2009: Year in Review

From what I can see on facebook and in my feed reader, it sounds like most people are ready for 2009 to be over and done with. Am I the only person in America who had a better 2009 than 2008? Because I totally did, even though this year brought nothing that I was expecting and a whole lot of things I wasn't.

My biggest focuses at the beginning of 2009 were getting rid of my hives, being a "better wife" (ahem) to my husband, and restructuring our family's finances. So last fall I got on birth control pills to hopefully regulate my hormones and prevent hives, and with that I stopped charting and tracking my monthly cycles (because won't the pill just take care of that whole pregnancy prevention thing? I mean, I don't need to think about it, right?), started setting a large chunk of money aside every month with the plan to replenish our just-in-case account... and then I got busy with the "better wife" thing.

And then those three stars aligned, and our lives changed forever. Because then there was Beanie.

With her pregnancy came the decision for me to walk away from a paying job, the newfound trust that Mark and I found in each other and in God's plan, and an absolutely beautiful daughter that I hadn't even known I wanted.

And God provided us with more in 2009 than just getting a new daughter: Nathan is completely healthy and developing normally, I have had nary a hive, Mark has a secure well-paying job that he loves, our just-in-case account is indeed now fully funded despite some financial surprises (and we even paid off the last of the student and car loans which makes us completely debt-free except for our mortgage), we have seen several new corners of the world (and even shared some of them with Nathan), and we have family and friends who support us and love us. Oh yeah, and I am a rockin' awesome wife. Definitely a good year. A banner year actually.

When I think about where I was a year ago today, I can only shake my head and smile. I had no idea what 2009 would have in store for us, yet looking back I seemed laughably confident that I was regaining some sense of control in my life. HA. So although this is the third time I have sat down to do a Year in Review post, it's the first time I will not end with any promises to myself about what next year will bring. Because if there is anything that God has taught me in 2009, it's that I don't get to control eveything. And you know what? I think I'm finally ok with that.

Especially if my letting go of control brings me half the wonder and joy that my amazing daughter has.

So instead of bemoaning the end of a difficult year (and indeed it wasn't easy), come with me and celebrate a year of unexpected blessings -- for our family, this will go down as The Year of Anneliese. Happy 2009!

Like Mommy, Like Daughter

We're still at my mom's house in Huntersville (we've been treating it as a sort of "home base" for our visits with family and friends this week). One fun thing about being here has been going through lots of my old stuff from childhood. I have to be honest and admit that most of what I found while cleaning out "my" room here (which mom has been begging me to do for months years) got trashed or donated, but it was still fun to look at it while I was sorting.

I found my college acceptance letter, my SAT scores, bunches of cards and notes from friends (some dating back to seventh grade!), old choir and band uniforms, all my prom/formal dresses, four or five pairs of huge (and colorful!) glasses that date me as a tween of the 90s, and a picture of mark wearing a marching band uniform with a mouth full of braces in a heart-shaped gold gilded frame (hott).

I also went through some of my mom's old picture albums from my birth and early childhood. And you know what? Despite all the comments about how Anneliese looks like Nathan, and even more comments about how Nathan looks like Mark (really? I still don't see it that much), it turns out Anneliese actually looks a good bit like I did at her age. Not exactly... but I think you can tell she's mine. What do you think?

If she really does look like me, I'm taking that as a compliment. Because I think she's gorgeous and I'm not ashamed to say it. :)

Third Cousins Don't Count!! (Merry Christmas from Millers Creek)

Yesterday was our Christmas celebration with my dad and his family in Millers Creek, up in the NC foothills. It's never uneventful, and this year's highlights included:

1.) My grandfather left shrimp out all night to "take the chill off" before people arrived for lunch the next day. My cousin was very gracious and delicate in explaining to him why
no one seemed interested in eating them warm, Grandpa, I think most people actually like them chilled, while I just told him that's gross and put them back in the fridge. They were fully cooked, so I guess it was fine. I mean, no one got sick or anything (not that too many got eaten).

