New Year's Eve

Well, I am taking a look back at what we have been up to the last few weeks...it has been busy.

Christmas was a blur, but Aunt Leone came to visit and spent quite a bit of quality time with both Matthew and with Alexandra.

We had a fun Christmas with Matt getting an art station to do chalk, white board markers and put up some paper to color, plus the whiteboard is magnetic so Matt can play with all sorts of magnetic animals that he got from Aunt Paige. Alexandra got some legos which of course Matt is all to happy to play with currently. We also got an ipod touch so when we travel it fits a bit better into the diaper bag and in the future when we need to two devices will do for Alexandra to have one while Matt has the other.

Following Christmas, we didn't do much but hang out with Aunt Leone and then of course the Baptism for Alexandra occurred on Saturday so we have more friends arrive with the Hutchinson's...that was lots of fun as it snowed and we got to enjoy the snow with Hanna and Bren. The snowmen they made in our back yard almost melted but with today's snow (Dec 31st) are probably going to stick around a bit longer now.

The baptism was great. Father Chris did a special occasion service for us as we had folks needed to leave on Sunday. In addition, my godmother, or Nannie as we call it back in Louisiana was there along with my Uncle Stan, and Jay's cousin Jeannie, her husband Eric and his cousin Christopher came and helped to entertain Matthew during the ceremony and take pictures for us.

Now for New Year's eve, I have a bottle of wine opened from Aunt Leone's trip for tonight and LSU is suppose to start their game around 630pm so it should keep us entertained for a bit. Probably won't make it to Midnight but will probably be up shortly after to feed Alexandra.

As we start 2013, Matthew is 22 months old, ~25 lbs and wearing 18months size clothes...some 24 month PJs but should soon be completely in 24 months stuff....
Alexandra is 2 months, ~11lbs and 24 inches. I am this week basically getting rid of her newborn and 0-3 months stuff....it is going to go the Once Upon a Child store along with my maternity clothes so hopefully I can get some money to spend on Alexandra's new wardobe as we are finding with this cold weather and her inability to keep socks on, it is nice to have the onesize with footies b/c then I don't have to worry about cold feet.

Well, it is official, my parents are no longer living in Ville Platte. It is strange to think of them as Las Vegas people and no longer Ville Plattians....but at least Vegas will be fun to visit and in fact this yoga conference I want and really need to attend to get this 4 day training done is going to be there in April so gotta make arrangements to get there so the free babysitting is available and maybe get a few extra days to enjoy the weather before it gets too hot.

Happy New year to all of you that read this...can't believe it is 2013! We don't have any huge plans ahead of us as we are not planning to move as I am not hoping to get to know St Louis a bit better before we buy a house here and just because we have moved so much over the last 3 years, I really want to stay put for a while...So feel free to visit, we hope to continue to enjoy the kid friendly activities here in St Louis and I am hopeful that maybe come Feb when I get both kids in daycare, I can get serious about getting my butt back into running shape for a half marathon or something fun.

More to come but until then, Have a wonderful New Year Celebration and GEAUX TIGERS!

6 weeks old today!

Well, it is official, Alexandra is 6 weeks old today. In addition, I am officially back to work with 3 classes online that started this week. I am lucky that it is on-line work and that for the first week, there is not any grading to really accomplish so I can ease back into the routine of work and interacting with students in the on-line format.

It seems crazy that our little girl is 6 weeks old already, but she is growing like a weed, tall and straight...she is a pretty good sleeper...during the day, if she can be held or put in the Moby carrier, she will sleep and at night she is actually pretty good as well, we get 4 hrs stretches for the most part and so I am getting some sleep.

Matthew has warmed up a bit to her, he has asked to hold her a time or two, I think just to be included in the mommy time she seems to always get but it is a start. He is also pretty protective of her when we go to daycare to pick him up. He does not like other kids to touch or get near her and will swat them away. So I guess already, he is a protective big brother.

We got the holiday cards I made with the pictures from our Sear's portraits. So hopefully I can get them addressed out and in the next week or so, I also have been getting lots of Matthew's art projects from daycare and need to get them in a keep sake box of some sort and organize pictures, finish putting the picture book/album together for Matthew that captures the last 2 yrs and oh yeah, Christmas stuff....

