Pretty Toes

Our friends Chris and Debbie got Jenna scented, glittery nail polish for Christmas.  What a fun gift for a mom to a one year old!!! We had fun painting nails a few days ago.  Not so easy to take pictures of baby feet (they constantly move, move, move!), but here’s our best attempt. 

Merry Christmas!

We have had a great Christmas.  We enjoyed one of the whitest Christmases in recent history for Eastern Kansas.  We think we got around 10” overnight Christmas Eve.  We left early Christmas morning and were gone until late the next day.  When we got home the driveway was full of snow again, so it snowed quite a bit more after the large fall on Xmas eve.  Aaron was quite happy with the snow blower purchase from 18 months ago and the more recent decision to get an SUV with 4WD. 

 

We celebrated our Christmas on Christmas Eve morning before heading to exchange gifts at Aaron’s dad’s and then grandma’s.  Jenna got a new chair that is just for her (Portia may think otherwise and will probably get to catch a few naps on it if Jenna lets her).  Aaron brought it into the living room when we were ready to open gifts and Jenna got really excited about it and climbed right in!  She isn’t tall enough to climb into our furniture, so it is the first time we’d ever seen her do it. It made us quite happy with our choice of gift! 

 

At Aaron’s parents’ she got a few fun gifts, like a new baby doll and a fishing pole. The fishing pole came in a backpack with a small tackle box and a pair of sunglasses. We put them on her and she had fun walking around their living room with them on. I thought she’d throw them off immediately, but she wore them for a few minutes.

 

At Aaron’s grandma’s she got an awesome Little Tykes car from Great Aunt Vicki and Uncle Chris. She loves to climb in and out of it.  Since we brought it home, she loves to take rides on our hardwood floor.  She also got a few toys, clothes, and books from her other Great aunts and uncles and her Nanny Cain. 

 

I apparently didn’t take pictures at the rest of the Christmases, so sorry.  There are a few more pics at the end.

Jenna got a fun doll from Grammie and a neat homemade blanket, pillow, and bulletin board from Aunt Pam and Uncle Stan.  Grammie has lots of Santas decorating her house (I don’t remember the exact number, but she has counted them and there are a lot!) – Jenna loved to look at all of them and kept finding new ones all day.  We stayed the night and had a great time with my parents and aunt and uncle playing games all evening (ok, Aaron did NOT have fun with playing Trivial Pursuit, but we otherwise had fun playing games).

The next day we headed to my grandparents’ for the big Long Family celebration.  Even though I thought that Jenna’s name went into the family drawing (and would therefore just get one gift), she ended up making a killing and getting gifts from all of her Great Aunts and Uncles and Great Grandma and Great Papa.  Between all the gifts, Portia’s kennel, a Pack ‘n Play and high chair, we are lucky we were able to bring everything home!

We celebrated a few days later at my parents.  Jenna got some cute clothes, toys, a sled, and Pa Pa made her a beautiful step stool.  She loves to stand on it and can just barely see over the counter into the mirror. Adorable!!!

Helping Dad open gifts

All the loot Jenna got from Aaron and I

Gifts from Santa

My Little Helper

This weekend when I was Swiffering (hm, is that verb?) the floor Jenna followed close-by, so I let her have a go with the broom.  It was so cute!

Dr Pepper

My name is Julie and I am an addict.

Dr Pepper. Mmmm, I love that stuff. I used to drink a can a day and an occasional Rt 44 from Sonic on the weekend.  I had no desire for DP during the first half of my pregnancy and had an occasional can during the second half. When Jenna was born, I quickly resumed my can a day habit. But then I went back to work, we moved, and she went from waking up at 10 am to 6:30am AND (most notably) McDs started selling their large drinks for $1 and my DP consumption grew exponentially. Now, I must have 4 cans a day and often have more. Although I am only short 5 lbs of my pre-preggo weight (and haven't gained extra due to my addiction), it is obviously proportioned different, not to mention that my pre-preg weight was a good 10-15 lbs higher than desired. I work out enough and eat well enough that I think I should be able to lose at least the 5 extra pounds, but I know it will never happen with all that DP running through my system.

Soooo, I'm telling y'all that I am quitting DP. I don't plan to never drink it again, but starting Jan 1st and for at least a few months I'm not going to drink it at all. So, if you see me out and about and notice that I'm thinking about having Dr Pepper, can you remind me that I'm off it? Please? :) Thanks!

P.S. Please don't tell me not to drink it between now and New Years - I am enjoying it while I can!

Table Manners

Hey Mom, can you put some food on my fork, please?

 

Mmmmmmmm!

 

Don’t even think about getting between me and this fork!

 

I’m so cool now that I can feed myself!

 

Toys, toys, toys

Since Jenna just had a big birthday and got lots of great gifts, I decided it was time to swap out all those “baby” toys for her new “toddler” toys.  Yep, I pulled out every-single-little-itty-bitty-toy from her toy chest and special drawer in the living room.  I found out that we had about 1000 30 books stashed away, along with many, many stuffed animals, teething rings, and did I mention books? Here’s the after picture of her toy chest – yes, it is also after she had a fun afternoon of playing.  I admit that sometimes my living room is covered in toys! Luckily, it is super easy to put everything back in the chest (well, at least it is when you don’t have a toddler pulling toys out faster than you put them in! 

We also expanded her special drawer to two drawers. I think she was pretty excited. The table has 4 drawers in it and she is always trying to get into the other drawers (as you can see by the picture below – the top drawer is “not-for-Jenna”, but she really wants to get into it since that’s where her diapers and wipes are).  The left drawer is for books. I think we narrowed them down to about 10 and the right has a few random toys that will probably go back-and-forth between the toy chest and her drawer.

1 year checkup

Jenna's 1 year checkup was last Friday. She did good, but was definitely more aware of what was happening than she has been in the past.

First, the nurse had me undress her and sit her on the table. She didn't like the cold paper very well, but remained calm. The nurse measured her head circumference (18cm, 80th percentile), then laid her down to measure her height. Jenna was not happy and started fussing. The nurse was good though and was able to get a good measurement by making a mark on the paper at Jenna's head and another at her feet. I picked Jenna up and the nurse measured between the marks (31.25", >95th percentile). Next was weight (26 lb, 4 oz, >95th percentile). Amazing that 9 months ago we were worried about her weight gain!

Next was waiting for the doctor. We only had to wait about 5 minutes and I really liked him. Jenna has been playing shy, so she curled up on my lap while he evaluated her. Everything looked great. Then he talked to me about the vaccines she'd be getting (4!) and what to expect over the next 3 months until we see him again. He is a hand talker and nodder and kept laughing at Jenna because she would mimic his every move during the conversation.

Next was the worst - shots. :( As I mentioned, she had 4. The first was in her arm and she whined, but not bad, but the next 3 were in her legs and she got MAD! Fortunately the nurse was quick and Jenna calmed down after a couple minutes of cuddling with Mom and we were on our way.

Much like with her vaccines at 2 months, she had a reaction, but this time was very mild and only resulted in a few small red bumps around one of the injection sites. As a precaution we gave her a couple doses of Benedryl, but it never amounted to much.

I've been in the process of working with IT to swap laptops and therefore have had no opportunity to post pictures from her bday and parties. As I am planning to have a very lazy weekend with no plans except Xmas shopping, I hope to be able to edit the pics and post them before Monday.