2 months!

Our little one is two months today!! Can you believe it!! I feel like I fall in love with this child more and more each day. She is truly amazing. She has started to smile at me when I go to get her from her car seat in the AM. When she was first born, we co-slept with her because every time we put her in the bassinet she would immediately wake up and start crying. So the only way that we got some sleep was with her sleeping on my chest. Then - after a little while of that, I needed to get some better quality sleep. I started to realize that every time we got in the car she fell asleep and several times she would be asleep for several hours after we brought her back into the house in the car seat. I believe the reason why she is okay sleeping in the car seat is that is it more enclosed than the bassinet and she feels more secure. I really didn't want her to associate her bed with the car seat, so I placed a nice fluffy blanket over the seat and then put her on top of the seat. She seems to really like it - it's her little safe place. We have also started a bedtime routine which I absolutely love - it's my favorite time of the day. We get a bath, and then change into jammies, and if she is feeling up to it, I will read to her (lately it has been MS who has been reading to her) and then we swaddle and go into the car seat and get a bottle. We are officially on formula only right now, which I have total mixed feelings about. It's really great for the convenience factor, and it was going to be nearly impossible for me to pump at work because of the way the pump was going for me, so we were going to have to start weaning in a couple of weeks. If I was going to stay at home with her, it would be a totally different story, but I am not, so I needed to have her on formula. She seems to be taking to it well, but I sometimes feel it is harsher on her stomach. I really want the best for her, and hate to feel like I am not giving that her right now. It sometimes feels like my first failure as a mother - but I have to keep telling myself that it wasn't going to work out. We did it for a good 8 weeks. Maybe with my next baby I can stay at home and it will be easier. Who knows! We sure love our little girl, and are so looking forward to seeing her grow up into a strong beautiful girl!

Updates

I wanted to give a little bit of an update to "Money....Ugghh". After I posted that entry, MS came home from his Christmas party and was talking about how he was thinking about how much he didn't want to have to move all the way out to Ojai because of the commute and how long his day would be, and la la la. So we woke up, and drove out to Oak View (the house is actually in Oak View, not Ojai) with coffee in hand and dealt with the rainy roads. When we got out there, we talked with our friends for a little while, toured the house and saw all it had to offer. I immediately fell in love with all the room and the yards, and the fact that it was a HOUSE, but I was super leary about how MS was going to react to it. So we got in the car and I looked at MS and said, "So? What do you think?" Assuming that he was not going to go for it after the discussion that we had the night before. He then looked at me with wide eyes and said, "I pretty much think it awesome!" I was so excited that he felt the same way!! So, even though we do have to commute we are officially going to do the deal! We are going to have a house with SO much room. We really need the room. It really feels like the right move for our family, and like we are moving up in the world. The dog is going to have a blast with all the room he will have, and Kaitlin will have room to grow and play and crawl around. So - yay for good decisions!

Merry Christmas Baby!

Ok - I wanted to post some Christmas pics of the baby, mainly because she IS the cutest little button you've ever seen!! Now - I intentionally say you've ever seen because I of course think she is the cutest, but you should really think she is the cutest, too!!

Sunday Reflections

Wow - so much to blog about. I will have to blog the next couple of days straight to get caught up! But I first want to reflect on the sermon and the advent season that we are in. We all know that Jesus is the center of Christmas, right? I mean - how awesome is it that God sent his son as a baby, a little tiny human into the world, only to know that he was going to be betrayed and die a brutal, horrific death? Not only have I been reflecting on Jesus, and thinking of him as a little infant every time I look at my babe, but I cannot help but really relate to Mary this year. I mean - think about her - in labor, about to give birth, traveling from inn to inn to try and deliver her child in a clean, safe environment, only to do so in a barn with really nothing to protect her infant from the elements but some blankets. Wow - what a woman!! I mean, I thought my labor was hard, but can you imagine what Mary went through? I thought that it was an amazing feeling to hold my own child in my arms for the first time, but what was Mary thinking as she held THE SON OF GOD in her arms for the very first time?! Let's talk about the feeling of overwhelming responsibility for this child! The Lord knew what he was doing when he choose Mary and Joseph to raise His son. Mary and Joseph listened to God's direction for their life and without question, they followed Him. I have been reflecting on my influence on my own child, and some traditions that I want to start to uphold for the many Christmas' to come. How can our traditions help bring us closer and more become more intimate with our God? How can our family make sure that Jesus is the center of our Christmas?