Which brings me to my first issue, so I wanted to get an ipod to basically put all the kids music on that would stay in the car or go in one of their rooms and fit into an alarm/radio device similar to my ipod and ihome player. Well the new ipod nano which I thought would work has a different little contraction for connecting to the computer and it is not compatible with the ihome system, so I went on apple and bought a converter and I am hoping this will work to let the new nano work in the ihome device....otherwise I guess this will have to be Jay's new toy as it is too small a screen to let the kids watch anything, if it doesn't work on the ihome device can't be used to listen to with our speakers so basically will only work with headphones and well Matt doesn't do headphones yet. So I am disappointed...with myself for not doing more research on this and figuring this out before I spend the $200....so now do I go ahead and get an old ipod or the itouch or do I wait and see if this will work or not....ugh...why do they change these standard things such as the connector?

ok, gotta go, little one is hungry

Dec 1st! Wow, it's December already???

Well, I have posted lots of pictures on Facebook, but need to do some updating on what is going on with us these days.

Alexandra hit 5 weeks last Wednesday, 28 NOV and is weighing-in at 9lbs and 12 oz, 23 inches long. so yeah, in 5 weeks we have put on almost 2 lbs since birth and 2 inches....she is at the 59th percentile for her weight and 95th for her height...that is me made over, I was always tall and skinny for my age until about 9th grade...that was when I stopped growing and hit 5'6"....wish I would have gotten another inch or two but oh well...

 These are some cute pictures from Alexandra this week, 5 weeks old. She looks good in purple if you ask me...I remember Purple was my favorite color as a child. I always wanted purple nightgowns and purple tooth-brushes...most things I had were hand-downs from my older siblings and cousins but for some reason I usually got a new nightgown and well, I always got a new toothbrush...thank goodness I didn't have to get a hand-down on that :)
So I am glad to see my little girl looks so good in purple...b/c I plan to deck her out in as much cute little purple as possible!

 Here are some 1 month photos...again, she looks so much like Matthew when you take away the colors, and the bows on her head...hopefully her hair will grow in soon and help give her a more girly look....otherwise I think like Matthew I am going to get lots of posts that she looks just like Uncle Johnny....or maybe if I can get more baby pictures of me and Leone posted we can at least say she is the spitting image of her mom and Aunt Leone.

So today I forced everyone to Sears for family and holiday pictures...we had some pictures taken a few days ago in the park and there are some amazing pictures of Matthew, but of course the LSU football is in almost all the pictures and our family pictures are not my favorite nor did we get really any good pictures of the two kids together...so my hope was to get a family picture and kid together pictures....we were successful in we got pictures but Matthew was so focused on wanted to get the football and basketball in the studio that he was not wanting to smile and most of his pictures are of us taking the ball away and trying to get him to smile with bribery of you can have the ball back in a minute....didn't always work

 I love how her little leg is creeping up and about to be hidden in her dress! She was a relatively good sport. I wanted to do Mommy and kid pictures and then Daddy and kid pictures but Matt was at his limit and well it was super busy so it was probably in my best interest that we quit when we did b/c it took me an hour to get the holiday package ordered.

 Matt was more willing to do these pictures as he got to pet Alexandra's head, of course very quickly it turned into slapping and he did make her cry so that is why we only really got the one pose and 3 pictures

 He was watching the ball that Jay and I are spinning in front of him to try and get him to smile...it kinda worked...at least his had is not in his mouth as it was for some of our family pictures.

I never know what to get and there are sooo many options...I had the guy helping me save some images with these special effects/finishes so I can at least have them to print at a later date if anyone wants this type of  look...I really prefer the normal pictures, but that is just me.

So now I made a holiday card but of course or holiday package form Sear's included 10 cards so I have 10 cards to send to some folks and then our more personalized card that I typed a little message in for folks rather than just sending a picture....I love getting Christmas cards/Holiday cards, especially when I get insight into my friends and family and how their year went. It also helps to get the kids' names again as I am sorry to say I can't keep up and forget in many cases the names and genders of the kids...so our card has names so you can at least for a few days maybe remember I have Matthew, almost 2 and Alexandra, who is just a month old.

ok, I am off tonight to finally see Breaking Dawn, the Twilight movie!! YEAH! First, it is my first movie since moving to St. Louis and it is a girl's night out with my new St Louis friend Katie Hotard....Thanks to Jay for being willing to stick around and put Matt to bed and then deal with Alexandra...she has of course been sleeping most of today, which is great b/c I have gotten so much done on-line but it might be a really rough night for me...well, a small price to pay for a few hours of guilty pleasure and getting to eat popcorn while watching the final movie...now if only I can get someone to babysit both kids in 2 week so Jay and I can do the Hobbit together????

We haven't gotten our Christmas Tree yet, waiting for the weekend of the 14th so that way if Matthew is bent on playing in it similar to how he has to play in the plant, we only have to deal with that for 2-3 weeks.
More to come, I know, Santa pictures are next, maybe next weekend I can take the kids to the mall and do that chore.