2.) Anneliesegot to meet Grandpa (her great-Grandpa) for the first time, and she loved him! Nathan has had a track record of bad moods up at his house, so I wasn't sure what to expect from Anneliese (this was the first time they had met). But they got along famously and she spent hours in his arms and they even dozed off and took a nap togetherat one point after lunch. So cute.

3.) My dad helped my Grandpa out by cleaning out his gutters before lunch. Nathan and Grandpa threw snowballs at him while he was up on the ladder. Just for kicks. Ahhh, can you feel the family love?

4.) Even more miraculous than no one getting sick from warm festering shrimp is the fact that no one got sick from some moonshine they found in the basement that my Grandpa had apparently acquired in 1980 from a neighbor as a remedy for one of his cows who had pinkeye. You can't make this stuff up, people. The ones who drank it (and I count Mark in that number, although normally he's smarter than that) didn't feel so great, but no one was outright sick. But here's the thing -- if you drink some clear liquid from a mason jar that's probably thirty-year-old moonshine (but how do you know for sure, really?) and is rumored to have medicinal effects for bovine pinkeye -- you deserve to be sick.

5.) My cousin Brandon has been infamous for making a huge mess of a candy cane when he was a toddler, and he rolls his eyes when the story gets re-told every Christmas. He is the youngest cousin in my generation, so he has been anxiously awaiting the day when a new younger relative could take over the infamy. So we gave Nathan his first candy cane. He ate it. He liked it. But it didn't even come close to the sticky pink mess that Brandon made in his day. Sorry, Brandon. You apparently can't be outdone.

6.) There are now more "kids" than adults, but somehow we still have to sit at a folding table in the den to eat our food instead of with the "grownups." Are other families like this too?

7.) My sister danced with the "Jingle Bell Rock" Santa. This is a still from the video. It cracks me up.

8.) Somehow we got into a huge discussion (not for the first time) about who my dad and his sister dated when they still lived in their hometown and how ridiculous it is that they all have the same name. And this year the whole thing ended up with my dad's proclamation that "third cousins don't count!" And even though I am sure I hope it was mostly in jest, his defensiveness was hilarious. Sean said we should put that on his tombstone. :)

For more pictures of our visit to Millers Creek, click on Nathan in the snow, below.

by mgoetts

Christmas at Marmie's

Our little family embarked on a milestone journey this weekend: we loaded all six of us into the car and headed out of town. I was kind of nervous as we started buckling everyone in (yes, our dogs wear seat belts) when I saw how full the far was. I wasn't sure what to expect on that kind of trip. And the ride was... um, pleasant. Ok that's a lie; it was bad. Traffic slowed us down several times, Nathan refused to nap (even though we timed our departure perfectly with his naptime and even took him to the airport before we left to wear him out) and then when he was finally almost asleep (hours and hours into a journey which should only take a little over two), we kept finding ourselves driving near this ambulance that sent Nathan into whiny hysterics every time he couldn't see it anymore. And when he was finally really asleep, Anneliese decided it was time to wake up, poop, and yell about it. Lovely. Needless to say, she rode the rest of the way sitting in a dirty diaper since we were not about to risk waking up Nathan, or even worse, running into that ambulance again. Poor second child.

Oh, and did I mention how Bowden spent the whole journey trying to decide where she wanted to settle in for a nap, and multiple times decided that on top of Anneliese, in her car seat, was the best choice? Yeah... good times, good times. I think Simon is the only creature in our family who found the whole trip rather uneventful.

And this disasterous ride was all to make it to my mom's house for a Christmas celebration with my sister Ashley and her fiance John, and my mom's trainer Michael and his wife Jessi. (They're pretty much part of our family now.) And once we arrived and got our children woken up and their bottoms cleaned, we really did have a nice time.

We laughed a lot, John and Michael had a tickle fight, Anneliese vogued, we regifted cactus candles. You know, typical Christmas stuff.

Jessi, Michael, Mark, me, Ashley and John -- Marmie's "kids"

Of course we noticed Brad's absense though. I think if Christmas feels like what we remember it from childhood, then no Christmas will ever feel normal again without my brother there. Even though he has lived in St Croix for the last four Christmases, it's never the same without him.

