Lunch at the Airport

Since it was such a beautiful day, we decided to go to the Sonoma County Airport for lunch. We had never done this before, but have now decided we'll do it on a semi regular basis. The food was good and Bryce loved watching the planes land and take off. We even saw a small helicopter land. He thought that was great.

Church Carnival

We took Bryce to the church's annual Winter Carnival. There were lots of fun games, a cupcake walk, food and prizes. His favorite was the balloon car race. They had these neat plastic cars with balloons fastened to them. You blew up the balloon then let the air out to propel it forward along the track. Bryce needed help blowing up the balloon, but really enjoyed watching it go. He also enjoyed making the stain glass with paints.

Faith 3 Months

Faith turned three months old today. The first three months has flown by. Faith is a very happy baby. For the most part, she only cries when she is hungry, tired (her cry when she is tired is very distinct) or when she wants people to talk with her (she really likes attention). She loves to smile and coo at you.

She can now grab hold of her toys and either shakes them or puts them in her mouth. On the 18th she rolled over for the first time from her back to her stomach. After she rolled over she started crying. She surprised herself and didn't really want to be on her stomach. She doesn't enjoy tummy time very much. However, when she is on her stomach she can push up on her arms and get her head completely off the floor. She also kicks her legs and can pivot herself around.

She is still waking up twice a night. Currently she wakes up around 1 am and again around 5 am. For the past couple of nights I've been putting her to be around 8:30 instead of putting her to bed when I go to bed. She has gone to sleep without any problem. Once a night time routine is established I'm going to work on establishing a nap time routine. Right now she naps on and off throughout the day. I'd love to get her on a morning and afternoon nap schedule, hopefully one that corresponds with Bryce's nap.

Her left tear duct is still clogged. Hopefully this will go away very soon. It doesn't seem to bother her, but it doesn't look very pretty. The back of her had looks as if we shaved a big patch from her rubbing her head back and forth. With Bryce this was never very noticeable because his whole head was practicably bald. Since Faith has a fair amount of dark hair you really notice it.

Faith giggled for the first time today. She way laying on her changing table, looked up at me, and let out the cutest light laugh. I thought maybe it was fluke, but she giggled three more times at Nanny and Pawka's house this afternoon.

Bryce is typically really sweet with Faith now. He tries to give her a binkie when she cries and likes to lay down next to her and cuddle.

Bryce says some funny things

This morning I was watching the inauguration coverage on the news. Bryce asked me what I was watching and I said, "The news. We have a new president today." To which he responded, "Can I open it?" I said, "Not a present, a Pres i dent. The President is the leader of our whole country." He then said, "Who gets to open it." President Obama appeared on the screen so I told Bryce to look and said that the man he saw on TV was our new president. To which he responded again, "Who gets to open it." I gave up at this point. It was just so cute that he kept wanting to know who was going to get to open us the present.

Tahoe

We spent a wonderful week in Tahoe. We rented a great house with a huge fenced in, level yard, that was just across the street from the lake. It was perfect. The only bummer was that the week we were there the weather was unseasonably warm, so each day there was less and less snow. We spent a lot of time playing games, reading, watching movies and just hanging out at the house. We also got in two days of skiing, went sledding, ice skated twice at Northstar's outdoor rink, and took a walk next to the lake.

Bryce and Mandy played non-stop, although they also fought like brother and sister. We rented Bryce skis and took him to Homewood to try them out. He never got on a lift, but we did pull him back and forth in front of the lodge. He enjoyed it, but wouldn't let go of us. I'm glad we tried, but I think next year we'll have better luck getting him to really go for it. Bryce really enjoyed the ice skating. Again, he wouldn't let go of us, and for some reason really only wanted Daddy to hold on to him. I think he probably sensed how unsteady I was on my feet and thought he'd have a better chance of not falling if Daddy helped him around the rink. He also loved sledding. We built mini snowman so that he could go fast down the hill and crash into them. Before we left for Tahoe he kept telling us that he was going to, "go fast and crash into the snowman and knock it over."

Faith was an excellent traveler. I was a little worried since Bryce used to not travel well (refused to take naps, awake all night long, digestive system problems, etc.), but Faith had non of these problems and either did Bryce.

Thanks again Nanny and Pawka for such a wonderful trip. You are so very generous!

Bryce 2 1/2 Years Old

At Bryce's 2.5 year doctor's appointment he weighed 31 pounds ( 63 percentile) and was 3 ft 1.25 inches (74 percentile).

After a few weeks of struggling with taking a nap Bryce is now back to napping fairly regularly - thank God. We let him read books at nap time and he often falls asleep on the floor or on his couch with a book.

His behavior has also really improved over the last couple of weeks. It is rare that he hits Faith and he is starting to listen to us a little more. He still has a ways to go towards behaving as good as he did before Faith was born, but at this point he is manageable.

We converted his crib to a toddler bed. He really thinks he is a big boy now. He calls his bed a "taaadler bed". Before converting his crib, he didn't want to sleep under blankets or use a pillow, now he does both. He is still coming into our room every night sometimes between midnight and 5am. Instead of having to get up out of bed and go get him when he wakes up, we've started leaving the gate open on his door so that he can come into our room on his own. We have got to break him of this habit soon. I think once we move Faith into her own room we'll insist he stays in his room. I just hate the thought of telling him that he can't be in our room when he knows Faith is in our room.

New Year's Day

We had some of the family over for a New Year's Day potluck. We had a great time seeing everyone and visiting. Bryce enjoyed being the center of attention and all the grandparents, aunts and uncles enjoyed getting to hold Faith.