Happy Holidays 2013!

 

We had a wonderful Christmas in Seattle.  It will be the last for our family as Fran and I have decided to accept jobs at HCMC in Minneapolis.  Midwest, here we come (in July...)!  The grandparents from Minnesota and Aunt Laura were kind enough to come join us for the holidays, trading subzero tundra for clouds, sprinkles, and temperatures above freezing.  We all enjoyed great company, fun outings, and wonderful food (thanks, Fran!).  

Since we haven't posted in awhile, I thought we'd back up and start at the beginning of the month with some great photos of the girls.

 

We headed out of the city to cut down our Christmas tree again this year.  We're in for trouble next winter, as this 15 degree weather in the mountains felt really cold.  

Here Fran and I take turns posing in front of the tree we chose, with some rosy-cheeked girls.  

Back at home, we enjoyed December calendar treats such as Rudolph pancakes (next year my plan is to add some venison), decorating our tree, and having friends over to decorate gingerbread houses.

When it came time for holiday cards, I got some help from Cecilia.  She was quality control and chief stamp licker.

We got the girls all dressed in white to sadly attend a celebration for Gely, a wonderful teacher at the girls' Spanish immersion preschool who died earlier this month.  We released a bunch of purple balloons with messages from her students and watched them disappear into the clouds.  Laura's flight came in that afternoon, Erin enjoyed asking her over and over if she saw any balloons out of the airplane window.

Grandpa and Grandma arrived two days later, and we went ice skating at the Seattle Center.  Erin hasn't done this since last winter, but with the help of an adult or a walker, she picked it up pretty quick.  Nora had a great time too.  

Christmas Eve dinner was equal parts fancy and tasty.  We took turns giving toasts and clinking glasses.  The excitement was certainly building for Santa!  First, we enjoyed a delicious homemade marionberry pie from Frances.  

 Then a couple Christmas carols from the Prekker family band...

And a note for Santa, who finished all his cookies and a reindeer nibbled on the carrot.

The girls followed instructions and stayed in bed until the sun came up (sort of!).  Cecilia got one of the cutest stuffed animals I've ever seen.  

Erin loved a couple new dresses, and had to bust out some ballet moves to celebrate.

We loved having the Minnesota Prekkers visit for the holidays.  One of our best memories was visiting the beach at Carkeek Park one dry afternoon, which led to the family portrait below. 

8 weeks

I can't believe we are almost 2 months into parenting 3 kids. In some ways it's hard to imagine life without toting Celia around in the front pack. On other days, I realize that if she was sleeping in the bouncy seat or in the car, I might forget that there was another person to worry about. We are lucky that she's still a pretty easy baby and that the girls are still thrilled about having her around. While they complain about lots of things, we've never heard a single complaint from Nora or Erin about Celia. Lets hope that lasts.



Celia continues to be a pretty good sleeper. She's going for 6-7 hours at a stretch overnight and is starting to go to bed earlier in the evenings. I got her to bed by 8:30 last night and it was fantastic to have the whole family in bed and asleep by 9 (yes, Matt and I thought we'd won the the lottery and went to bed right after Celia was in her crib). She's thrilled to nap for hours on someone, in someones arms or in the carrier, but I'm slowly trying to get her to nap either in the crib on the swing (I had high hopes about the nirvana of a baby sleeping in the swing, but she's skeptical). Since she is being carted around so often as we take the older kids to school and activities I guess that we can be thankful that she sleeps in the carrier and we'll worry about the rest of it later.


This week we've finally been treated to lots of smiles. Before she would flash one every once in a while, but now she's got lots of smiles and coos every time she's on the changing table. Sometimes she's still looking over my shoulder or flashing her best smiles at the wall, but we'll take it. While I always mourn the fleeting new, curl up in a ball and sleep, tiny newborn stage, I'm always thrilled to have them actually interact and notice me. So nice after all of the hours of care to be noticed. I'm biased, but she's turning into a pretty cute baby.



Celia's finally over her first cold (thank you Erin and Nora) and I'm sure will be treated to her second one in short order as Nora started coughing yesterday. I just hope that we'll get through it again without too much trouble. I guess I really got spoiled by my spring babies and now I'll get to live through the cold season with an infant. Good times.

Nora is doing great and seems so big now that we have a real baby. She's loving school and we haven't had any tears with drop off for a few weeks. She is finally getting her colors down and is good with red, blue, yellow and usually green. Any other color is a crap shoot and she'll probably guess blue. She sings some of her songs from Zoom in Spanish, but otherwise not talking a lot in Spanish, but she understands tons, so I'm being patient for the words to come. She does have tons to say these days in English and usually doesn't stop talking during the day. She's still harder to understand than Erin was at this age, and her use of pronouns is suspect, but it makes for some good entertainment. She loves to talk about Celia's "cute yittle yips," and "cute yittle yegs." She still loves to ask "what your talkin' 'bout?" We hear "myself do it," or "my do it" about a hundred times a day. Last week she started telling me to "your think 'bout it," when I ask her a question. She's still a ham. She still does really well playing independently and is throwing less and less tantrums.



Erin is finally settling into Kindergarten. Her really rough patch at home lasted from the day after Celia was born and magically ended about 2 weeks ago. We're now have our normal, helpful, only sometimes cranky, Erin back. She could not have returned soon enough. Erin is still thrilled with her friend Tess and they got to go trick-or-treating together last week. She still seems a bit overwhelmed by the social complexities with a school or hundreds of kids, but we are proud that she's friendly and outgoing and making lots of new friends. She is finally reading. It seems that she just needed someone other than me to get her going. She's still not sold on independent reading at home and would rather not expend the effort, but is much less resistant. We are still very happy with her teacher who seems very experienced, engaged and effective. Erin is going to her first school friends birthday party tomorrow.

Matt and I are exhausted. It seems that juggling life these days is taking it out of us. I'm sure things will get easier and in many ways they already have. But, we have the looming question of where we will live next year and the anxiety of potentially making another huge move and starting over. It's sad to think of moving Erin now that she's happy in school and making friends. Given how tough this transition has been for all of us, I'm likely going to take an extended leave from work and maybe go back in February instead of December. We'll see.

Cutie

 Here are a few photos of Cecilia from 4 weeks (I'm a bit behind). She's continued to be a mellow, easy baby even as she's hit the 6 week mark. She celebrated this week with her first cold (thank you Erin and Nora), her first smiles that weren't just gas, and with her first plane ride (we loved traveling with just one kid, so simple). She's growing bigger every day and Nora and Erin are still enthralled with everything related to her and we need to do some serious work on the idea of personal space. If Nora could fit in the bouncy seat with Celia, I'm sure she would. She's still my best infant sleeper to date, although this week she's not doing quite as well. Prior to our MN trip, she was sleeping for a stretch of 6-7 hours most nights. It was glorious. I'm hoping that she'll settle in to a more regular daytime nap routine soon, but I know that it's just a matter of time before that comes. Celia is still not my best nurser, but seems to get the job done. She doesn't spit up much, but I actually have to burp her otherwise she gets terrible toots several hours later. There's nothing sadder than being woken every few minutes at 4am by a baby who just needs to fart. 

Celia's still got a mop of dark hair that shows no signs of falling out. Her eyes are a deep gray/blue and I'm pretty sure she'll end up with brown eyes like Erin. We still can't decide if she looks like either of us or either of the older girls. I guess she might just look like herself.