At my mom's house there are like a million stockings since there's one for each kid, each kid's spouse, each grandkid, each dog and each granddog (and granddog-in-law). And after everyone had taken town their stockings and sorted through the goodies, after we had eaten steaks and fish and had good company and lots of laughs and eaten lots of dessert, Brad's stocking was still hanging there, all alone and empty (she had already sent his gifts down to the virgin islands). I don't know, it was just made me miss him even more.So Merry Christmas to anyone who didn't get to celebrate with all the people you love.

For pictures of our celebration with Marmie, click on Anneliese in her Christmas outfit, below.

by mgoetts

Merry Christmas!

We had a very simple family celebration on Christmas afternoon (we worked it out with Santa to have the reindeer drop some presents off a little late -- after nap -- since Mark was on night shift Christmas Eve and needed to sleep the morning away when he got home). Both Nathan and Anneliese got fun things to sit on -- for Nathan, an armchair for his room so we can all sit together and read in there, and for Anneliese, a bumbo chair and a jumperoo to work on her gross motor skills.

We had a fun time going through stockings and giving each other small presents, and Mark and I had a yummy quasi-romantic dinner after the children went to bed.

I hope everyone reading this had an equally simple and enjoyable Christmas with family, celebrating the 2009th birthday of Jesus!! Merry Christmas and Happy Birthday!

For more pictures of our family's celebration at home, click below on Anneliese's stocking.

by mgoetts

Yuletide Log in HD

It's a little warm here for a real fire. Good thing we have this Christmawesome yuletide log to crackle and burn on our new tv. In HD. Complete with festive music in the background.

Oh yeah, it's a whole channel of this. I wish I were kidding. We have come a long way from the days having to watch our fake fires on VHS, haven't we?

My grandparents bought one of those VHS tapes, and made us watch it (with interest and vigor, not just let it add whatever canned ambience might have been possible). The extra tape copy they got for our family might or might not have met a sudden and tragic early death at the hands of my parents. (To be fair, I don't really know what happened to the tape, but Mom and Dad are at the top of the suspect list.) This televised fireplace is the best way I know to remember my Grandpa S this Christmas. He would love this channel, and he would be pleased that we're watching it.

May your days be merry and bright, and may all your yuletide fireplaces be in HD.

Worst Ornament Ever

If Nathan had made this ornament himself, I would lie straight to his face and tell him it was my favorite and then I would put it front and center on our tree. But since I know his craft skill level and can therefore safely assume he had little to no hand in creating this... um, masterpiece that he brought home from school last week, then let's call a spade a spade. This might be the worst ornament in the history of Christmas. Is it a wreath? Some candy? A frame of a toddler mugshot? Who knows.

Warning: it may be hazardous to your health to look directly at the ornament.

In case you're not seeing the plethora of heinous that I'm seeing, let's count the ways, shall we?

1.) The ribbon. I think it must have been picked out by the great great (great great great) grandmother of one of the children in Nathan's class. Because no one under a hundred would choose ribbon that ugly. I don't know if you can see the shade of green on those polka dots but let me assure you it's bad. And shiny.

2.) The candy is still wrapped. Isn't that breaking some cardinal rule about homemade ornaments? I mean, they have to be able to attract ants (and curious toddler mouths) for years to come, right?

3.) It's huge. It know this picture doesn't give you any sense of scale, but the whole thing is mounted on a plate. If we actually hung it on our tree (don't worry, we won't), it would be front and center and would be a bigger distraction from Jesus than all the rest of the holiday season's commercialism, combined.

4.) The white plastic tinsel/confetti stuff. Does anyone find this kind of decoration pretty? Anyone? Really?

5.) I never claimed that Nathan was photogenic, but come on. That picture of him is terrible. As much as love my son, I wouldn't want him glaring down at me from our Christmas tree year after year. And as Mark pointed out, this picture is was probably the best of several they attempted. I think even Nathan knew how this ornament would turn out.

So did we throw it away? Um, no, of course not. That would make us totally heartless and without sentiment. So... we sent the ugly ornament to the Island of Misfit Ornaments where it can grow old with others of its kind and pray for Santa's rescue. Nathan agreed it was for the best. You should probably consider sending some of your misfit ornaments there too. You know you have at least one that deserves it.

