Saturday, November 29, 2008

The Christmas Tree is up!

It has been a while since I have had my tree up this early. Last year we finally got one about 2 weeks before Christmas on a really cold day. This year we will be able to enjoy it for almost 5 weeks. We can only do this kind of stuff because we don't work right now so we actually have time. It is nice to enjoy holidays without thinking about going back to work on Monday.

Thomas is not really into the tree yet. He has been sleeping on and off today and when he was awake he was more interested in his floor mat and having some time to exercise. Speaking of Thomas, he is stirring again so I must be off.

Friday, November 28, 2008

Christmas Tree Hunting

I haven't had time to process the videos yet since we have been hanging out with our families or the past couple of days. I just wanted to post this picture of Thomas from this morning. We went out to the Christmas tree farm in the misty, drizzly weather and Thomas got to ride in the Baby Bjorn. He was not always happy - he got very hungry at the end, but when he was enjoying himself, his dad took some great pictures. We think he is such a cute baby and we love it when he makes great faces at us. We got a great Christmas tree and we will be putting it up tomorrow. I hope that we will also get it lit and decorated. We will definitely put up some pictures if we are successful.

We also went to Target tonight - not for the crazy Black Friday sale thing, but because we needed wipes and a new toy for Thomas. We got him a rattle that lights up and he LOVES it. I can't get over how cool it is to see him interact with toys. I can just see all connections forming in his brain and it is amazing to think about how much he will change in the next couple of months.

Okay, enough gushing for me. We are going to go to bed - we stayed up way too late last night!

Wednesday, November 26, 2008



I love this video thing. I am going to use up all my allotted space on Blogger.

We went to the skating rink today. My nephews were out of school at noon and so they joined Josh and Jeremy for some skating. I came along to watch and to use our video camera. Rebecca also ended up staying the entire time. Jacob came out at one point for a break and he decided it would be a good time to teach Thomas about "all the things in the world and what they are for". I can't believe we actually got this on film.

I am having fun learning how to use the video camera and also how to use iMovie. There are some limits to the file size you can upload to Blogger and the first clip I created was too big. I'm sure I will figure out how to make bigger and longer movies as time goes by and at some point I will add soundtracks :)

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone. We are going to the Canfield's tomorrow so there should be some more videos/pictures on Friday.

Tuesday, November 25, 2008

Happy 2 month birthday, Thomas!



Thomas discovered that he could grasp his toys today. For the last week, he has seemed a lot more interested in toys and playing in general, but today he reached out and grabbed on to the bird on his bouncy seat. I looked down and he was holding on to it and moving it back and forth. I grabbed Josh and said "Look, he can grab on to things!" And, then we madly ran around looking for the charger for the video camera before discovering/remembering that our digital camera will take short videos. Now we are kicking ourselves for not capturing him on video up to this point. You will probably see more videos in the future from us.

It is amazing to watch our son learn and grow. I can't believe how much he has changed in two months. When he was born he could barely stay awake for an hour and now he has long stretches of wakefulness every day. Crazy. We both still look at each other and are amazed that we are parents.

Happy Birthday, Thomas!

Monday, November 24, 2008

When my friend, Sara, came to visit last week, they brought us this outfit. At the time I thought it wouldn't fit him for a few weeks (since it is a 6 month outfit), but all of a sudden he is no longer fitting into his 3 month clothing. I went out and bought a couple of extra of these since he needs some 6 month clothes. I am still trying to stuff him into 3 month clothes, but he seems to be getting bigger every day! ;)

We took him to see his first movie in the theater today. People keep telling us this is the best time to take him to movies because he still sleeps a lot and is relatively quiet. We wanted to try it in the middle of the day when there were less people there just in case he got loud. He did not make too much noise, but it was a little loud for him and we decided that it is hard to enjoy a movie when we are worried that he will make noise. Josh really took care of him during the movie and he did have to take him out at one point when he got a too talkative. It was a good experiment because now we know that when we want to go to the movies we will need to get a sitter. (Our moms are going to love that).

