Too. Much. Stuff.

After this past weekend and the influx of new toys I decided today was the day to downsize.  I went through the mounds of toys in our ever so small living room and separated the "baby" toys from the "big boy" toys.  Luke probably had no clue what I was saying but I explained it to him anyway.  Every baby toy I put in the "leaving the living room" pile Luke suddenly was interested in.  Seriously Luke, you haven't touched them in months.

Eventually I put them in a bag, which apparently I didn't tie tight enough because Luke got some of them out again, and now they are sitting in a basket with another toy that we borrowed and are going to return.  I also dismantled his exersaucer and it is in a big sad pile on the floor.  What the heck do I do with this stuff now though?

In the next few days I'm going to look for a reasonably sized basket/container to keep his big boy toys in and have some sort of hope of gaining part of the living room back.  And hopefully give Luke some actual room to play.

Merry Christmas

Hope everyone enjoyed their weekend, here are a few pictures from ours.

What?  Santa is coming?? Tonight!?!?

Ooohh, presents!

One of my childs new favorite things - licking windows.  This is what it looks like from the outside :)

First family Christmas photo.

Christmas morning!

This was about the most unwrapping he did, next year!

Traditions

Some reasons I love Christmas are the traditions that go with it.  Two of my favorites - yummy breakfasts after opening presents and stockings!  I'm still a sucker for stockings - I'm getting excited already just typing this.  Anyway, I'm going to start some of these same things for Luke.  He won't remember anything about his first Christmas, but I'm sure I won't forget it.

When I lived at home my mom would always make awesome breakfasts on Christmas morning, we would sit around in our pjs and just hang out, eat, and have fun.  This was usually the calm before the storm of visiting every relative possible that day.  I haven't lived at home for a long time now but I still have never cooked breakfast on Christmas.  We always did our thing here, got ready, and went to somoene elses house for food.  This year I'm cooking for my own little family. 

So I searched all over for a yummy recipe for Christmas morning.  I decided on a french toast casserole from Paula Deen - it will be jam packed with fat and oh so delicious.  And the house will smell delicious, another one of my favorite things about Christmas morning.  After our breakfast we'll head out to visit everyone, but this will be our part of the day just for us, I can't wait.  

And oh yeah, we'll open stockings! Woot!

Most Wonderful Time...

I watch Ellen some afternoons after work.  She's doing her 12 days of give-a-ways and they play this song over and over again.  So I end up singing it over and over and over.  Luke probably knows the words by heart now even though he can't talk, and I'm sure he loves my singing too.  Anyway, I'm getting so excited for Christmas.

This past weekend I baked cookies.  I love to bake.  It's kind of hard to find the time sometimes, so I did take some short cuts and use some recipes that "helped me out" so I could make more than one kind while Luke was napping.  They turned out delicious!  I even think my candy cane cookies look just as good as the pictures from the recipe.  That never happens, but I'm pretty darn proud of these. 

I finally finished all of my Christmas cards, I'm just about finished shopping, and I even started wrapping presents last night.  Luke got his very own stocking hung up this weekend, so we're all set! 

On top of all that Luke has been busy.  Last night he took a few steps, all on his own!  I'm so excited for him, he's really on the move now.  Crawling up the stairs, cruising all over the place, standing unassisted for longer periods of time, and getting daring enough to take a few steps.

Here's one of my new favorite pictures from this weekend. 

And now after a long day at work, Zach's holiday party, some awkward office chatter, and a few glasses of wine, I'm off to bed.  Later!

Santa!

We took Luke out to the mall tonight to meet Santa.  Santa was on his dinner break until 6 so we got in line, watched the happenings for a while, and then....it started to snow!  For real, Park City goes all out.  When Santa was about to return they had fake snow flying through the air, Luke loved it!  I was getting so excited, more so than him I think.  As we waited some more we got to see Rudolph, Sam the Snowman, the Abominable Snow Monster - not all real but they have a cool display out of all of those characters.  Finally Santa arrived!  Luke was getting restless from waiting so I got him all ready, we got up to front of the line, and BAM - there was Santa! Yay! 

This adorable little girl was in front of us, she was sitting on Santas lap, smiling, loving it.  Luke was totally in to her getting her picture taken and all the toys they used to make her smile, so I thought this will be great.