Nathan Names 20 Vehicles

I'm pretty sure I have mentioned -- once or twice -- how much Nathan loves things that go. Cars, trucks, airplanes, boats, you name it. Well I was sorting through some video footage from our visit with Mark's parents a few weeks ago (Opa had brought out a big bucket of his and Mark's old matchbox cars for Nathan to play with, which was the impetus for lots of vehicle discussion), and it seems like in every clip we had, Nathan was talking about some car or truck.

So I put them all together.

Here is Nathan, naming 20 Things That Go:

Well, technically it's only 19, since he talked about the fire truck more than once. Merritt, Kelley, Hope, Chelle, Jill... welcome to the wonderful world of boys. This is what we live with.

Chocolate Cracker-Cookies

I love those crispy cookies made with crackers that everyone seems to make over the holidays. I have had them with peanut butter and and with almonds and I even made a batch a few years ago with chocolate that turned out a little too... chewy for my liking. But our friend Nathan from church brought some really crispy and nutty ones over on Thanksgiving, and motivated me to try again. So I combined a couple of recipes, added chocolate, and I got a good batch!

And Nathan helped! He helped me line up the crackers and he didn't even sneak any bites. I cannot say the same about his "help" with the chocolate chips.

Disclaimer: this is not healthy, nor does it claim to be.

Chocolate Cracker-Cookies
1 sleeve of your preferred saltine crackers (about 36)
1 and 3/4 sticks of butter or margarine
3/4 cup of light brown sugar (or brown sugar/splenda blend)
1 tsp nut extract (I used black walnut, almond should work well too)
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
16 oz semisweet chocolate mini-chips

Preheat oven to 400. Cover a medium-sized cookie sheet with alumnium foil, and spray with non-stick spray. Cut butter into chunks and set over low heat. While butter is melting, line up the crackers on the foil-lined cookie sheet. Once the butter is melted, add in brown sugar and bring to a boil for 2-3 minutes, stirring constantly. Remove from heat and add nut extract and vanilla, stir. Pour butter mixture over crackers, using a spatula to spread evenly. Bake for 6 minutes. While crackers are in the oven, get the chocolate chips opened up and ready to go. As soon as the crackers come out, pour the chocolate all over the pan. After giving it 20-30 seconds to melt, you should be able to spread the chocolate around evenly with a spatula. Set the whole pan on a cooling rack for a couple of hours, then you can break or cut the cookies apart (any size you want!) and refrigerate until the chocolate gets hard again. Then... enjoy the sweet and salty and crunchy goodness!

So... I Won a Shopping Spree

I won something! Which is weird because I rarely win anything. But I won something! I entered a giveaway with my

bloggity friend Jill, and I won! (She owed me; this is the very same Jill whose challenge gets the blame credit for getting me pregnant unexpectedly earlier this year.)

What did I win?

An Old Navy shopping spree! Well, kind of. I won a voucher good for half off of $100 worth of stuff. Which means a lot of loot for fifty bucks, so it totally counts a shopping spree.

So I went yesterday, and I loaded up! Tons of stuff was on sale already, plus I hit up the clearance racks. Sadly the outerwear I was hoping for seemed to be mostly gone, but I still made out like a bandit.)

Here's what I got:

- 2 nice-ish tops for myself (one green, one black, both can be dressed up or dressed down)

- 3 (THREE) pairs of pants for Mark (khakis, brown casual pants, and grey cords)

- 1 waffle-weave shirt for Nathan for next winter (orange and grey striped)

- 1 waffle-weave onesie for Anneliese for this winter (pink and grey striped)

- 1 waffle-weave henley for me in navy (yes, I am all about the waffle-weave)

- 2 pairs of jeans for Anneliese (one fleece-lined, one with embroidery)

- 3 underwears for Mark (you don't need the specs on those, right?)

- yes, underwears is totally a word

- a metal water bottle (green and safe!) for a big boy who wants to be done with sippy cups

- 2 long-sleeved polo shirts for Anneliese for her toddler years

I'd say I did pretty well. Actually, I'd say I am officially a rock star sale/coupon shopper. :)

Two Months Already?