We saw Twilight for those of you that are wondering. We liked it. I read the book and it seemed really close to the story of the book with a few minor changes.

Okay, it is definitely my turn to entertain Thomas. He loves to hang out and play with us now and we are soaking up every minute of it...

Saturday, November 22, 2008

Reunion

Here are the babies that are graduates of our Lamaze class. We had a great time today getting to meet all the babies and talk to all of the parents. Once again we were amazed at how everyone has such different babies and different experiences. One of the reasons there are so many baby books out there is that one thing does not work for every baby.

Speaking of baby books - we started reading to our son on the suggestion of our doctor. It was interesting. I used one book that had little mirrors in it and he liked that one the best. He seems to like mirrors. We have also been teaching him how to stick out his tongue. That one is more fun. He has been smiling a lot and now he is trying new facial expressions along with the smiles. His dad is especially good at getting him to do funny things.

I think we will turn in a little early tonight since we have had two later nights. Even though Thomas slept for a good 6 hours last night, I still need a couple of nights like that to catch up...

Friday, November 21, 2008

Smiley


We went out to see Quantum of Solace tonight and Grandma C took care of Thomas. We came back and he was full and happy. We have been smiling a lot with Thomas lately and once we got him in his seat, we all made faces at him while he smiled. He can also stick out his tongue which is the cutest thing to watch. He will watch Josh or I do it and then thinks about it for a while and then sticks out his tongue.

We have our class reunion with our Lamaze class tomorrow. We should get some great pictures :)

Wednesday, November 19, 2008

8 weeks old!

Thomas is 8 weeks old tomorrow, so we took him in for his official well check. He weighed 12 lbs 10 ounces and is 23.5 inches long. He is in the 75th percentile for both weight and height now. We also went over his milestones and he is definitely hitting them - smiling at us, lifting his head when he is on his belly, recognizing our faces and making noise other than crying (cooing and other "talking").

He also got his first big round of shots. I was there with him the whole time and was able to console him. The anticipation was worse than the actual shots. They were over faster than I expected and then they gave us a lot of time to just hang out with him and feed him before we had to give up the room.

The only bad news is that he has thrush. I had suspected that he did and that is why we went to the appointment today instead of tomorrow. Thrush is a yeast infection in the mouth that happens because an imbalance occurs. Babies usually only get it in their first few months of life while their little immune systems are getting up to speed. He has to have some medication for it and we hope that it clears up pretty quickly. We had to sterilize all of his bottles and pacifiers, but you can do that in the dishwasher, which makes things a lot easier. He is such a content baby that it doesn't seem to bother him a lot.

Thomas' grandmothers came over for dinner tonight. They are both without husbands this evening since our dads are away for various work reasons. It was fun to have them over and eat all together. I went back on the Weight Watchers on Monday, so I cooked something out of my great WW cookbook - Rosemary Chicken and Wild Rice. I love to cook and I don't do it a lot when I am working, so it is nice to be able to get to do it when I have some time here at home.

Here is Grandma C holding Thomas. He is so active - always moving his little arms and legs and working off all of his energy...

And here is Marna. She got a chance to feed him tonight and that made him laugh and smile. It is nice to be appreciated for the little things (like providing food) and I love that everyone gets a chance to be a part of that process.


It is late enough now that I could easily get distracted and end up staying up a couple of extra hours. Instead, I think I will post this and go to bed.

I will report that I read my book after my last post instead of napping. I finally finished it today and I loved it. Now maybe I can catch up on my sleep. :)

Tuesday, November 18, 2008

We got our new car!

The Volkswagen dealer called yesterday to tell us that our new car had finally arrived. We ordered it in July and we were not quite sure when it would get here. It is a 2009 Jetta Wagon. We had been waiting for the 2009s to come out because VW is finally doing diesel Jettas again. Although diesel costs about 85 cents a gallon more than gas, we expect to get much better fuel economy. I took it out this morning and for the whole trip I got 38.5 miles to the gallon. Not bad. We were also excited to get it because we expected that Thomas would fit in there a little better than in the sedan and he does. So now we have our "family" car. So far we love it.

