Swimming

Jaydon did another round of swim lessons and he is improving and having some fun.  He loves that there is this cool basketball hoop and so when his lesson is over he gets to practice his shot a little.  We are going to take a bit of time off from lessons and then start up again in Feb.  He just needs to work on getting his face wet on his own and he will move on to the next class.  I look forward to him realizing it can be fun to get his head wet!

Santa Photo

We went for Santa pictures again, I love being a stay at home mom and going to get our photos taken during the week when there are no lines!  Jaydon has a strong love-weariness relationship with Santa.  He talks about him all the time, as in all year long and he loves to see fake santas in peoples yards and talk about the idea of seeing Santa for real.  However, he is also a "big guy" and Jaydon doesn't really want to get too close.  He rode the rocking horse again this year and Lucy wasn't all that happy to be sitting on his lap but the ringing of the jingle bells distracted her enough that we got a photo with no tears!  I'll take it :)

Annual Leavenworth Weekend

Ahhh, I love Leavenworth weekend.  The whole Stange side of the family (minus a cousin or two some years) gets together at my Aunt's condo for a fun weekend of decorating a Christmas tree and many cookies, playing in the snow (if the weather cooperates) and seeing the tree lighting in town.  Such fun!

Ed (almost 103 years old) introducing Lucy to his Lego collection!

Cousin Jim trying to catch a bit more sleep (good luck) after being up helping Ed through the night.

Snow play!

Aunt Mary wanted a snow man she could see from her window so the troops were hard at work.  Jeremy, Jaydon, Grandma and Gram were busy making it happen.

Jaydon with his snowman!

Uncle Phil taking some photos and Jeremy moving the snowman balls to a strategic place in view of the windows.

Jaydon and Keloch playing in the snow.

In town around noon when Santa makes his appearance.

Decorating cookies at a local shop.

Attempt at a family portrait in town.

Grandma reading to Jaydon and cousin Sam

Cousin Jim having  a grand time.

Uncle Bill, Aunt Mary and Aunt Darlene decorating the tree

Jaydon getting in on the decorating - rule is you have to hang an ornament to get some of the homemade almond roca so everyone pitches in!

Jaydon and Lucy having story time with Grandma

Willis and Sam

Ed

Lucy saying hello to Ed

Bill and Darlene !?!

Cookie Decorating!

Lucy riding Keloch

Heading into town for the tree and town lighting.

Dad and Jaydon

Jim and Lucy

Enjoying the lights!

Jaydon enjoyed seeing Frosty more than he wanted to see Santa.

Whoa, busy December!

December is always super busy and super fun for us!  I love the holidays and all that is involved with decorating and baking and spending lots of time with family.  Blogging time is not easy to come by since Jaydon stopped napping but here are a few updates from December.

Lily found Lucy's crib one day and was quite content to sleep on Lucy's 'pillow,' a burp cloth that we try and keep under her head still today just in case.  She is much less spitty but still manages to consume, either through me or by herself, things that don't agree with her system on occasion.

Sometimes this is the best way to try grabbing a shower and getting something accomplished.  Both kids trapped :)  Though Jaydon can really just climb in and out of Lucy's exersaucer he stayed put for quite a long time.

Self portrait!

Decorating the tree!

It was so awesome this year because Jaydon wanted to help, he put up many ornaments by himself and it was fun to look at the tree and know that while it may not have been exactly symmetrically arranged it was sure done with love and enjoyment of the holidays with the Christmas music playing in the background.

I don't even know what number this was for our annual cookie making extravaganza but it still produces insane amounts of goodies and a good time is had by all, albeit tiring.  

This year on cookie making day my sister was scheduled for an emergency gallbladder removal (she was sick for a couple days and after visiting urgent care on Saturday they realized it would need to be removed Sunday).  While it should have been a quick 45min-1 hour procedure I waited by the phone and kept waiting.  My sister's gallbladder was in such bad shape the liver had come down around it and the Dr. cut the bile duct, thus making for quite a bit bigger of an emergency involving a transfer to a different hospital for a specialist to repair it.  Two 4-5 hour surgeries later she was in recovery but had a long road ahead.  Hearing about this while at cookie making day I decided I needed to head south to visit so Jeremy helped pack the kids and we all headed out that night so I could get to the hospital before she was out of her last surgery about 11 at night.  The photo above is Jaydon pretending to play a game while trying to get some lunch before traveling to get back up to school for basketball. 