Today Anneliese is two months old. Yes, already. Maybe for you people, the weeks are passing at a normal rate. But for Mark and me, time is just flying right by.

[Edit 12/15 - she is growing like a weed! She's 12 lbs 12 oz (92nd percentile), and 24.5 inches long (off the top of the chart). Our family knows all too well what it's like to fall off the chart in the other direction, so we're grateful for a rapidly growing baby right now!]

With the recent surge in thumb-sucking (always the left hand... think she'll be a lefty?) Anneliese has become much happier during her waking hours. Her ability to keep herself happy means we can prop her in the bouncy seat or swing, and instead of her fussing until we come back and get her (or until she falls asleep), she will just sit and watch the world go by. She is especially interested in Nathan and his comings and goings. She really perks up when he is nearby. I love seeing her little serious face as she just takes it all in, and this picture really captures her over the last few weeks.

I hope she likes this picture; it's likely going to be in her passport til she's five!

Anneliese is still sleeping great. Most nights she goes down sometime after 9pm, then doesn't get up again until sometime after 4am. (A few days, like today, she lasts until closer to 7 or 8am!) After she eats she usually goes back down for several more hours, occasionally in the car seat if that's what the morning's schedule dictates, until she's totalled about 12 hours for the night. So... still angelic. :)

She's also bringing us something our family is not used to -- she's hitting a bunch of physical milestones right on time, or even early! She can hold her head up and steady (like in the picture above), when we put her on her tummy she will lift her shoulders and neck up, she can push against us with her legs (that one is earth-shattering... Nathan didn't do it until he was ten months old!), and she can consistently manager to get her thumb into her mouth. Mark's hoping he might have a jock child after all!

Anneliese definitely prefers Mark and me and Nathan over other people, but she is learning to accept some strangers too, once she gets used to them. We left her in the church nursery for the first time this morning, and she didn't do great -- apparently she was "grumpy" (their words) the whole time, and refused the bottle the whole time (she was in there for more than three hours!), so she was ravenous when we picked her up, and was very happy to nurse for a looooong time before we loaded up the car and headed home!

And, we're getting to actually interact with her more and more. She turns her head towards us when we talk to her, and she coos (sometimes even repeating noises we make!)... and we've all fallen hard for that sweet little grin (with dimples! we have no idea where she got that) whenever she decides to aim it our way.

We're happy every day for getting to know our sweet little girl even better!

Lights on the Neuse

Last night we had a family date! We went to a farm out in Clayton near the Neuse River, where we could take a hayride through a forest of Christmas light displays. Because... we live in North Carolina, and apparently hayrides and Christmas lights go together. :)

And we apparently picked the coldest night of the year so far -- according to weather.com, it was 26 degrees out when we were on the hayride! I know to some people in some parts of the country, that's laughably warm. But for us, anything below freezing is dang cold. I mean, it makes the news and stuff. I kind of don't understand how it goes below freezing anyway. I mean, are those even real temperatures? I don't think so. (And don't get me started on below zero, which totally blows my mind and is something I hope to never experience.)

Anyway the good part about cold weather is getting all bundled up. Which makes children at least 25% cuter than they already are. And last night was no exception. Anneliese and I wore our matching Peruvian flute band hats (please don't ask me how I know that's what they're called; I learned it here) and she went in the bjorn with a blanket around her legs, and then got buttoned up inside my coat. Nathan had on sweatpants under jeans, two shirts, and of course his coat and hat and superman mittens.

I don't even know if Nathan felt the cold, to be honest (although the other three of us sure did!) -- he was so entranced by the light displays ("Look at that! It's a reindeer... it's another reindeer! It's orange lights! It's green lights! Look at that big tower! It's purple lights!" and on and on). And the fact that we were riding behind a tractor was really exciting for him too. Of course. :)

It was a pretty cool hayride. I liked that it wasn't just an orgy of Christmas lights in a field, but a bunch of different displays through a path in the forest. That way you could see and appreciate each display (and the music that went with it!) instead of being overwhelmed by all the lights at once. Also, it meant that they could turn the lights on and off as the hayride came by each section and then left, which I'm sure keeps their energy bills down. I heard someone say they had more than a million lights out there!

