Thanksgiving and Adam's Blessing

This year Thanksgiving was a busy time for us!  We decided to bless Adam at church on the first Sunday of December, which we later realized was the Sunday after Thanksgiving.  It was nice because it made it so Andy's parents and my parents could both come down for the event.

We had Thanksgiving dinner at Lindsay and Greg's (Andy's sister and her husband) house up in McKinney.  It was fun to spend the afternoon and evening with her family and Andy's parents.  We had lots and lots of good food!  The only picture I took that day was of the French Silk pie I made and took up.  It was AMAZING!  I need to work on my whipped cream piping skills, but who really cares about the looks when it tastes so amazing?  I got the recipe from here.

Friday afternoon my parents, Sarah, and Stephanie drove into town and we relaxed for a few hours before going downtown to the Chinese Festival of Lights at Fair Park to meet up with Lindsay's family and Andy's parents.  We got there a bit later than we meant to, so we hardly got to see Andy's family.  The lights were really pretty though and Isaac loved the dinosaurs! If we go another year we'll definitely go when it's not so cold!

The next day we went down to the Perot Museum with my family.  My dad, sisters, and Andy had fun exploring the main part of the museum while my mom, Isaac, Adam, and I stayed in the children's part.

Isaac was excited to show his Aunt Sarah and Aunt Stephanie his favorite part of the museum...the little blue truck!

Sunday was a busy day.  Our church starts at 9 a.m., but I knew at least a few people needed to get there early to save seats.  Our chapel is really small and the last few months we've had three baby blessings every fast Sunday (there have been about 25 babies born in our ward this year, so we've had lots of babies to bless).  Andy, my dad, my sisters, and Isaac went down early and were met by Andy's family who had already arrived.  It took my mom and I a little bit longer to get down there.

The blessing was wonderful.  I love this opportunity for Andy and other worthy priesthood holders to formally take our children before the Lord and have their names put on the records of the Church.  It's also a time to give these sweet babies a blessing of all the things the Lord wants for them.

After sacrament meeting, everyone came over to our little apartment for bagels and fruit.  I had originally sworn that I wasn't going to do something that would cause us to leave church early, but we had seen so little of Andy's parents and I wanted Isaac to be able to spend a little more time with them.  Unfortunately, Isaac was so overwhelmed by how many people were in our apartment that he wanted my dad to hold him most of the time.  Oh well...hopefully this summer Isaac will get to spend more time with them.

We were looking at two different cameras, but this is the only family picture we've taken since the hospital.

Overall it was a great weekend!  We loved spending so much time with family and having so many people here to celebrate Adam's special day!

Adam's 2 Months Old!

My how time flies!  On Monday we took Adam in for his 2 month check-up.  The stats proved what we already knew--this boy is a growing machine!

Height: 24"

Weight: 13 lb. 8 oz.

Head: 15 1/2"

Other than the good news that he's growing, this was kind of a sad visit.  None of the bad news was really news to us, but Adam has very sensitive skin (cradle cap galore and his neck, knee, and elbow creases are slightly reddish and raw looking), his neck isn't quite as strong as it should be (whoops, time to do tummy time!), and he had a blocked tear duct (it's cleared up now though).  If that's the worst news I've ever had at a check-up though, I'm doing pretty good.  This poor boy also had to get 4 shots and an oral vaccination.  He was not a fan of any of it!

We've had a lot of fun with this little guy this last month!  He's learned to smile and coo, so we've all become a lot more interested in him.  I love watching how he'll follow Isaac or Andy with his eyes if they walk past.  This boy loves his brother and dad (and me of course)!

For the most part Adam is still a really easy going baby.  He takes good naps and sleeps fairly well most nights.  Right now we're so grateful that we're able to put him down without it taking forever.  Every time I put him in his crib and leave the room while he's still awake I want to do a little happy dance just out of sheer joy that he doesn't scream every time he's put down.

Right before Thanksgiving we moved him up to 3-6 month clothes.  I was so excited  to pull out this size of clothes because some of my favorite outfits are in this size.  We started putting him in cloth diapers the Monday after Thanksgiving weekend.  I don't know why, but I was so scared to have two kids in cloth diapers.  It really wasn't anything to be afraid of and it makes our lives somewhat easier actually since we don't have any additional laundry and now we don't have to take out diaper trash as often!

We got Isaac a slide for his birthday and set it up while he was taking a nap.  Before he woke up, we let Adam go down it.

Check out those thighs!  Seriously, I wish I could have rolls on my thighs and have it be that cute!

Proof that I spend more time trying to keep this boy awake.  This was taken just 30 minutes after he woke up from a nap.

Getting ready to cheer on his Cougars!  You've got to start 'em young!

October Fun

Adam's arrival made the whole month of October feel a bit like vacation.  Between the fun I had with Isaac the first week of October before Adam came and all the help I had after Adam's arrival, I got to sit back and relax quite a bit.  The vacation feeling was only enhanced by the fact that I get more sleep with a newborn than I do during the last month of my pregnancy (I got pregnancy insomnia bad), so I was feeling significantly less sleep deprived!  

