Santa is 8 months old!

Ho ho ho! 

The cutest little Santa Claus just turned 8 months old!

This was how we found Kyler most often this month. Under the tree. He thought it was the best hide out. His favorite thing to do down there was pull off ornaments and use them as teething toys. He also liked to eat all the characters in the little people manger scene. I think I might do my Christmas blog post about all the things Kyler tried to eat.  

Kyler fully weaned during the month of December. :( I was hoping to make it to the break and build my milk supply back up, but he was so frustrated that he wasn't getting enough (plus I think he may have just had a growth spurt and supply couldn't keep up with demand). Eventually he'd deny me altogether and want only the bottle. Christmas day was his first full day without any nursing. We're not sure if it's a coincidence or not, but he also has had a string of great sleeping, like eats at 8 and wakes up at 5am. So I feel like I've been starving my kid and now that his belly is full he can actually sleep. But in return I also get better sleep and we are all on our way to feeling normal and happy again!

He continues to put absolutely everything into his mouth and is great at finding all the crumbs and small things that we don't see and immediately puts them into his mouth. It's time to get a better vacuum! When sister is napping Kyler loves to pull down her toy bins (that she normally guards with authority) and slobber all over her stuff.

This month also brought with it some sniffly noses. This nap started in the crib but didn't last long. I thought he was awake for good but then he crashed on my lap. Luckily I had the tv remote with me and enjoyed a nice relaxing afternoon catching up on the Ellen show.

Kyler loves to go to big sisters dance class every thursday and hang out with his girlfriend Kynlee. She likes to point/poke at him and say "baby" and sometimes she crawls on him. It works for them :)

He really packed on the pounds it seems. His pants got shorter and the shirts got tighter. It seems like he almost skipped over the 9 month size clothes and has started fitting into a lot 12 month outfits. Slow down Kyler!

On Christmas morning he took his first attempt at a real crawl forward. He's been getting himself into the crawling position  for a few weeks now, but he just rocks back and forth until he face plants on the floor. So he isn't "crawling" per say, but he's certainly going to catch on soon.

He still scoots when he wants to get to something fast.

I just love this profile that shows his round little cheeks and adorable chin!

His hair is staring to grow back in on the back! This is his faux hawk.

 His new word/sound this month was "Lolly lolly" which he makes by sticking his tongue in and out of his mouth.

Happy 8 months, Kyler!

Christmas Magic

It's always so fun to see the magic of the Christmas season through the eyes of children. This year was no different! 

Kyler LOVED the Christmas tree! It was just the perfect height for him to roll under, those branches were just so fun to grab, and the lights and shiny ornaments made the best teething toys. We couldn't keep him away so we just went with it!

Early in the season we made sure to go to breakfast with Santa. It's been a tradition for Keith's side of the family since before I was ever in the picture and it continues to be a highlight for all the kids. It holds a special place in our hearts because we announced our first pregnancy at this breakfast 4 years ago. The past 4 years we've gone to the Nazarene church event. They serve a nice pancake breakfast, provide fun activities for kids, take great pictures with Santa, and then Santa comes out to read a story about the true meaning of Christmas. The morning finishes with each kid getting a small gift from Santa's bag. It's totally worth the $6 tickets!!! If you are looking for a morning with Santa I would highly recommend this event! Every year is fun, but this year had the added bonus of Kendall's best friend Liam joining us. In fact, he was the ticket to getting Kendall to sit with Santa for the picture. Lucky for us, we now will forever remember the year that Liam came!

"Liam helped me be brave, Mama"

And her bravery continued on our way out as she got a little tiger stuffed toy and a candy cane directly out of the hand of Santa!

 Right when we got home I had a little photo shoot while the kids were still in their Christmas best. 

This year we introduced Kendall to a few classic kids Christmas movies. Her favorite is the old cartoon version of The Grinch Who Stole Christmas. Although she insists it's actually called "The Grunch". 

Kendall LOVES to craft! We did several fun Christmas projects this year. We made a snow globe (it took 3 tries but we ended up with this great Dora in a baby food jar snow globe!).

Kendall made little gifts for all her friends and cousins. She filled these bags with "snowman poo" that they could add to their hot cocoa!

She painted (over top of masking tape) snowflakes to give to the special adults in our kids lives. I really like how these all look together and it makes me want to have her paint some more to add to our holiday decorations!

I also made the kids foot prints into reindeer, but can't get that picture to load from my phone. 

One day while Quincy came over they made Christmas tree hats, and reindeer headbands. And I didn't get a picture, but on one of our "Ella days" the girls made sticker Christmas villages and also arranged window clings to decorate. 

A new event we did this year was the Journey to the North Pole in Couer D'Alene. We took a  cruise boat all the way to the North Pole! We enjoyed all the pretty lights and then waited to hear if Kendall and Kyler's names were read by Santa off of his "Nice list". They both made the list! What a relief! Kendall genuinely bought into every second of this journey. It was one of the best Groupons I've ever purchased and we will be looking for it again for next year. 

One afternoon our cousin Alli came over to babysit this kids so I could finish up wrapping gifts. It had just snowed a couple days before so Alli took them outside to play. This was Kyler's first time in the sled. Kendall had a blast pulling him along in it. 