They also had a "Santa's Barn" 3-D display and you could make s'mores on their campfire and get your picture taken with Santa... but we skipped all that in favor of getting back to our car and getting warm. Also, because Santa (once again) brought out Nathan's panicky tears. Also, because Nathan spent the whole night licking his lips and I didn't think they could take any more chapping (any hints on how to convince a toddler not to do that?)... Also, because it was already past bedtime.

Here are some more pictures from last night:

We all slept well afterwards! But it was a great way to spend an evening as a family. :)

Dare You Not to Laugh

My sister Ashley once pointed out the impossibility of hearing a baby laugh, and not laughing yourself. And since it's her birthday, I thought I would see if her theory is correct.

I dare you to watch this video and not laugh:

Clearly, Daddy's funny faces are way better than the new baby sister.

Did you laugh? Yep, I thought so. :)

If you still can't get enough of his wonderful guffaws (oh yes Merritt, I said guffaw), click here to see the day his giggle box got turned over on a road trip (warning: that video is sideways since I am a filmmaking doof).

Happy birthday, Ashley!!

End of a Comforter Era

Our newlywed comforter is gone. The first bedding we picked out together. We hunted it down at Bed Bath & Beyond seven years ago, debated about whether it was too girly or not (conensus = not), bleeped the little wedding registry scanner, and a few months later we unwrapped it and put it on our bed. Which, at that time, was two twin beds held together with rope. No I am not kidding. (We were very rich and very classy in those days, can you tell? HA.) But I was happy with our pretty comforter just the same. :)

We have had two housing upgrades and one very much needed bed upgrade, but the comforter lived through all of that. Until the last few months when it really started falling apart. And when, apparently, it dawned on Mark that it might be a little too girly after all.

So now we have a new comforter. We wanted something quilty instead of a traditional one this time, and we're both happy with it. It's not girly, and it looks nice in our room (I think so anyway). But it's still sort of sad to say good-bye to the other one. Maybe I should have let go of this notion a while ago (I mean, it's been almost seven years!) but I think this means we are officially no longer newlyweds. :(

For the Love of Thumb

It's official: we have another thumb-sucker in our family.

I was really hoping for this not to happen, actually. I know some people will preach against the evils of a pacifier, but we've been encouraging her to take one anyway. Because here's the thing about a paci: It soothes in an orthodontically-appropriate way, it's easier to keep clean than baby fingers, and the parent gets to choose when to end the habit (even if it's miserable for a few weeks when it ends!)...

Not so with the thumb. Yes, it's always available when the child needs some soothing. But also -- it's always available. Even when they're ten. Let's hope it doesn't come to that with either of my kids. Nathan is a thumb addict, but not a terrible one (mostly just when he's sleeping, in the car, or watching the little bit of tv he tolerates). But Anneliese has already shown a need for more non-nutritive sucking than Nathan ever did. And she has found her thumb way earlier! (Ok, let's be honest: she's doing everything physical way earlier!) We've caught her sucking away several times over the last few days.

And now that she's found it, there's no going back. Instead of dreading the thumb-wean (which is years away anyway), I am just going to focus on the positive. I'm planning to leave her arms out of the swaddle at night to give her full thumb access, in the hopes that it will buy even longer sleeping periods. And I'm going to be happy that her addiction to my fingers might be coming to a close. :)

Anneliese has left very little doubt about how she feels about her pacifiers. I'd say she's officially made her choice. Thumb it is.

Anneliese Can Coo, Can You?

Anneliese has been making some very sweet cooing sounds over the last week or so. She does it for all of us, but she does it best for Daddy and Nathan (but hey, at least she smiles at me now).

Here are some of our best efforts at getting her to "talk" for the camera:

"Anneliese, talk! Talk! Talk!... Do ABCs, Anneliese."