I am again coaching basketball and while my girls are working hard to improve we started out with many girls who have never played or only played a very limited amount of basketball which makes it very hard to be competitive with teams that have been playing together for years.  Jaydon and Lucy make some appearances with me at practice and the girls absolutely love seeing them.

Lucy and Higgins (and Jaydon) aren't too excited about me having to leave them every day with a babysitter for periods of time.  This self photo was taken after getting back one night early in the season from practice.  Lucy was crying, Higgins and Lucy decided they needed to be held and Jaydon was somewhere around my legs wanting comforting too.  

With all the business of travel, holiday festivities and basketball stuff Jaydon was worn out!  He doesn't really take naps anymore but he ended up falling asleep while watching a show this afternoon holding his milk.  It was cute, though when he does take a nap he wakes up very cranky and so it isn't really worth it to have him nap anymore.

Lucy trying some egg for the first time, thankfully she is handling it well so that has been added back into our diets!

This video does not do justice to the situation but I was trying to be a bit sneaky and capture how cute Jaydon was being.  He received an ornament from Nana and Grandpa when he was one that is a photo of them and a recording of their voices wishing him a Merry Christmas and telling him they love him.  He would play the ornament over and then start talking to it telling the ornament he loved them too.  It was super cute!  

And I just realized when looking at the calendar for selecting the date of this post that all of this stuff happened within the first week of December - CRAZY!  

And done!

Finally caught up!  Jeremy and I appear to have switched personalities as he has needed to go to bed early since returning from Atlanta and I am being the night owl getting all kinds of work done in the evenings.  Thankfully, I am now caught up with our blog, and I hope to get a chance to get more sleep soon.  I also really hope I start remembering to take more photos because the blog will become very sparse if my past few weeks of photo taking habits continue.  Hope you enjoy our stories!

Lucy is 8 months

Lucy is now 8 months old!  Insane, she is so grown up and fun.  I love this stage with her and her curiosity and even the fact that she is into everything (though it is making me nervous to really decorate for Christmas, I am not sure how it is going to go with the tree).  Lucy still only has her one tooth that has popped through, I keep thinking she will get the other bottom one soon but no luck yet.  As for her development she has started eating bigger chunks of food and feeds herself from bits on the tray, it is a bit messy but still nothing compared to what it was like when she would suck her thumb with each bite.  She hasn't met a food yet that she doesn't like so we can hope that continues and she will be a good eater as she grows.

She has slowed down a bit with putting everything in her mouth, it seems that it will all eventually end up there but she can play with the new object for awhile without eating it right away. She is walking around all the furniture, pulling herself up on anything and having a great time exploring the house.  She is getting a few more owies but just being so mobile but still not quite great at balance.  She loves playing with the blankets and toys with her brother still and doing whatever he is doing.

She still is not a great napper, getting two to three naps in a day with sometimes all of them being only 30 minutes and occasionally getting one that is almost an hour and a half.  I would love it if she could just get to two good hour to hour and a half naps a day but with Jaydon not napping at all it isn't as though I have a lot of time during the day to get other stuff done so I don't think I notice the short naps as much as I did with Jaydon.  She sleeps a long time at night (often from about 6:30pm-7:30am) but is still up two to three times a night to nurse and often have a diaper change.  We love having Lucy and feel so blessed to have enjoyed our first 8 months with her and can't wait for what is still to come.

Visit with Granny and Papa

We enjoyed our visit with Granny and Papa but boy was it really a quick short trip.  Only two actual days to spend together but we sure made the most of it and we look forward to seeing them at Christmas for a few days.

One of our first times going shopping on Black Friday, Granny and Papa needed a few things for their trip and you can't beat the sale on light bulbs :)

When we got home from shopping we made a hot air balloon with our straws and connectors it was pretty fun.  I am bummed I don't have more pics but as I mentioned in the wedding post I have been terrible of late with the camera and actually getting photos.