This morning, Thomas and I went to the La Leche League meeting. For those of you who don't know, LLL is an international organization dedicated to the support and education of breastfeeding moms. They have a monthly meeting on Bainbridge Island and there were women there from all over the Kitsap Peninsula. My friend, Sara, invited me to come with her and I was glad I had someone I knew there. They also have a smaller group for new moms that meets weekly and I am going to join them for the rest of my maternity leave. It is always nice to have a group of other new moms to meet with and share information. I am lucky because Josh is here all day with me so I have someone else to talk to all the time. But, it is nice to have an outing and it gives Josh a chance to get some work done without Thomas and I distracting him.

In other news, we are putting one of our houses back on the market. Josh met with our realtor while I was out and got all the paperwork done. It will be for sale again starting on Monday. We would appreciate your prayers that it will sell quickly and with no weird conditions. After all we have been through with our houses, we still have hope that we can sell it soon. It is in a great area and there aren't that many other houses for sale there so we are really hoping that this will go well.

Okay, I'm off to nap - or read my book, can't quite decide.

Sunday, November 16, 2008

So Cozy

Thomas is not a big fan of his swing. He far prefers his bouncy seat (thanks Uncle Jason and Aunt Joanne!). He will hang out in his bouncy seat now and kick and bat at the toys that hang over his head. I did use the swing to put him in while he was asleep last night and he slumped right over. He looked so cozy!

Our friends, Matt and Sara, came over for a visit today with their son, Rudy. Rudy is one month older than Thomas so I always feel like we get a little bit of a glimpse of the future when we see him. We had a great time exchanging stories. It is really helpful to have friends that have babies the same age as Thomas so we can swap stories and know that what we are going through is normal.

We are off to Josh's hockey game in a few minutes. My baby is fed and happy and we are going to root for Daddy to make a goal tonight!

Saturday, November 15, 2008

On Thursday we went over to the Canfield's house for some manual labor. They pulled out the ceiling in their basement and discovered that one of the beams is not as thick as it should be, so they needed to put steel beams in before they finished putting in a new ceiling. I don't have pictures of the carrying of the steel beam since I ran off to lunch with Hannah, but I understand it was quite the production. They had 5 guys to carry the beams, but I'm glad I missed it since I would have been worried about permanent injury to Josh.

Here is a picture of Jeremy and Marvin jacking up the house before they put in the new beam:


Last night we went down to Tacoma to the Old Spaghetti Factory to meet up with the extended Snelling family. There were 25 of us there and we had a great time eating and visiting. My parents and Robb and Reba are out of town so they were unable to come, which was too bad because we had a great time seeing everyone.

Here is my cousin Marci holding Thomas and showing him off to my cousin Christine and her niece (my second cousin) Maddie:

My grandparents have 9 great grandchildren and 5 of them were there last night. Thomas is their 8th great grandchild - my cousin, Tim, and his wife, Stephanie, just had a baby 4 weeks ago. Last night was the first time they got to meet Thomas:


The reason for this get together is that my cousin, Sondra, was in town with her husband and her (almost) 2 year old from North Carolina. They won't be back for Christmas when we all normally get together, so we took this as an opportunity to see everyone. Faith is only 18 months older than Thomas and she was fascinated by him.

We got home rather late and Thomas was still in his car seat. He stayed there for until his 2 am feeding. He is now chilling out next to me in his swing. He has been eating like crazy so I suspect he will once again break the scales when we go to the doctor on Thursday. :)

Today we will just be chilling here. It looks like we are going to get a break from the rain so we may even get a walk in today.

