A New Year...

Well, there's no doubt every year brings about some changes, challenges, and surprises to our lives, but I imagine this year has more in store for us than we can imagine...bringing up 2 little red-headed boys is no walk in the park, but it is certainly worth the ride!


We had a wonderful December, with lots of excitement and chaos of getting ready for Christmas, but we truly enjoyed it. There's nothing like anticipating the excitement of your children for Christmas, and telling them the story of Jesus...knowing it's new & fresh to them somehow makes it go a little deeper in your own heart, seeing it through their eyes some instead of thinking I've heard and know this story...what an unexpected blessing! I went through the Jesse Tree for the first time this year with Drew. And while his attention span was about 1-2 minutes, it was still fun to know that it was the beginning of a new family tradition. And, he 'got' some of the things I talked with him about, so that was great too. Noah was just happy to sit in our presence and hear us talking! :) We also got the boys a felt Advent calendar where the daily pieces were characters in the story of Jesus' birth - Drew really enjoyed this, so I was happy about that - a bit of a simpler concept, but a cool way to talk about the story more. He played with his 'Little People' nativity set almost every day, so that was also fun, though he still is not 'filled with the Spirit' in that one day we were playing and I asked if I could play with Jesus, and he screamed "NO! That MY Baby Jesus!" Ok, so not so great at sharing the gospel with others yet! HA! He also loved all the Christmas decorations, especially the plush animals that dance & sing - we heard those alot! And he was surprisingly good about not messing with the ornaments or the tree too much - what a difference a year makes! Noah loved being near the tree & just gazing at the lights - he was mesmerized! He was pretty content to be laid under the tree & just look up into the lights - I'm kind of sad that easy entertainment is no longer available! :)


Drew continues to entertain us with some of his conversations or responses to things. A few favorites from this month are, we are hearing lots of: Buuut; Sooo; Weell...at the beginning of his sentences, with the wrong meaning of course, but these are apparently heard from us quite often! One day at school he woke up from his nap because of a bad dream and was pretty upset about it - when asked what the dream was about, he simply stated "Jesus & soccer"! Not sure how that can be so bad, but I guess we weren't there! He didn't want to go to the nursery one day while I went to Biblestudy...when I asked him why he didn't want to go, he said it was because he had an allergy! What?! I have no idea where that came from!


Drew is starting to show more imagination, coming up with his own stories and role-playing while playing with dinosaurs and animals and Legos - we are just thrilled - what a fun time this will be! He continues to hate getting his haircut - often ending up in Daddy's lap & hair all over the place! We can't wait for him to get over this! He refused his picture with Santa, despite being excited all the way up to the point we were walking up to see him. And Drew fell asleep in the middle of church in Daddy's arms - this is quite unbelievable - Drew is just not that kid that falls asleep anywhere. But there he was, snoring quite loudly, all the way through the Cantata (a yearly service that is purely music with a orchestra, etc. - it's quite good & quite loud!) How he fell asleep amongst all that, we'll never understand! Oh, and his school had a little Christmas program for the 18 months and older kids. Drew's class was last and they walked in with their teachers, helping push in the cart with Jesus' Birthday cake - Drew's smile couldn't have been any bigger! They sang Happy Birthday to Jesus and then we all got to eat the cake. It was adorable!


Mommy & Daddy are very tired from this month due to both boys causing us to lose sleep...that and we just can't seem to get to bed early enough to make up for it. Drew is waking up even earlier, sometimes at 5AM, and will not go back to sleep, despite every effort on our part, except for just leaving him in his room to scream...but it may have to come to that if it doesn't stop soon! He is also going through a phase of being scared of everything at night, making bedtime exhausting for us, and he will wake up quite a bit in the early hours from a bad dream, etc. - there are 8 night lights in his room for when he needs it! It's just crazy and we don't know how to make it stop! Noah is still good about going to sleep on his own, but the length of time between feedings at night seems to be getting shorter...the opposite of what I've been looking forward to! For the most part, he's still only waking up once in the middle of the night, but it's smack dab in the middle of my night, so my sleep is very disrupted. And there are nights of course where he is waking up more than that...oh, to not be sleep-deprived again!


Noah is getting stronger & stronger, rolling onto his side lots and bringing more and more things to his mouth, including his own feet! He's at the beginning stages of seeing something not to far off and trying to actually move to get to it himself - since he's not real mobile yet, he's often not too successful obviously, but we are excited that his motivation is there, meaning the movement isn't too far behind. And his reaching skills are much improved - going after toys in his activity gym or bouncer all the time. He did (finally, if you ask me) roll over from his stomach to his back - he's not a fan at all of tummy time really, but the PT in me forces it on him, and Christmas day at Nana's house, he rolled over for the first time! YEAH!


He is for sure aware of who Mommy & Daddy are, as well as Drew - lighting up when he sees us - which of course makes us light up in return! He's awful cute about it sometimes - seeing us & smiling real big, and then turning away as if to be shy or bashful about it, but then turning back to smile at us again - just adorable! He is so giggly & ticklish too - probably my favorite thing to do with him still is just tickle and kiss him til he laughs!


Noah is just a great baby - but even better in public than at home! He is not the easy-going 2nd child that is just content to play by himself - he likes to be around us and will let us know if he needs more attention. But in public, he is almost always so good - happy, quiet & content - very easy going! When it's close to nap time, he'll get a little antsy, etc., but it is usually pretty tame & easy to make him happy,. Even if he ends up missing the nap (which we don't like to do very often of course) he's usually pretty cool with it all!


He ended up getting his right eye tear duct probed this past month - the pediatrician noticed his eyelid wasn't opening as much as the left & wanted us to go ahead and see the eye specialist just to make sure. He thought it was due to inflammation from the plugged duct, and though he was a little on the young side, since Drew had a bad one, he went ahead and thought it was a good idea. It went just like it did with Drew - a short bit of VERY intense crying, but recovered almost immediately and then zonked out in the car! The eye cleared up within a day or two and now all is good! YEAH!


We did start feeding Noah cereal just at the end of the month. He wasn't too sure about it, and if you saw the stuff, you wouldn't be either, but for the most part, he did pretty good. So, the process of solid food begins...fun & exciting & alot more work involved than just nursing, but a very good thing. Drew was very excited to see Noah eating food - so much so that right after Noah ate, we were getting ready for dinner & Drew had snagged a waffle (that coincidentally had been dyed green for Christmas tree waffles) out of the fridge and was munching on it...when we both looked over to find Drew trying to feed it to Noah! Right...something else we'll have to watch for this time around! :) Oh, the fun we have with our boys!!!