pritchard family: 2012

12.29.2012

christmas, birthdays, snow (in dallas!), family, FUN!

WHITE CHRISTMAS! reese wins!!!

i don't even know where to begin! but i want to do a a quick recap here so that reese can hear all about her first christmas someday. :)

we have had so much fun this last week. of course this is our little reese's first christmas, and it's also the first year that link was TOTALLY on board and into the whole idea of it all. jesus birthday, santa, the excitement of the season - which just meant it was the best christmas ever for jay and me. :) the tiny wonder of our sweet new baby girl and the excitement in our three year old's eyes were just enough to make my heart bubble over every single day of this wonderful season.

so we started out last friday night with my brothers' families, my parents, and us. we went up to see my brother jarrod's new house (or as link calls it, carson's castle - carson is my youngest nephew :)) it is a beautiful very large house, so fair enough. :) then saturday we had our first family christmas at my parents new house in dallas. oh-what-fun. we had our annual link family football game, lots of food after, and lots of fun being together.

christmas eve was a beautiful service at our church with both of our parents and dinner at kirbys after. the service was so special. link listened intently and loved singing the songs, lighting his candle, and sweet reese slept calmly in all the beautiful sounds of christmas. i LOVED every minute of it. like a dream, and what a beautiful celebration it was! christmas day we had brunch here with jay's family and my parents, and opened gifts. link came riding the scooter santa brought him into our room at 5:45am, screaming, "look what santa brought me, a lightning-the-queen scooter!!!!" (yes, i know it's lighting mcqueen, but link has his own way of saying it) so we did presents in the darkness of our living room before sunrise. :) oh my early riser! killing me! :)

but we had a blast and then had a lot of friends come into town the days following christmas, so we had a lot of fun catching up and sharing in birthday celebrations.

and now, a TON of pics. forgive me.

my cute kids in link's new jeep

north park santa outing

santa baby

christmas cookies with hunny

is there a better pic of xmas morning? new slippers, toy blower, superhero t-shirt? what more could a boy want - oh right, some goggles. :)

my three favorite girls - and my nieces, who inspired me to realllllllly want a little girl. LOVE THEM.

the tulsa crew got to meet reese for the first time, and they loved her oh-so-much

cousins having fun :)

three wise pritchards :)

love. ;)

getting ready for "hunny's nativity"

i mean it - i love this with all my heart!

christmas eve dinner

the stockings were hung by the chimney with care...

adorbs.

friends celebrating

the early morning gifts - see how it's pitch black outside? and the clock shows just before 6am? told ya. ;)

link taking his friend finley for a ride in the jeep

celebrating zetta's first birthday!

we love this sweet girl - happy birthday z!!!

12.10.2012

we have been having some fun around here. reese is growing like a weed and still sleeping like a champ. most nights she is down for the night by about 7 or 8pm and then sleeping until about 7 or 8am. way to go, sister! she also had her 2 month shots and appointment last week and dr moore was pleased to confirm what we already knew, that she is indeed, perfect. hahaha - i kid, but she took those shots like a champ!

weight - 12.1 lbs 75%
length - 23.5 in 92%

she is chugging along and chugging some milk, as you can see. :)

link is having so much fun with her and loving the smiles and giggles she is starting to return. dallas has really cranked it up lately with the new park downtown and the perot museum opening. that coupled with all of the holiday stuff around town and a couple of fun football games and we've had endless fun. this week we tried out the perot museum and the tubes at neiman's downtown. safe to say link is a BIG fan of both. we are going to hit the trains at north park next. :)

jay and i have been able to get out a lot more too (thanks to my parents!!) - and have a lot of fun holiday parties, NYE stuff, cotton bowl (boomer sooner!), anyway, a lot of fun things happening in the next few weeks. i love the holidays and the only thing that makes it even better is seeing the twinkle in your kids eyes at the lights, the shrieks of joy seeing santa or frosty or a nativity or the reindeer or anything resembling anything christmas-y.

quick story - link is pretty obsessed with this whole thing being about Jesus birthday, which is good, b/c that is what christmas is about. anyway, he is so excited to have a birthday party for Jesus and is completely enamored with all nativity scenes. there is one in particular in our house he loves to play with and name each member. baby Jesus, joseph, mary, sheep, donkey, wise "mans," and of course, the salt. or peppered. yes, he calls the shepherd "peppered" and gets confused with the word association of salt and pepper. it's hilarious to see him say, "salt. no, no, peppered." and be so pleased with himself. hahaha. so as i said, it's fun at christmas with the kiddos. in my best clark griswold voice, "JOY TO THE WORLD!!!!" ;)

11.28.2012

merry christmas!

santa trip number one with both kids was a success!! considering we didn't even get a photo snapped last year because link was so terrified and hysterical, i consider this a pretty great feat. it appears that reese was fairly unimpressed. she slept through the entire experience. link was appalled. :)

and i have to say, i hope the bribery with all the santa talk works all year, because it is whipping link into shape fast when i tell him if he doesn't act nice, quit whining, whatever it is at that moment, that santa won't bring him presents, he starts acting REALLLLLLY NICE. :) way to go, SANTA! every mom's best friend, for sure. i can't wait until our elf gets here on the 1st. haha, you better watch out, you better not cry, you better not pout i'm tellin' you why...i sing it all the time these days! and it's stickin' in the boys head.