So as you can see, Nathan's tactics for getting her to coo are somewhat less subtle than what Mark and I have been attempting. Too bad that ABCs thing didn't pan out; that would have been cute. :)

Let There Be (Colored!) Lights

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas around here. Even more so this year than last, because this year we have colored lights on the tree! Thanks to Nathan, I finally have a swing vote to trump Mark's desire for boring old white Christmas tree lights! :) I don't care if you call me a redneck -- colored lights are just more jolly, plain and simple. And we're not going for classy here anyway, we're going for festive.

(But don't worry, the outside of the house still has white lights only; even I have my limits.)

Buying a tree this year was chaotic because of Nathan's newfound Santa-fear. The Santa display at the farmer's market, combined with the cold rain, made for less-than-ideal shopping conditions. But we found one -- a BIG one -- and were on our merry way, two screaming children in the backseat.

Once we were home and dry, we did have fun putting on the (colored!) lights. Well, I don't know how much fun it was for Mark, considering he wasn't thrilled about the colored lights,
and two of the light strands crapped out on him when they were halfway on the tree. Which I'm pretty sure is part of the tree-lighting experience, right? My dad's fights with tree lights over my childhod years are some of the more humorous things I remember from Christmases past. But he was able to grin and bear it, as you can see.

One of my favorite things about our tree, even more than the (colored!) lights, is that most all of our ornaments have memories. We don't go for one of those all-matching, stick-to-a-theme department store trees. We buy ornaments on our travels, and to mark special occasions or seasons in our family's life, and then as we decorate the tree every year we can relive those memories. (And make fun of the ugly ornaments. Every family has a few of those, right?) We even have some ornaments from our own childhoods. Actually, Mark and I both have the same "Baby's First Christmas 1980" ornaments that go on the tree every year. :)

So Nathan has a few ornaments that are "his," and this year he could actually help decorate! (Mark and I had to help him a little.) He was so sweet -- he kept saying, Look at that! Look at the tree! It's got lights on it! And then talking about all the ornaments. I hope he grows to love the memory-filled way we decorate our tree as much as I do.

We also hung up all the stockings over the fireplace. (It took some convincing for Nathan to believe these are stockings and not boots.) It's official: no more surprise babies, we are out of stocking space!! Jesting aside, I do like seeing Anneliese's stocking hanging up there with the rest of ours. I have no idea what Santa will put in it, considering her needs are so basic right now and she can't play with toys yet, but I'm sure he (or his reindeer -- since if Santa himself comes to our house, Nathan might have a panic attack) will think of something.

Before bed, we busted out the Christmas pj's and put the kids under the tree for some pictures. Clearly I don't know how to take good pictures without the flash, but they do look awfully sweet and yule-tidey.

Happy Advent from our house to yours!

Now I'm off to wrap some presents....

Baby Straightjacket

Swaddling. It's weird, huh? Apparently babies like to be all snug and burrito-like when they sleep, since it's similar to the close quarters of the womb. And apparently not being able to move your arms and legs while you rest is a good thing.

But we never really swaddled Nathan. I mean, they showed us how to do it at the hospital, and we did it there a few times. But either his phototherapy blanket (for jaundice), or the warm July weather when he was a newborn, or just the fact that he liked to sleep with his arms flung all over the place... some combination of those things kept Nathan from being a swaddled baby.

Anneliese has been a different story. She needs it to sleep more than a few hours. And since I am a swaddling dunce (seriously, I am a smart person, why can't I swaddle well?) we have been all over those little blankets that have velcro tabs to make it easier. (Our friend Betsy gave us the one below -- a SwaddleMe -- before Anneliese was born, since it was such a godsend with her first child.)

Well, somehow my dad seemed a little bit (not a lot, but a little) horrified at this system. He thinks is looks like a baby straightjacket. He was all, she can't move her arms! Um yeah dad, that's kind of the point. I had mentioned before that we were swaddling Anneliese to get her to sleep, but I don't think he was expecting it to look quite like this:So then I googled the SwaddleMe, and found out that Dad isn't the only one who thinks it's like a straightjacket. I found several sites making fun of swaddle blankets, including this hilarious post at Best Week Ever.

Is this one of those things that seems totally normal to our generation of parents (like taping a pool noodle to your kid's mattress) but makes the rest of the world look at us like we're crazy? Maybe, but if it gets my newborn to sleep through the night, I call it GENIUS.