• When she's trying to do something that's too hard for her, like peel a banana or put her straw in a juice box, she brings it to me or Josh and says, "Hard.  Hard," in the saddest little voice with her head turned to her shoulder and her bottom lip puckered out.
• She likes to talk on the phone.
• Whenever she sees Christmas stuff-anything from Santa to wreaths to candy canes-she says, "Ho ho!  Ho ho!" in her sweet little voice.

Josh:
He's now halfway done with his MBA.  I wish I could say it felt like it flew by, but it doesn't feel that way. 

Me:
I've been eating a piece of cheesecake every day for the past week since my birthday.  I feel very accomplished.

5 Years Ago

This time of year is my favorite.  Not just because of the holidays, but because within two months we have three birthdays, Halloween, Thanksgiving, and we celebrate Christ's birth.  It seems like something happens every year at this time that causes me to be truly grateful.  My two best Christmas presents have been my babies.  They have both arrived at the holiday season.  December is a month full of emotional memories for us.  We celebrated Sidney's birthday two days ago, always a fun occasion, and today we celebrate Jayden's homecoming.  The Christmas season always reminds me not only of Christmas, but of birthdays, being hugely pregnant, and newborn babies.  All good memories, and I love that I can associate it with my favorite holiday. 

I haven't written much about this on my blog, so a five year commemoration felt like a good thing to do.  Five years ago today our lives changed completely.  After five weeks and two days our first baby was released from the hospital.  He was born eight weeks early, and when he was born all the doctors could say was that he would most likely be out by his due date, which was just before Christmas, but there were no promises.  Those were the longest five weeks of my life, but we feel fortunate that he was only in the hospital for five weeks.  And now it's been five years.  I know it could have been worse.  We saw babies in the NICU who had been in there for months.  Every day got longer and longer for us.  After a couple of weeks of sitting by his cribside from morning until night, not being able to hold him, listening to those awful beeping heart monitors, not wanting to leave him there every night, I didn't know if I'd be able to get through.  Not knowing when it would end was one of the hardest parts because it got to a point where I thought it never would.  Each week felt like a year.

It was such a crazy time in our life.  Josh was in his last semester of college.  Jayden had been sent to a hospital 4 hours away.  Josh missed a lot of school, but his professors were extremely understanding and extended his deadlines for him.  There were two times we had to go back to Rexburg in those 5 weeks.  Once for my doctor appointment and again so we could have a small break for my birthday.  That was so hard, I can't even tell you.  We knew he was in good hands, but it was still hard going even just a couple of days without being able to see him.Josh had to go back more often than me for school, but he was more than willing to miss class to be able to stay with us.  He was there in Salt Lake with us a majority of those 5 weeks, doing homework from there, and going back to Rexburg only when he had to for work or tests. 

About two or three days before he was released they told us to get ready for it.  We were in shock.  Excited, nervous, scared, overwhelmed.  We didn't tell anyone except for my aunt, who we were staying with in Salt Lake.  We didn't want to curse it, so no one knew we had brought him home until after we had him safely in the car with us.  Since he had been transferred to Salt Lake from Rexburg when he was four days old, we'd been living with my generous aunt and uncle.  It was snowing when we left the hospital.  I climbed in the back seat next to Jayden, my eyes barely leaving his face all bundled up under his soft baby blue blanket.  I can't tell you how nervous we were now that he didn't have monitors to tell us if he was still breathing or if his heart was still beating.  Josh drove extra cautiously as we headed for our first stop at my Grandma Lou's house.  We surprised her, and it also happened to be my grandpa's 91st birthday, so Jayden got to meet a few family members.  Then we started calling our family members to tell them the good news.

I sat in the back seat of the car for the entire 4 hour ride home.  It was December, and if you've ever driven from Salt Lake to Rexburg in the middle of winter, you know what I'm talking about.  The roads were bad.  So much snow.  It was one of the scariest drives of my life.  We had been in worse snow storms, but having a little 5 pound baby next to me left me hanging on the edge of my seat. 