I put Luke on Santas lap and all of the sudden the happy, cheery Luke was dazed and confused.  He was a deer caught in the headlights, didn't know what I just did to him.  So I pulled out all my "mommy tricks" to get him to smile, acting like a major fool for all to see, and nothing.  Not even a smirk.  The lady taking the pictures was really nice and tried hard to get a good one of Luke.  

He looks so concerned.  Of course as I was paying for this picture he smiled like crazy at the lady working there - what a little flirt.  Merry Christmas!

This and That

Luke will be 10 months next week, whoa!  I was reading this one message board site and people were starting to plan their kids first birthday party, say what?  Maybe I should get on the ball but I'm thinking its way too early for that.  Anyway, a correction from the last post - Luke is no longer toothless! Last week he starting cutting his first tooth, this was probably the cause of all of our recent sleep problems but he seems to be doing a little better. 

We've solved our Christmas tree dilema.  I'll be honest, I'm not too excited about our solution but I do agree that it is probably best for this year, and it looks really good now that its done.  I ended up setting up my 4 ft fake tree on top of the end table in the corner of our living room.  It fits nicely since we are pretty tight on space here, it's out of Lukes reach for the most part, and it's in the living room so we can enjoy it more often.  Our house is all set for the holidays.  Now its on to mailing Christmas cards, wrapping presents, and baking goodies! Yay!

I've finally entered the 21st century with phones.  I no longer have the crappy old phone that never rang, never delievered text messages, and never told me when I had voicemail and I've moved onto a smart phone! ooooohhhhh, aaaaahhhhh!  My phone finally has Internet access and I've joined the cool kids club, ok, not really but a girl can dream.  What a year though, DVR and Internet access on my phone, all within 12 months!  How did I ever survive before?!?! ;)

Lets Talk Sleep

Before I became a mom I was a sleeper.  I napped whenever possible, stayed up late but slept in on the weekends.  I am such a serious napper I laid on all the couches I looked at for the living room before actually buying one.  I had to find one that was comfy, long, and wide enough to take a quality nap on.  I loved to sleep.

When Luke was first born I expected not to sleep much.  He was up every 2 hours to eat which meant I was up every 2 hours.  He was a slow eater and then it would take him forever to go back to sleep.  He cried a lot and I thought all of this was normal.  Well after 2 months of my normal I talked to the doctors and realized his trouble eating and especially going back to sleep were not normal.  He was put on medicine for reflux issues and life changed - again.  He was calm, he was sleeping without being held, and most of all I was sleeping, well at least a little more than before.

By 3 months Luke was actually sleeping about 6-7 hours straight at night.  It was heavenly.  The summer hit, and with the exception of a few bad spells, he was a good sleeper.  Going almost 8-9 hours at a time.  I was so happy to find that I had a sleep lover just like myself.  I was soaking it all in, life was good.

Around 6 months we had a little bump in the road.  Right when I started to back to work actually, which may have been part of the problem.  Everyone told me it was teeth - well he's 9 months and still no teeth, so I think not.  Anyway after a few bad weeks of barely any sleep things went back to his summer normal.  Yay.

Since then there has been no normal.  There was a month of fighting like a maniac at bedtime but after almost an hour each night he would give in and go to sleep.  After we got him down then he was out for the night. Whew.

Then came the "I'll go to sleep fast but I'll wake up 10 times during the night."  That's where we are now.  Bedtime is easy (I'm biting my tounge - well fingers - as I type this), we do diaper, lotion, pjs, bottle, rock, and into the crib he goes.  Sounds good, right?  Well its the next part that gets crazy.

About 3-4 hours after he goes down, he's back up, then every 1-2 hours after that, up again, and again, and again.  And when I say up I mean up.  Crying or screaming, not calming down unless he gets picked up.  I know, I know - everyone says just soothe them and don't pick them up.  Well it doesn't work for my little guy, believe me I have tried. 

Now that he can stand and pull himself up - thats how I find him sometimes in the middle of the night.  Maybe he's confused - it's not time to play, it's not time to eat, it's time to sleep.  

Is self soothing something they can be taught or something they have to learn naturally?

Luke is toothless and self-soothing-less.  I'm sure we'll get back to "normal" eventually.  I guess I was just spoiled for a few months but boy did I love it.