My mom came down to help us for the first week and a half after Adam was born.  She got in the Sunday night before I went in the hospital and stayed through the next Wednesday.  She brought down a jogging stroller she had bought so that she could take Isaac running with her every morning.  He was in LOVE!  They went on lots and lots of walks and runs during my mom's time here.  Isaac loved the chance to get out of the house and just spend time outdoors since it had finally cooled down.

I loved having my mom here to help Isaac feel special and to help me adjust to dividing my time between two cute boys!

Isaac and my mom at the hospital.  Isn't my mom gorgeous? 

One of the many cute shots my mom got while she was here.

My mom reading to Isaac.

Isaac showing Adam how awesome Grandma's tablet is.

One day after a ton of rain my mom took Isaac out to play in the puddles.  She scored major points in his book for letting him do that!

Bear-bear got a little bath (and then a major bath in the washer).

Isaac got hold of the peanut butter jar while we were making no-bake cookies.

My mom made Isaac's costume while she was down here!

After my mom left, Andy started his two weeks of paternity leave.  We loved having him home so much!

Andy always wraps himself up in a blanket in the morning so Isaac wanted to be just like dad!  It brought back lots of memories from when my sister Stephanie and I dressed my brother up.

At the ward trunk-or-treat

 Lately Isaac has been obsessed with our shoes (and his own).  One Sunday I captured some of the many shoes he likes to wear.

Andy's dress shoes.

My high heels (we had serious problems taking these away from him!)

My boots

 After a long day shopping for some new clothes we stopped by In-n-Out for a quick lunch.  Isaac was a big fan of his first cheeseburger!

On one of Andy's last days of leave we finally made it up to a little pumpkin farm in Richardson.  We had a lot of fun until we went on the hay ride.  I thought Isaac would love it, but it traumatized him a little.

We had planned to wait until we were in a house to get a double stroller, but it quickly became apparent that if I was going to be able to go on walks we needed one ASAP.  We had it up in the apartment after setting it up, and Isaac had lots of fun playing with it.

Andy's first day back at work was Halloween.  Luckily it was a short day since he came home early to take Isaac trick or treating.

Adam and I while Andy and Isaac were out.

This is really blurry, but you can still see the joy on Isaac's face from the fun he was having.

Isaac with some of the friends they went with.

Me with my two boys at the end of the night!

One Last Week

The most beautiful part of having a scheduled induction for me was knowing when the baby would be born so I could plan one last fun week with Isaac before Adam came.  I tried to plan fun activities to keep us busy every day and finish up all those last errands before Adam joined us.

Monday

Monday morning Isaac and I headed up to Ikea for what was supposed to be a fairly quick trip.  I just needed to exchange some picture frames and knew that I had to do it before the baby came if it was going to get done.  Instead, we ended up being there for a couple of hours and eating lunch there.

Sharing a plate of chicken fingers and fries.

In the fun chair we ended up getting.  We were hoping that if Isaac had his own special chair he would be less likely to sit in the baby bouncer.  Yeah, that idea totally failed.

The picture wall we put up (finally).  Our last box is finally unpacked (a year and a half after we moved here).

Tuesday

On Tuesday we went down to the Dallas Museum of Art to take advantage of their fun First Tuesday program.  This one was all about the senses, so they had a table full of scented play-doh.  We ended up spending the entire time we were there playing with the play-doh.  Isaac was just so happy I couldn't pull him away!

Wednesday

Wednesday night we went to the state fair.  I got a few crazy looks for being there so close to my due date, but I was totally up for a night of walking in hopes that I'd go into labor on my own!  Next year we're going to make a full day (or at least a half day) of it and pack our own meals so we can just spend money on the fun fried foods.

They had fun little pumpkins for the kids to color in one area!

The highlight of the night for Isaac was watching the parade at the end of the day!

Thursday

Thursday started off with our normal trip to the library.  I kind of overdid it on Thursday though because we went straight from the library to Target to return a few things and then got home just in time to force Isaac to eat some lunch before rushing him over to my friend Emily's house so he could take a nap while I went to my last doctor's appointment.

Saturday

Saturday was the start of General Conference, but we decided to wait until later to watch the Saturday morning session and instead go to the fall festival put on by Andy's work.  Isaac had a blast!  They had a bouncy house, craft station, and balloon man that were perfect for kids his age (check out the sweet hat he got)!  They also had 10-12 tables set up with food from all over the world.  It was fun to sample some different things.

Sunday

On Sunday we headed up to Andy's sister Lindsay's house to watch General Conference with her family and celebrate Abby's birthday.  For the afternoon session she set up a fun candy bar with all different candies and tags for different words to listen for.  Isaac was in heaven with all that sugar!  The funniest part was that Lindsay made the word "priesthood" a freebie word where you could pick any candy you wanted... and then there was at least one talk about the priesthood.  By the end of that talk we were all a little tired of the candy and needed a break.

All in all, the week was a fun way to spend some one-on-one time with Isaac before I had to split my attention between him and Adam.  I think planning a special date with each of my kids separately before a baby is born is definitely something I'm going to try to make a tradition.