Christmas traditions

I began thinking of Christmas traditions for our family when Rodgers and I got married. Now that we have 2 kids (and measures taken for no more), it's time to start these traditions!

Advent calendar
I love advent calendars, as I've mentioned in Christmases past. I have one now, a fabric one with pockets for each day. It's lost right now, but we will find it! I have 25 little ornaments, one for each day, and slips of paper with scripture references to be read when we put the new ornament on. Usually, I forget about it for a few days, and we end up doing 3 or 4 at once. I don't know whether we'll be able to find a Christmas tree in Kenya, but we will for sure find somewhere to put our ornaments!

Gifts
Of course we will give gifts. I don't really like the idea of really big gifts. I prefer small gifts that the boys will enjoy, but not things that they really need. We're going to buy them what they need regardless of gift-giving occasions.  I like stockings and stocking stuffers. Last year I filled Nate's stocking with books (which I got second hand via Goodreads book swap). I want to do this again, however, with our upcoming move, it isn't practical. We are going to get a Kindle Fire before we leave, and we can get picture books for it. So even though it won't be in the stockings this year, we are going to "give" each of our boys some picture books on the Kindle. For now, Ben's stocking has a few baby toys in it (all of his clothes are hand-me-downs, I decided we could get rid of Nate's baby toys that I didn't love and get Ben some new ones). Nate's stocking has Elmo pjs (he doesn't have any in this size yet) and Elmo sunglasses.

Cookies
I like cookies! I like to bake them and eat them. Last year, I found a gingerbread cookie recipe that I really like. I baked them again last night. My glaze turned out horrible this time, but the gingerbread men aren't falling apart as much as they did last year. I've put them in the freezer to save for Christmas weekend. Maybe when I thaw them, I can try to re-glaze them. This may be a tradition.

23 and 3

My boys are 23 months and 3 months old today. Surely it hasn't been that long since Nate went through his 19 month sleep regression and got us in practice again for middle-of-the-night newborn feedings. Surely Ben isn't old enough to grin, giggle, hold up his own head, and weigh 16 lbs, right? The days may be long, but the months are fast!

Nate is still tall and thin. He wears 2T, but if he's not in double-stuffed cloth diapers, the pants fall off of him. I do have some clips to put on the waistbands to cinch them up, but I forget... He's wearing undies more and more, though. So far, he never wears pants with them - he just wears them when we're home for a few hours. He is peeing on the floor less, so we may be ready to brave undies with pants very soon. He repeats everything, and occasionally he even uses complete sentences. We took the side rail off his crib yesterday to convert it into a toddler bed. However, we don't have a toddler bed rail. He has fallen out of his bed once. It was nice this morning, though, that when he woke up at 5:30, instead of yelling for someone to come get him, he just crawled up in bed with us and slept for another hour. He fell out of our bed, too. Good thing he's tough!

His favorite thing to do (besides watch Sesame Street and Dinosaur Train) is play outside. He likes to kick a little soccer ball around and throw frisbees (which he calls frizzy). If we go somewhere without a frisbee, we get about 80 seconds down the road, and he will say, "Aw, man! I forgot the frizzy!"

Ben is wearing 3-6 month clothes. I think he is bigger than Nate was at 3 months, though he was smaller at birth. He is getting into more of a schedule. He usually goes to bed between 7 and 9 pm and is up for the day between 5 and 7 am. He wakes up once in the night to eat. He sleeps between every bottle, which he likes to have every 2.5-3 hours during the day. We still feed him on demand. He takes a long nap in the morning and another in the afternoon. His other naps are just short catnaps. He likes to fall asleep in the swing, but he sleeps well in the pack and play bassinet. He is semi-swaddled at night (arms only). He loves for me to carry him in the wrap or Baby Bjorn. For a few weeks, he would only take a long nap in the wrap - glad we've outgrown that phase!

He is starting to reach for things, such as the baby in the mirror. I keep putting little toys in his hands for him to play with. They fascinate him, but I don't think he realizes he is holding them. He gets very mad when he accidentally grabs his own paci and takes it out of his mouth.

January is a big month! 2 years and 4 months old, here we come.

Christmas shopping

Yesterday while we were picking up a few things I'd forgotten we needed for tomorrow, I asked Nate if he wanted to pick something out to go with what we're giving his cousins for Christmas. I wasn't going to let him run wild through the toy department; I directed him toward some simple, inexpensive options.

He picked out something cute and girly for Lauren (I did show him girly options for her) and a blue glittery bouncy ball with stars on it "for James," or so we said. He carried it all the way home, and I kept reminding him that we were going to give that to James. He agreed. Once we got home, before I could wrench it out of his hands, he promptly took a bite out of the ball, got it all muddy outside, and lost it.

This is not the way Christmas presents work, my dear.

our cute game

Nate and I have been playing a cute game. We look at a picture, and I ask him about who is in the picture, but I ask him about people who aren't there.

"Is it Gigi?"
"No! Coo-coo!" (That's Cookie Monster.)

"Is it Baba?"
"No! On Keer!" (Aunt Claire)

So he's sipping a Gerber Grabbers banana and blueberry thingy right now. He just took it out of his mouth and pointed at the picture on the front.

"Baba? No! Fwoot! Mama? No! Fwoot!" (That's fruit.)

here's hoping there's no such thing as jinxing

I am almost ready to say with certainty that we have come through Nate's sleep regression for real. At the worst, he was getting up several times a night and wouldn't go to bed awake. We were rocking him to sleep. At the time, we didn't care if it was spoiling him, we just wanted him to sleep! When B was 3 weeks old, we got Nate to fall asleep in bed on his own again. It was kind of like sleep training all over again. Three weeks later, he started sleeping through the night consistently. Life is beautiful again!