 The finished product of our wrapping:

We kept planning to drive around and look at Christmas lights but it was just not happening. Until right before Christmas. We were driving home from an extended family Christmas party and Kendall hadn't had a nap all day, she fell asleep HARD on the car ride home around 4:30. We took her straight to bed and thought our chance to do the lights was totally over. But she ended up waking up at like 8:30pm and totally freaked us out by standing and chatting with us in her half asleep state. We were super confused but embraced it and ended up going for a late night spin around town. We did stop in at Dutch Bros for a "whip stick" and hot cocoa. We found a few really good ones close in our neighborhood. Kyler slept through it all snuggled up in his car seat. 

I enjoyed the magic of hand made cards and gifts from my students. This little guy worked so hard to write my name. I know it took a lot of patience for him to get all these letter down and I appreciate each one of them!

 Rudolph and Mrs. Claus

Or is it Santa and Rudolph?

 I like dressing my kids up and taking pictures of them :)

One of Kyler's favorite Christmas activity was playing with the Little People manger scene. He mostly ate the characters in the story, but we like to think he was just celebrating the birth of Christ. Kyler also loved tipping over the manger and filling it with all the characters then dumping it out. Here he is sharing it with his buddy Carter. 

 Our last magical activities took place on the night before Christmas. Here Kendall dumped out her reindeer food. She looked at some other areas to spread it out, but in the end decided to put it all in one pile on the front porch. 

Then she picked out (tasted) the perfect cookies to leave out for Santa. We did these things before we left for church and dinner with family because we figured she'd be fast asleep in the car again. WRONG! She was wide awake and excited about Santa coming. We worried her when we didn't go to bed at the same time as her because she was afraid Santa might skip our house. Before she went to bed we watched a video that Santa sent to my email just for Kendall, and then Keith read T'was the Night Before Christmas (along with a few new holiday books the kids opened as their Christmas eve gift). 

And here is our peaceful little house where all the magic of Christmas has taken place for Keith and I for the past 8 years. It's bittersweet to say goodbye to our first home, but I'm so thankful we got to spend one last Christmas in it. 

Thanksgiving

Round one of Thanksgiving was at the Schuerman's house. Kelli hosted and fun and delicious day for us. Mom and Dad joined us for the big dinner and of course we brought Rapunzel with us. 

Here is our little family after we got home

These are the people I'm incredible thankful for.

Marissa hosted a wonderful and thoughtful day for us to celebrate together the day after. 

Don't mind the green ladder that my camera was taking the picture from---oops!

Before Grandma left Kendall was determined to make candy cane cookies with her! She has been dubbed the baking Grandma. Nobody can make roll up pancakes like Grandma, and nobody can make cookies like Grandma! I had to help complete the job because these cookies are a bit involved and Grandma and Papa had to make it to the airport. Kendall was very helpful until she fell off the chair spilling the flour everywhere, requiring a PJ change mid cookie making. They ended up being delicious. 

Kyler keeps getting older

I'm continually in a state of denial about Kyler outgrowing the newborn stage---you guys, he's 7 months old (actually closer to 8 now---ugh! Blogging is hard to keep up on with 2 kids!)! So, he's not even close to a newborn, but I can't stand to think about him getting older. Yet at the same time I'm thoroughly enjoying each new month and the developments they bring.

At 7 months old he is weighing in around 17 pounds. He is packing on the pounds as he eats a TON! I'm still nursing him about every 3 to 4 hours during the day (about 5 to 7 times a day, usually 4:30, 7:30, 10:30, 1:30, 4:30, 7:30 and 10:30) plus he often needs a few more ounces of formula when we are finished. Oh, and he just holds his own bottle like it's no big deal. In fact he doesn't like it when I try to help him, he prefers that I just leave him on the floor doing his own thing, drinking his bottle. So grown up! Additionally, he is eating 2 "real meals" a day with cereal and fruits or veggies (he now enjoys peas, carrots, squash, sweet potato, peaches, pears, bananas, avocados, and a few other fruits that are blended into the baby jars). He inhales the food we give him and is hilarious with the little puffs (that we split in half for him) cause he gathers them all up with his drool covered hand and shoves them all in at once and starts moaning for more. We are working on teaching him the sign language for "more please".  He also loves to eat bananas and avocados from the little mesh feeders. When he is done he starts to play the "uh-oh" game by dropping it off the side of his high chair.

In his 7th month he started to sit very well completely independently. But when he is not sitting his is MOVING! To get from a sitting position to the rolling position he willingly face plants into the floor. Doesn't fuss at all. He rolls in every direction, pivots and rolls some more to reach anything he wants to. When he needs to move forward he does so quite efficiently with his patented back scoot.  It's part hilarious and part concerning to me that he will not ever crawl properly or that he'll have some major neck and back issues later in life. I really hope he decides to crawl like a normal baby soon.

Still no teeth to speak of but he really acts like he's teething. The drool is  pouring out of him and he aggressively rubs everything on his gum. And he is waking up in the middle of the night. BOOO! He teased us last month by having a few nights of continuous sleep but is now back to the once (sometimes twice) wake up. He had a few TERRIBLE nights where we were up with him almost every hour. He was also very congested---poor guy! It was his first real cold/cough and we were all miserable because of it. Luckily he seems to be back to his normal self.

He continues to light up a room with his gummy grin and happy squinty eyes and I LOVE hearing his giggles. He likes to say DADADADA or BABABABA, but I know he really means MAMA. We are so blessed.  Happy 7 month birthday little man!