Thursday, November 13, 2008

I guess we have been busy in the past couple of days since I haven't posted any pictures. Thomas has been pretty wakeful during the day which doesn't leave me a lot of time to post either. We have been blessed by two long sleep stretches at night. Last night, Thomas slept from 10 - 3 (that is 5 hours!) and the night before from 10-4 (6 hours!). I knew that we should expect that to happen around this age, but I wasn't holding out hope. He seemed pretty set on waking up every 3 hours or so. After the long stretch, he wakes up every couple of hours to eat until about 9 or 10. He takes about 3 one hour naps during the day, but he likes to be awake the rest of the time. We may be getting to an actual schedule.

Yesterday, Josh took my older nephews ice skating and I spent some time with my sister and my nephew, Noah -

We also hung out with Jeremy and played a game.

Tuesday we had a visit from the cable guy. Afterward, we ventured out to Best Buy and Costco. We bought a few new technology toys (like a big hard drive to store all of our pictures and movies). Thomas has also been hanging out with his dad a lot -
We are expecting a visit from Hannah today and then we will be helping out the Canfields on some heavy lifting (well, Josh will be doing the heavy lifting).

Thomas is waking up again to eat. Have a great day!

Monday, November 10, 2008

My son is laying next to an inch worm toy that he has. It is exactly 24 inches long. Crazy. He is growing out of clothes faster than he can wear them. I bought size 2 diapers for him today (we have about 50 of the size ones left and that will be about the time when we really need to go to a bigger size). I'm curious about when it will slow down. Obviously he cannot gain a pound a week for his entire first year - he would be 52 pounds! We'll see how big he is at his 2 month appointment next week :)

I had my appointment with the doctor today and got a clean bill of health. Everything has healed well and I can now start lifting weights. I went by myself and then did a little shopping before meeting Josh and Joey for lunch. After lunch, we went to visit Josh's parents - they have been out of town for a week and they were dying to see Thomas. It was a crazy full day. Tomorrow is more low key - the only thing we have going is a visit from the cable guy. If it doesn't rain, we may be able to go out for a nice walk!

Sunday, November 09, 2008

Date Night

After Thomas eats, he likes to take a BIG stretch. It is really cute.

As you can see, Thomas is in fan mode again with his Seahawks gear. He is not a fair weather fan. The Seahawks have been having a pretty rough season. Today's game looked a little better. Even though they lost, it was pretty close.

Last night, we had our first away from baby outing. We dropped Thomas off at my sister's and went to a movie. We opted for funny (Role Models) rather than action/violence. It was a good choice - nice and diverting. We all survived. We might actually go to dinner and a movie next time :)

Okay, I have dinner on the stove so I must go - more pictures tomorrow.

Friday, November 07, 2008

Friday Lite

Thomas is zonked out in his chair, so no new picture today. We took him to the doctor this morning for one of those "Is this normal?" visits. He has a rash on his neck and cheeks and has had it for a week or so. I was pretty sure it was heat rash, but after a week of looking at it, I wanted to be sure. The doctor assured me that this is a normal rash - it has a technical name, but it translates to "baby rash". She told us we could put vaseline on it if we were concerned, but it won't really make it go away any faster. It reminds me a little of the baby acne - don't do anything and it will go away on its own.

Of course, they also weighed him, so now we know how much he weighs when people ask. He is now a healthy 11 lbs, 7 ounces. He has gained almost 3 lbs in 3 weeks! If he continues at the current rate, he will weigh over 13 lbs at his 2 month appointment :)

That is all the excitement for today. Josh and I are off to clean his old house.

Thursday, November 06, 2008

Rites of Passage

Happy 6 week old birthday to Thomas. It is hard to believe that we were all in the hospital 6 weeks ago. Now we have a smiley, active little boy. Check out those (tiny) fat rolls on his thighs. He is growing! Two more weeks until his next weigh in and measurements. I'm excited to find out how big he is, but sad that he has to get shots.
I'm told that it is traditional for a new mom to change her hairstyle. So, we all went down to the salon today and I got my hairs chopped off and got rid of all the blond highlights. I loved having long hair, but Thomas has started getting it stuck in his hands. Josh also got a haircut. Then we went over to Old Navy and did a little family shopping.