This Christmas was a little different than other Christmas' and I cannot tell you how wonderful it was. My family was a little more spread out than they usually are - one of my cousins is getting married in Vegas on New Years Day, so he and his new wife were not able to come out, my brother ended up having to be on-call for his work, so my mom went up to Sac-town to be with him, and my dad ended up enjoying the day by himself! So, MS, and the baby and I were able to spend Christmas morning with just the three of us. We agreed not get each other big presents, and not to give anything to Kaitlin because she doesn't really need anything, and she is too young to remember anyway. So, we did stockings for each other and had a great breakfast. During breakfast, MS and I discussed what new traditions we want to start with our new family. We both agreed that we want to read the Christmas story out of the Bible to Kaitlin Christmas Eve as a bedtime story. I then suggested that we get a new Bible study we will do together as a family in our stockings every year. I have seen, and like the idea of getting a birthday cake for Jesus and celebrating his birthday. I think that it is a simple way of helping children understand what the day really means. Next year, I am really hoping to not do gifts for everyone in my family, but instead give a little money to a charity that reflects the person. Christmas in the past has not been very fun for me because of all the stress and running around. This year was much less stressful and was a lot more enjoyable than it has been in the past - this is the way it was meant to be!

So I am encouraged to draw closer to Jesus in this new year and drawing closer to Him with our new family!

Ughhh.....Money.

Tomorrow we are going to look at a house in Ojai - 40 minutes from where we live right now. Now, this maybe wouldn't be so bad if we were looking at this house to own, but sadly, just to rent. Why you ask - well, we currently live in a two bedroom, one bathroom home that most people across the country would choke to learn what we are paying in rent. But alas, we do live in Santa Barbara, among Oprah, Brad Pitt, Kenny Loggins, Rob Lowe, and the list goes on. I know - people want to live here, so that's why we have to pay the price. That price would be fine if MS and I were both making six figures, but alas we are not. Now, don't get me wrong, we both have decent jobs and are getting paid pretty well, but we STILL can't afford to live where we live with what we need. I can't help but yearn for a yard for my dog to run around in, and my daughter to one day swing in. I would like to actually have a dishwasher so I don't have to spend an hour out of my day hand-washing my dishes, and sigh....a washer and dryer IN my house - what a difference that would make! But at what price do I pay for that? Well, possibly a 40 minute commute one way (add in dropping and picking Kaitilin up from day care, that's an hour both ways). With that also comes the fact that my parents are also a 45 minute drive away (free babysitter, 45 minute drive away). I have been grappling with this idea of commuting for awhile now, and it has been almost consuming my thoughts this week. The rent of this house we are looking at is exactly the same that we are paying now - it has 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, 2 fenced in years, washer and dryer hook-ups, and the list goes on - everything that I want in a house. But at what price? I have come to the realization that in life, there are sometimes no right or wrong answers, but better or worse decisions. Our reality has changed in the last year - we are a growing family that needs more space, I am not sure that we can continue to live in the place we are living now. And then there's the question of when will we then be able to actually BUY a house?!? Ugghhh...money.

Child Prodigy?

I know everyone always says that their child is the cutest, most intelligent, best behaved, etc, etc...but ours REALLY IS!! haha. She may not be a child prodigy just yet, but she sure is smart for being almost 6 weeks. She started smiling only a couple days after she was born, and MS swears that she giggled when she was only a couple of weeks old. She is a social smiler now, which is truly the most fun I have ever had. She loves her changing pad, and will coo and look up at her elephants on the wall for a long time. She smiles and coos when you give her zerberts on her tummy, too! She is already holding her head up by herself for 30 seconds or more at a time - so strong!! Maybe it's because she was a week late, so really she is developing at a week faster than most babies, but she really learns very quickly. She LOVES tummy time (most of the time) and can almost roll over. She will put her legs and butt up in the air as if she wants to crawl, but can't quite figure out her arms. I know she won't start crawling for a while, but it seriously looks like she wants to go when she's on her tummy!!

We are starting to get a little routine down, and the last two nights she has actually slept through the night...hoping I am not cursing our good luck streak by saying it out loud. She usually goes down for about an hour nap around 12 or 1 in the afternoon, and then goes down again around 3 or 4 for another hour, maybe two hours if I am lucky. She is then up and wanting to play when she gets up from her afternoon nap, so we sing and play the hokey-pokey, and have some good tummy time, and walk around the house and look at all the fun pictures and then we stare at the kitties playing. She then will eat, and then comes her fussy time around 7:30 or 8:00 and she will fuss for about an hour (sometimes more...) and then finally around 9 or 10 we will feed and swaddle and she will go down. The last two nights she hasn't woken up until about 5 in the morning, but before then she would wake up around 2 or 3 and then we would eat, swaddle and she goes right back to sleep.

I really feel truly lucky to have such a great baby. She does cry and is fussy at times, but for the most part if I can figure out what is making her mad she stops right away. I definitely do not have it all figured out just yet, but we are having fun learning from each other!!