Evey's First Christmas

Yay! Evey's first crazy Christmas! We went to Vegas for Christmas, but we opened gifts at our house before we left. Of course she was way more interested in the paper and boxes than what she got, but that was expected;) And the day before that, Jen and Ryan stopped by to drop off and open gifts too and Evey opened her secret Santa gift that the Schiedels dropped off, fun stuff!

Fabulous new socks from Daisy!

Buried in the bag, and that wasn't even her present!

Ready to open gifts!

Evey got a lot of books from mom and dad

Wrapping paper!

Sad that there were no more presents to open, or she just needed a nap

Oh yah, and I guess Chris and I opened gifts too:)

We also did some fun shots just for Chrisrmas. Some only Chris did with his camera, but here's mine with my phone.

And then we left to go to Vegas late in the afternoon after opening gifts. How was the drive? Not awesome. I pulled into the parking lot of a car repair shop in Fallon to feed her and didn't want to take her out of the carseat, so I leaned over and fed her, oh yah, super weird. Whatever, it was better than her being super cranky putting her back in the carseat. Anyway, Chris and I were both in the backseat, I left the car running, and I just finished feeding her when someone opened the front door. We both said something like "hey!" and he apologized and quickly shut the door and left. Poor guy, just shutting up his place of business and wondering why there's a random car in his parking lot running with no one on the front seat. I'll admit, not the best place to stop, but it was the closest and my kid was pissed. I can only imagine what was going through his head or what he thought he walked into, oh well, at least he's got a weird story to tell;)

So we got to Vegas around 12:30am, not too bad. And we hung out with various family throughout the next five days.

Grandpa morning hugs

And grandma afternoon hugs

We had lunch at Panera Bread, which we wish was in Reno. Yay tomato soup!

And she met mom and dad's childhood friend, Mike, and his two cute girls

As well as the wonderful Hilk family and got some awesome jingle bells!

And the next morning we had a poop in the tub incident, fun fun.

Then on Christmas Eve it was time to get fancy for Uncle Justin's party.

Had to read The Night Before Christmas to her, gotta start the tradition early!

We celebrated Christmas at the Hilks in the afternoon and met more wonderful family!

Then, after Evey's bedtime, we opened gifts at the Bueltels'

Crazy brothers 

 

Then we drove back, which was actually worse than driving there. Evey had a blow out 30 mins outside of Vegas, which is not fun to deal with on the side of the highway, at night, in the cold. All well, we made it home:) I hope everyone had a great holiday!

Book Challenge

So I made a goal of reading 25 books this year, and no, I did not accomplish my goal (insert sad face). I guess I didn't completely understand the demands of new motherhood (in a lot of ways), but I did make it to 17 books, which really isn't that bad and which is mostly due to my cute kid napping on me. Oh no, she's asleep on me, what do I do? Oh hello strategically placed nook (because I did not have the time to go to the library, or was I able to use two hands to read a regular book).

So I'll go ahead and set a new goal for next year: 10. I know, I know, super lame, but her naps are going to lessen in number next year, and I just really want to meet (and hopefully exceed!) my goal. Yep, super lame;) Whatever, if you're looking for some good books to read I really enjoyed The Monsters of Templeton, Written in My Own Heart's Blood (Outlander #8), The Book of Lost Things, Neverwhere, and The Magician King (The Magicians #3).

And here's the reason why you actually read this blog:

Seven Months

Woo hoo! Seven months! I couldn't find an outfit that I absolutely loved this month, so she's in Christmas jammies:)

The lighting is getting tricky now that it's getting dark so early, we're slowly figuring it out;) Gotta love the reindeer hat and booties!

Did not love the hat for this pose, though, so on went a pretty headband!

Christmas Time and an Uncle Visit

Oh Christmas time, this time of year always stresses me out to some degree, whether it be shopping for others, planning our birthdays, and making sure that I'm enjoying the season and making the most of it, which now includes making the most of it for a kid. 

This year we get off easy, and probably next year too, because she has no concept of Christmas, and so I don't feel incredibly bad for opting to buy a fake tree because a) I didn't want to lug one home and then put it up. b) I didn't want to water it every day. c) I didn't want to constantly vacuum up needles. What do all of these reasons mean? I am lazy as hell, or that I have a seven month old, whatever. 

The house is completely decorated, even the tree, and I managed to get Evey's name embroidered on her stocking! 

All of this makes me feel accomplished but I feel bad that we don't have lights up outside yet, and it might not happen at this stage of the game (but I'm also a little happy cause apparently we're getting a horrid storm tonight). And I also want to make a salt dough handprint ornament with the wee one, but I guess I still have time for that. Oh yah, and attempt all those pretty baby Christmas photos I've been pinning;)

I'm glad we did the tree lighting, and that I've managed to get a couple cute Christmasy photos of her like this one where she's watching the train under the tree.

 And we even went to see Santa last weekend! The poor girl's already got stranger anxiety, throw in tiredness and a creepy guy in weird clothes and a beard and we were definitely not going to get a smiling Evey.

But it's still cute;)

We also went to our neighbors wonderful Christmas party, which Evey attended for about half an hour before needing to go to bed. But we totally went back to the party because our video monitor's signal could reach! But then she woke up and Chris went home and I got to stay and have another glass of wine;)

Chris' brothers were in town this last weekend, which was nice because Sean hadn't met Evey yet. They went with us to see Santa and then we spent a lazy day at the house until they took us out to dinner for our upcoming birthdays.

 

So I'm going to ignore the "20,000 things you can do to make your baby's first Christmas magical" pins that I, guiltily, pinned, and I will sit back and relax with the knowledge that Evey will have some photographic evidence of her first Christmas, and that she won't remember a damn thing anyway.

Xmas Tree Lighting

A couple weeks ago we went to a Christmas tree lighting at an outdoor mall with some buddies. It was pretty cold, and I don't know if we would have gone if  we didn't live so close to the mall, but it was worth it! Seeing Evey's face while she watched the fireworks was pretty awesome:)

Babies everywhere!

All bundled up in dad's jacket.

Oooo, ahhhh. You can see the fireworks in her eyes:)

And then there's the tree they lit, I didn't even realize that it had happened! I guess I was waiting for some kind of count down, all well.

Solids

So we've been feeding Evey solids for the last couple of weeks now and it's definitely caused changes in our routine! I'm now starting to get in the groove of feeding, there's just so much to do! I have to make the food, defrost the food, put her in the high chair with a bib, and then start the messy, and fun, feeding process. I know it's silly, but it's just so different from: "oh! You're hungry! Here's a boob!" Strictly breastfeeding is much easier, but I guess I knew it wouldn't last forever, <sigh>. 

So stinkin cute with food all over her face!

The best high chair ever

Here she is with a slice of apple she picked up herself and started nomming on! She gets mostly purées mixed with things that we're eating that she can easily swallow, but she enjoys sucking on apples.

Awww

These cute photos help when I'm spraying out the now solid poo from her cloth diapers, another reason to miss just feeding her boob milk...all well, now it's time for some teeth!