I'm not huge into the Thanksgiving holiday.  But I do have much to be thankful for.  So today I'm feeling extra grateful for the last 5 years I've had with Jayden. There are days he gets on my nerves, days I'm just so ready to rush him out the door to preschool, days I've had my last straw with him, and I find myself forgetting how I felt when I looked at my helpless little newborn, wanting so badly to be able to hold him in my arms and not being able to.  I hate how fast he's growing up. I wish for a split second I could hold that little baby again.  But then I remember how close we came to not being able to hold him at all.  My doctor told me if we had arrived at the hospital an hour later, he probably wouldn't have made it, and he wasn't even breathing when he was born.  Our last five years could have been completely different.  Can you see why I love this month?  So much to be thankful for.

He was as wide as a dollar bill, for size comparison.

Life Flight

We spent at least 8-12 hours a day with him. 

 

Our first Christmas with Jayden, 3 weeks out of the hospital.

Sidney's 2nd Birthday

Sidney is officially two now.  So much can happen in two years.  In 6 weeks from now we will have officially lived in the Carolinas for 2 years.  Weird how she's lived here most of her life.  To her, it's home; to us, well, we'll see.  For celebration the kids and I went to a new children's museum.  It was really awesome!  They had such a great time there.  This one is just for younger kids, so they enjoyed everything there.  We stayed for about 3 hours and I had a hard time getting them to leave. If you live around here, I definitely recommend taking your kids.

There was a fire engine.

 Build your own roller coaster.

 An airport complete with a ticket counter, baggage check, security, and an airplane.

 She has started rolling her tongue.  She really loved this pink suitcase.  They spent a lot of time at the airport.

 There's a stage where the people who work there do a sing along.  They invited all the kids up there.  Most kids did a little dancing and singing, but my kids were on the two extremes.  Sidney just stood there looking at everyone like they were weirdos.  And Jayden was full on dancing his little heart out.  You can see him there in the background in the blue shirt.

 The water table was probably Sidney's favorite spot.

 They also loved the cafe.  It was huge!  I'm a little jealous, it is probably bigger than my own kitchen.  It had a whole bunch of booths and tables to sit and "eat" at.  The kids had a blast taking my order and bringing me food.  Jayden even thought it was fun to clean up.

 There was a farm.

Race cars.

 A bank with a drive-up ATM.

 A grocery store with a flower shop, and of course Sidney picked out pink flowers.

There is a backstage with dress up clothes.  The kids put on a fashion show for me.  Jayden came out in this pirate hat and was growling like a pirate.  So then Sidney put on a pirate hat and came out growling too.  And with each outfit she growled, even in this pink hat.

 No one else showed up for story time, so they got their own personal story.  There is a lot more stuff there.  They got to fix cars, be doctors, play at a gigantic train table, explore the ocean, walk on a balance beam, and more.  We'll definitely be going back in the future.

We also had cake and presents.  Since it's Sidney's golden birthday this year, turning 2 on the 2nd, I planned on having a golden theme.  But then every time we told her she was about to have a birthday and a party she always stated, "Pink.  Pink."  And she's really into the movie Peter Pan and Tinkerbell, so I incorporated gold, pink, and Tink.

 She got a kitchen and loves it.  We got her this gold dress too, and when she opened it she gasped and said, "Princess!"

Blowing out her candles. 

Jayden couldn't wait for his fork.

Sidney didn't really eat very much.  Just a couple of bites.

 She was more into redecorating it.  I think she had a good birthday.  Daddy even came home early from work and was home by 5:30.  That never happens and we were thrilled!

She's 2!!

Today is Sidney's 2nd birthday.  Wow, time really does fly!  As much as it stinks to have her birthday so close to Christmas, we never would have had this stocking stuffer:

Or had the perfect Christmas gift.  Or have such wonderful Christmas memories with a teeny little newborn.  Happy Birthday little girlie!