The new niece, Chloe, and other happenings...

This is not a very pic-full post, but here I am anyway. :-)

The past month and a half has been very busy between the holidays, going back to work, a new niece, and just usual life. Everything is going well though! Oliver gives us a few nights here and there with a 4 or 5 hour sleep stretch and Kaya still loves him as much as ever! Even with all the busy-ness, we haven't had too much excitement as of late except for the fact that my sister, Kaytie, had her first baby. Her name is Chloe Virginia Wong and she made her appearance early on the morning of December 28th. She's a cutie and VERY aware for a new baby. I took some newborn pics and posted them on my other blog (http://www.jensphotogblog.blogspot.com/), but here's one just in case you don't want to go over there.

I hope you all are having a wonderful new year!

(And I will try to be a much better blogger when I am home more in February.)

Photo blog link

So, I finally decided to start a photo blog. It's a bit easier to give people a peek at their photos this way and it's just fun. :-) If you're interested, its at http://jensphotogblog.blogspot.com/.

Two-Month Stats, Rolling Over & Happy Thanksgiving

We hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving! We had a good Thanksgiving, full of Turkey and lots of goodies, with my family. Kaya & I (Jennifer) started out the day with some hot cocoa and the Macy's parade. (I LOVE holiday traditions!) After the parade was over, we made some Thanksgiving cards and then got ready for the festivities. I made blackberry pie and apple-cranberry tartlets for dessert, but most of that work was done the night before. That was our contribution to the wonderful meal of barbecued turkey (mmm...), mashed potatoes, stuffing, rolls, green bean casserole, and more that I'm probably forgetting. It was delicious and we had a wonderful time together as a family.

On to Ollie info... Oliver had his two-month check-up on Monday afternoon and we found out that he weighs 12 lbs 9 oz and is 23 inches long. In other words, he's a CHUNK. He's a very healthy boy outside of the colds that he keeps catching from his sister and his reflux, and almost always VERY happy. :-) On Wednesday, I realized that we hadn't been doing much with Oliver in the way of tummy-time. I was thinking that I'd lay him on his stomach, chat with him and maybe roll him over, just to show him how it worked. Well, I put him on his stomach and, to my surprise, he rolled over! I made him do it about 3 or 4 times before I gave him a break. :-) I don't know if it's because he's so huge or if his giant head just gives him some extra leverage, but either way, he's rollin'!

After Oliver's appointment on Monday, we went to the park to take some pictures. So here you go!

Halloween (late, I know...)

I know, I know... Still a bad blogger. At least I'm posting now though, right?

Oliver will be two months old tomorrow. No Ollie pics right now, but we're going to the park on Monday just for the purpose of pictures, so they'll be up soon. He's doing pretty good and we've been able to shorten the "up time" after eating to about 20 minutes (it used to be a half-hour). Last night, he didn't spend that time after eating upright and we had about an hour of screaming followed by a massive amount of projectile vomit. Yuck! So, yes, he does still have reflux issues, but they're getting better! He's still not sleeping in chunks any longer than 2 hours, but hopefully that will come soon.

Kaya loves being a big sister and wants to help with EVERYTHING. She loves her brother a lot. :-)

Now, on to Halloween... Kaya got to dress up three different times this year, which she was VERY excited about. She dressed up once for a costume birthday party, once for her preschool Halloween parade, and on Halloween. Everytime, it was slightly different. :-) Luckily, she's a pretty easy kid to please, so she just dressed up in the princess costumes that we already had and we didn't have to buy anything extra. So, here are the VERY late Halloween pictures...

Preschool pictures first...

Ms. Lily blindfolding Kaya

Yeah, I only eat the frosting...

Kaya and her princess friend, Ashlyn.

Festivals on Halloween night.

Look at that throwing arm. :-)

Marshmallow shooting.

Fishing

Almost three weeks...

I've been a very bad mom-photographer and an even worse blogger... sorry. I did manage to get a few pics this week, but nothing fancy. A wonderful friend of mine lent me a basket and a few of her blankets so that I wouldn't have an excuse not to take pictures, but I haven't even used them yet! I haven't actually done much "setting up" for any pictures; I'm just catching them where I can. :-)

Oliver will be three weeks old on Tuesday. We love him and Kaya LOVES being a big sister! Here's a re-cap of what our three weeks have been like.

Week 1: No sleep, but a very cute baby. :-) Oliver has his day and night mixed up.
Week 2: We still have a very cute baby. A couple of nights of 2-hour sleep stretches! Woohoo! He's figured out that nighttime is for sleeping and it's much more fun to be awake during the day. Now he has stomach issues though. Not sure what it is, but he's projectile vomiting and added bile to the mix.
Week 3: We now know that he has reflux. The vomiting is not a regular occurence as long as we hold him upright for a half-hour or so after he eats, but he still wakes up pretty uncomfortable. :-( This makes for (again) not much sleep. Two hour stretches are gone, but I'm hopeful that they'll return soon! We've discovered that Ollie REALLY likes lullabies and classical music. And, yep, we still have a very cute baby. :-)

So, here are a few of the pictures that I did manage to get.

After the first bath he actually enjoyed...

My messy haired child with my bald child.

This is how he usually wakes up. ;-)

His cute little smile. :-D

And a yawn...

My sleeping baby...