Merry Christmas!!! (belated)

Everything in my life these days seems to be a little behind schedule, and this blog is no different.  I've been meaning to get my Christmas pictures up for about 2 weeks now but haven't been able to find time to do it.  And really, we just got our Christmas decorations down on the 17th, so better late than never I guess.  Here's the run down:

Christmas is my absolute favorite time of the year (I may have mentioned this before).  I love the decorations, the food, the movies, and most of all I love spending time with our families.  I also love that it's the one holiday out of the year that we are usually able to spend an entire day with each individual family without rushing off to someone else's house.  Jay's parents are divorced so we have 3 houses to get to.  However, Jay's Dad does Christmas dinner at the beginning of the month because they spend Christmas with Roseanne's family.  This is great because we can then split Christmas Eve and Christmas Day between my family and Jay's Mom.  Yay!!!

So on December 12th we bundled up our new little bundle and headed over to Chicken and Roseanne's house to celebrate Christmas (and Jay's Grandpa's birthday).  Dinner was fabulous as usual, and we had a great visit with everyone.  I posted some of the pictures already here.  But here are some more:

Apparently I missed the "red shirt" memo that Roseanne and Mandi were in on with Paxton.

4 generations of Christensens

Visiting after dinner

Next we had Christmas with my family.  My friend Stacey was willing to stay the night with our dogs (which we really appreciated) so that we could spend the night of the 23rd in Raymond.  As soon as I walked into the entryway with Paxton, my Dad took the car seat, proceeded to remove Paxton and then immediately handed him off to Auntie Kelly since she hadn't seen him in person yet.  I'm pretty sure that someone eventually noticed that Jay and I were there too ...  Anyways the Aunties, cousins, grandparents and Uncle Cliff oohed and aahed over Paxton for a while, and everyone gave him the seal of approval.  Kelly and Cliff are just thrilled that Paxton is here as he is their first nephew and Kinsey is really excited to have a nephew so close to her so she can spoil him as rotten as Kelly and Cliff's boys!

Auntie Kizzy and Auntie Kelly

Cousin Rhett's first hold

Cousin Zane's first hold.  He's thrilled to have a new cousin!

Mom's tree and presents

 

Uncle Cliff's first hold

My super cute baby nephew, Brock.

After we all got settled, Dave Drew came over to help my Dad and Cliff give Paxton a blessing.  My Dad had asked if we would be all right with them doing this earlier in the month, and we had both agreed that it would be fine.

Grandpa and Paxton after the blessing

After the kids were in bed, the adults stayed up to visit for a bit.  Everyone could tell that I was exhausted (the crying might have given it away) and Jay and my sisters took this opportunity to gang up on me.  Paxton had hit his 3 week growth spurt so he was eating a lot more, and I couldn't quite keep up with production.  They all informed me that I should start supplementing him with formula so that he would be full which would in turn allow me to sleep.  And Auntie Kizzy volunteered to take Paxton for the night so I could get some uninterrupted sleep.  I finally agreed and headed off to bed with Jay.  That was by far the best present I got because I got 7 hours of sleep!  I was really refreshed the next morning, but I was in so much pain when I woke up around 6 because I hadn't pumped for so long!  I remedied that right away and then everyone started getting up for the day.  After breakfast we headed to the living room and Rhett got to hand out the presents as Grandpa's "Elf".  We all got spoiled (as usual) and then visited and got ready for dinner.  After dinner and more visiting, Kelly's family headed out to Taber to spend Christmas Day with Cliff's family and Jay, Paxton and I headed back home to Lethbridge.

Grammie's quilt that Kelly and Kinsey made. I bought the batting as my contribution.

Kinsey's stellar wraping job on Paxton's present

Jay and Paxton

Kinsey got matching PJs for Paxton and Brock.  It's amazing the size diffence 10 months makes!