We are off to the Ice Arena for Josh's hockey game!

Wednesday, November 05, 2008

Yay! The election is over!

I won't write about the election since so much has already been written. I was really happy to be at home (not working) so I could watch all of the coverage yesterday and today. Regardless of what happens next, it will be cool to tell Thomas about the election when he grows up. This time we have with him in his first few weeks of life is precious and I can't wait to tell him about the historic things that happened while we were getting to know him.

Our one outing today was to Costco. I like to go just to get out of the house and to walk around. It gets me out of my chair :) That is all the excitement for today.

Tuesday, November 04, 2008

Last night, we headed over to Seattle (well, Tukwila really) to pick up Josh's cousin, Joey, from the airport. Joey is here from LA visiting us for the week. We went with Josh's parents and his brother, Jason, to dinner. Here is Josh, feeding his son in the restaurant:

And, Uncle Jason feeding Thomas as well. Thomas was fed by lots of us at the table. I find that the bottle is nice because it allows everyone to get involved in the process. I really enjoy the time when I get to feed Thomas and it is nice to share that experience.

Thomas was uncomfortable all day yesterday. I hate to describe him as fussy because he is so mellow. Fussy for him means a little cry here and there. I knew he was uncomfortable because he was so wiggly and the noises he made indicated some discomfort. He ate like crazy all day and Josh suggested he might be having a growth spurt. It is the right time for it - generally babies go through growth spurts at 3 and 6 weeks and then 3 months, 6 months, 9 months. I have noticed in the last week how much bigger he looks.

We were at the restaurant until 9 or so and he got pretty fussy at the end. Lately, he has been fighting off sleep instead of just dropping off. I took him and rocked him a little and he went to sleep in about 2 minutes. He must have been really tired because he slept until 2 am! It was great. We are working on stretching out those long sleeps and getting them to go from 11 to 4 or 5, but I'm not complaining. Any time I get 4 hours of sleep in a row I am happy.

Here is a current picture of Thomas, sleeping away the morning:

Happy Election Day everyone. Remember, this little guy is going to be voting in 2026 :)

Sunday, November 02, 2008

I love coming home on Sunday afternoon and hanging out as a family. This time is truly restful for us and we get a chance to enjoy each other. Today Grandpa C came over for a visit. He brought Thomas some new booties from Grandma C - you can see them in the picture below.
We then gave Grandpa the joy of feeding Thomas. He was fed by Marna at lunch, so he is getting lots of food from his grandparents today.

I forgot to mention yesterday that Thomas is growing out of all of his clothes. I can now buy 3 month old clothes for him - he has grown out of all of his newborn and 0-3 month clothes. The reason he needs bigger clothes has a lot to do with his length and not as much to do with his weight. He is a tall, skinny dude. Once we got past the initial weight issues, he has really taken this growing thing seriously. I love to see him change so much.

Other big milestones are coming up and we can already see signs of them. He is great at smiling and has started giving us the big grin. Today, Josh had him sitting up and you can see that he has a lot more head control. Pretty soon he will be cruising around the room :)

Saturday, November 01, 2008

We had a fun day in Seattle yesterday visiting my friends at work. It was fun to see everyone and Thomas did a great job, even giving us a few smiles. On the way home, Thomas was a little fussy in the car, but he calmed down and went to sleep. Josh and I were very grateful that we won't be making that commute every day with Thomas in the car. Although I will really miss my boys when I go back to work, it seems like making that drive every day with him would be a little much. We are happy that Josh can stay with him here in Bremerton and not force him to sit in a car seat for 3 hours a day.

Today, Thomas and I headed over to the mall with my mom and my sister.

Hannah loves to come and visit and today she got the joy of feeding Thomas.

Thomas gave Marna a big smile. The kids call my mom Marna because Jacob couldn't pronounce Grandma, so my mom became Marna. The smiles kill me - he looks so happy and trusting and I love to see him like that.

We are off to dinner!