Christmas seems to have come and gone so fast! Where did December already go?
Aunt Sandy & Uncle Larry hosted Christmas Eve, which seems to have become a tradition that we look forward to all year. This year all the kids were too cute and very excited for Christmas morning. There was lots of screaming, running, and all around silliness...they are the second generation of the cousins of chaos and are definitely living up to the name!
First Picture of our Family of Four
The Nelson Family with their newest addition - Adeline
Grammie & Boppa snuggling with the two babes
Boppa & Evie
Content on Christmas morning
Gifts from Santa
Our two little princesses in their reindeer shirts made by Aunt Tina
This was the first year that Elise truly understood what Christmas means. She knows that it is Jesus's birthday and that Santa will visit our house. She knows that the big man will fly in his sleigh with his reindeer, land on our roof, and come down the chimney to give her and her baby sister gifts...if the have been nice. However, she thinks Evie is naughty whenever she cries, which obviously happens a lot since she is only 6 weeks old. However, she is very insistent that she has been a good girl all year...right?!
In order to get Elise to bed on Christmas Eve, we had to keep telling Elise that Santa will not come to our house until she is sound asleep. She fell asleep within a half hour, which seems to be a rarity these days as she is always playing, singing, and reading before she falls asleep. However, when she woke up, she was upset. She thought that because she didn't hear Santa's bell or Santa and his reindeer on the roof that he didn't come to our house. Thankfully Scott was able to get her down the stairs quickly to prove that he did show up to our home with gifts!
Out of the mouth of a two (and a half) year old
*While playing in the basement Elise decided that she wanted to go upstairs to eat. She was in the process of running up the steps when she all of a sudden turned around and said that she needed to get her girls. Looks like her little princess figurines are now considered her "girls." Scott and I both had to laugh at this.
*Elise loves to sing and dance. She obviously takes after her mom! She knows almost all the words to every Disney song and even if she doesn't know the words, she will attempt to sing along to the song. She also loves to quote movies and/or pretend she knows exactly what is being said. While dancing, she lately has been telling us that she is shaking her booty. I know Scott and I don't refer to dancing as shaking her booty, so we assume this can only have been taught while at school (her church school non the less). I've been trying to get a clip of her dancing because she has quite the moves!
At the beginning of the month we decided to implement the ever important behavior chart for Elise to reward her for good behavior since she had an multiple incident and one large incident at Michael's where she was ever so naughty. Well, so far so good! The behavior chart has worked wonders and now that she knows what we expect of her, she is really good at following along with the routine that she can visually see. Her first reward was a Rudolph Cake Pop that she absolutely loved!
Whenever Evie is placed on the play mat, Elise wants to also "play" on the mat. Good thing Evie doesn't mind sharing (yet)
Beautiful Baby
Such a good big sister!
A few other fun stories as of late
*Elise and Evie went with Mommy to work for a fun lunch with all my co-workers. Evie was so calm the entire time and Elise was beyond ecstatic to finally go "downtown" to Mommy's work. She loved seeing where I worked, but more importantly, loved meeting all my friends. While at lunch she kept everyone entertained. She wanted to get all dressed up for the big party, so she was wearing a tutu-ish skirt with a cute top. She proceeded to tell everyone how she had on her "fancy dress" and twirl in circles for everyone. She also told the head of my firm that he needed to sit back down at the table since others were still eating and he hadn't been excused. If anyone said anything funny, Elise would start to laugh too, even if she hadn't heard what was said. She was too cute the entire party and hopefully no one minded that she stole the show!
*Whenever Evie is crying, Elise either tells me that she must be hungry and that I need to quickly run and feed her or else she tells me how Evie is being naughty for crying and that Santa may not bring her presents. I think it is so funny that she understands how being naughty = no presents for Evie but seemed to poo-poo that notion if she was being naughty.
*Elise has continued to go to school on Wednesdays while Mommy has been out on maternity leave, and this past Wednesday was her school's Christmas party. The director walked all the children through the story of Jesus's birth and then surprised the children by having Santa show up. Scott was told that Elise was very inquisitive with Santa wanting to know where his reindeer were, how he would get to her house, etc. She also made sure that Santa knows that she would like to have a baby doll, a crib, and a nuk and that she has been very good. She obviously has very short term memory since the beginning of the month was a little rough. Good thing she has become such a good girl as of late! It looks like Mommy got one of her Christmas presents early!