Our little family

We headed over to Jay's Mom's house in the afternoon on Christmas Day.  We all just relaxed and visited.  We even got to talk to Jay's Aunt Jenny and Uncle Pete from England via Skype.  Afterwards we had yet another great Christmas dinner.  Good thing I could use just having a baby as an excuse to eat whatever I wanted!  Jay even made an effort to not let his step-dad steal him away to the basement and keep him away from the rest of us, which was nice! 

Paxton and Grandma Daryl

And then Christmas was over for another year!  Paxton and I went back out to Raymond on Boxing Day and stayed over until the 27th because Kelly, Kinsey and Mom were having a Baby Shower for us.  Paxton totally got spoiled at the shower!  Thanks again to everyone!

Grammie and Granpa were helpless against the sleeping power of Paxton and Brock

Paxton is 1 Month Old!

Paxton will actually be 5 weeks old tomorrow, but I've been working on this one for a few days.  I thought I would blog about how my little man has changed since joining us a month ago and some of the cute/weird/exasperating things he does.

Paxton:
- weighs almost 9 lbs so he's gained almost 2 lbs since we brought him home.  He's starting to get more rolls on his legs and arms now, and his cheeks just keep getting chubbier!

- has blue/grey eyes.  Jay hopes that he gets "changing" eyes like mine that can be green, blue or grey depending on the light, what I'm wearing, mood, etc. 

- spreads his toes out like a fan when he has socks on (especially when I'm trying to put them on his sweet little feet!)

- has a pouty lip face that he tries to use on me already.  It's so sad that it's cute and funny!

- is awake for a few hours during the day. This is both fun and also not so fun.  It's great to get to spend more time talking to him and playing with him, but it also makes it a lot harder to nap and get stuff done around the house.

- is recognizing my voice and Jay's more; he'll look in our directions when we talk.

- thinks he has a hollow leg that MUST be filled immediately upon waking up. This one is no fun when he wakes up in the night as he wants someone there like yesterday and don't try to give him any excuses about how you had to pee first!

- is starting to fill out his 0-3 month clothes.

- is starting to stretch his arms and legs out of the fetal position more.

- loves to be held and cuddled.  He especially loves my kangaroo wrap that cuddles him to my chest while allowing me to be hands free.

- sleeps in his crib ... most nights anyway.  We've had a few nights where Paxton just did not want to sleep in his crib, or his vibrating chair, or his swing chair.  So Mom has caved and taken him to bed a few times.  At least we're both getting some sleep that way, even if it's not very restful for me!

- is one of the pack.  Mo and Maggie kind of ignore Paxton now.  They don't go running every time he makes a noise, but they still like to sniff him and give him kisses when he's out of his playpen.

- is still bottle feeding.  We still haven't been able to get Paxton to latch and suck, so I am still pumping.  He was on breast milk exclusively until just before Christmas when he hit a growth spurt and Mom couldn't keep up with him any more!  So now he gets breast milk as often as I am able and formula the rest of the time.  Usually it's only 2 or 3 formula bottles within an entire day and the rest is from Mom.

- jerks in his sleep whenever Jay lets out a big laugh, but will sleep through the dogs playfighting right beside him. Go figure.

- smiles quite a bit ... even if it is just gas.  We can't wait until he does it spontaneously since it really is the cutest thing ever!

- likes to look at lights, especially the Christmas tree.

- gets his hands in the way when you try to feed him and shakes his head before letting you put the bottle nipple in his mouth like he's playing hard to get or something.

- will take his soother, but isn't dependent on it.  He likes to hold onto it, but tends to accidentally pull it out since he's not used to his hands yet.

- is ok with baths until I soap him up.  At that point he lets everyone know that he is not impressed and tries to "stand up" out of the water by bracing his feet against the tub and pushing back against my hand.

- is still a really good baby!

Touque from Janet and Marv in Yellowknife (even his hats are too big!)

After bath hair.  It sticks up everywhere!

Oilers outfit from Tammie (Dad's favorite team)

Sleepin' in the swing chair

Holding the soother (he probably pulled it out about 30 seconds later)

Best Christmas present ever!