It's hard to believe, but Evie has been in our lives for a month. We have transitioned from a family of three to a family of four without too many hiccups.
For the first two weeks of her life, Evie slept, ate, pooped (a lot), and slept. She definitely had her days and nights confused so Mommy and Daddy spent much of the nights awake with her. We are excited to say that Evie now has at least two to four solid consecutive hours of wakefulness during the day which has meant more sleep for Mommy (and Daddy) at night. Speaking of sleeping, Evie loves her carseat. She naps and sleeps at night in her carseat, but we have decided that we need to transition Evie back to her crib or pack-n-play so that she becomes used to sleeping on a flat surface.
Evie also loves to eat. When she is being fed by Daddy, she will take down a solid 5 ounces without spitting too much up. At her two week well baby appointment she put back on all the weight she lost at birth and weighed a whopping 8 lbs 3oz.!
The Christmas Season is always really excited, but this year it has been extra special having two little princesses to share the excitement with. Scott did a wonderful job of stringing the lights on the tree and doing the majority of the ornament decorating as I was still on the mend. Elise especially loved when she woke up from her nap that there was a new Christmas Tree surprise in the living room!
This is the first year that you can tell that Elise truly understands what Christmas is. She was overly excited to help decorate the bottom portion of the tree! In fact, she didn't want any help from either Mommy or Daddy as she is enjoying her independence and doing everything on her own. Much to her excitement, she figured out how to hang the ornaments on her own!
Elise found Frederick on the tree!
Putting her ornaments on the tree
The Big Cheese
The Little Cheese
Mommy shouldn't have told Elise about Daddy's Butt Chin
This year we have a lot to be thankful for. Most importantly, we are blessed to have two beautiful, healthy girls who constantly are entertaining us (Elise more so than Evie at this moment). Evie still is a great little sleeper and seems to not make too many peeps yet. Elise makes up for Evie's quietness and is full of energy and sass. She constantly is testing us and has definitely got both of us wrapped around her little finger.
Uncle Andrew & Bailey
Evie's first Thanksgiving spend in Daddy's arms while eating
Elise has been really good at transitioning into the big sister role. However, every once in awhile Elise wants to pretend that she is the baby still too.
Elise just had Daddy rock her while singing Rock-A-Bye-Baby. Wherever "baby" is inserted into the song, Elise made sure that Daddy said Rock-A-Bye-LooBops & Fairies, on the tree top...if he missed adding fairies, they had to start again. She's just too cute.
On Elise being a big sister - Evie has been sleeping since 7:30 am upstairs and it is 10:45, so Daddy went up to our bedroom to make sure we didn't miss her crying. Elise immediately dropped everything she was doing and had to run upstairs too to make sure Evelyn was okay.
Evelyn Jane arrived on Friday, November 11th at 10:47 am. She weighed 7 lbs 13 oz and was 22 inches long. While we were scheduled to have Evie around 7:30ish, our c-section was pushed off a few hours to make room for another section that came up at the last minute. Had the surgery been 24 minutes later, Evie could have been born with quite the crazy birthday (as if 11/11/11 isn't crazy enough)! Evelyn was also the first girl to be born in the hospital and the 7th birth since they opened on October 31st.
Evie is such a calm little baby who rarely cries and has such a good temperament. We are loving every second since she has arrived.
Elise also seems to be taking having the new addition fairly well. When she first met Evie she seemed a little confused as to why she wasn't in mommy's tummy anymore. However, she is really quick to tell Evie that everything is okay, she loves to watch when Evie is being changed, and seems really excited to hold Evie. Otherwise, Elise has been keeping herself entertained playing in the basement, reading stories & singing and dancing for Evie.
One funny thing that was passed along to us when Elise was at Boppa & Grammies was that when Uncle Larry asked her if she had anything new at her house, she responded that Tinkerbell doll was new. So much for her being excited with having a new sister. We at least know that Tinkerbell and Lion King rank pretty high on her list these days!