HALLELUJAH EVERYBODY SAY CHEESE, MERRY CHRISTMAS FROM THE PRITCHARD FAMILY! :)

for nan. baby sleep. :)

i hope this doesn't seem like i think i know what i am doing, because i don't. :) but my friend nan asked and i can't remember how many times i've had this conversation with other moms, because all of us moms love to "talk shop" about our babies and techniques that work for us. because lord knows, when you have tried EVERYTHING you can think of and are just worn out, you will try ANYTHING someone tells you that might possibly even get you 10 more minutes of sleep (or whatever it is you are dealing with) so i will share what has worked for us (thus far) in our very limited experience with two babies. and nan, if this comes back to bite me in the buns and she quits being a good sleeper, well then i am coming after you. haha.

1. read a book, read message boards, blogs, as many things like this as you can to get all the information you can and find stuff that makes sense and works for you. i really like dr weissbluth's book, healthy sleep habits happy child. we don't follow it to an extreme, but it's got a lot of good information and seems to jive with what our pediatrician shares with us. things i love that he points out:
- lay the baby down drowsy but awake, establish any kind of routine you can as early as you can and stick to it, don't let them get overtired, try to lay them in the same places for sleep as much as possible, the earlier kids go to sleep the more they will sleep (i believe he says "sleep begets sleep"). that last one may not apply to newborn babies, but reese has been going to sleep about 8:30 most nights and sleeping until about 6 or 7! so it might even be true for them! but those are some of his principles we have tried to stick to and have worked well for us, even as we tweak link's routine as he gets older.

2. as SOON as i get clearance from my pediatrician to let the baby keep sleeping and not wake them to feed, i do it. with reese it was at two weeks. :)

3. with link, i SWORE it was starting a bottle of formula rather than breast milk for the "last" feeding (assuming you can find a time they are getting a long stretch during the night - that would be the "last" feeding to me). with reese, it has been swaddling before her last feeding. link hated the swaddle, reese loves it. and who knows on the formula, although i know other people that feel the same way. reese has taken some formula here and there, but not with any consistency at bedtime. again, i think it has to do with a routine and finding what works for your baby, and that just takes time.

4. making sure they are well burped all day long. to me, if a baby is crying, you should see if they need to be burped, b/c it seems it is often the culprit with mine. so i try to make sure we get good burps at every feeding to make sure they are comfortable for sleep.

5. plain ol' luck. both of my babies were big (9lbs and 9.2lbs) at birth. wives tales say bigger babies sleep better, and for mine, that has been true. they eat a lot and sleep a lot. reese is eight weeks old and weighs 12 pounds. :)

there you go, nan. that's about all i've got. we don't do a whole lot of "crying it out" around here until our babies are about three months, but we did that with link and it was much faster at a younger age to train him than most of our friends experienced that waited longer. could have been a coincidence, but i don't know! we plan to do that with reese once she is three months. today she did it on her own in about 25 seconds while i ran to check on link after laying her in her crib.

hope something here is new for you and clicks with your little guy!

11.26.2012

thankful!

tomorrow reese will be eight weeks old. how is eight weeks an eternity when you are pregnant but flies by once they are here? anyway, time to start writing some of this down!!

because some things i just don't want to forget:

that starting at 5 weeks, reese locked in on us and gives us smiles and coos. when she does, link gets so excited and sweetly screams, "it's SO cute!" melt me.

when link was born the song playing in the background was "dead or alive" by bon jovi (yes, we forgot to make a playlist so it was just on the radio). when reese was born it was "beautiful day" by U2. if you know link, bon jovi fits. and i couldn't love him more for it. however, i'm hoping reese will fit the U2 mold and be chill. :)

TMI - but that when i get out the breast pump link yells, "mama gotta go do nilks (milks)!!!!" for real. it's hilarious. he also occasionally pretends to pump as well. kills me.

that starting about a week ago, so at seven weeks, reese started sleeping in 8-11 hour stretches at night. she is the best!!! her brother has been waking early, so it is bittersweet, but whatever, we will take it! thank you baby girl.

that at three years and two months, link is a TALKER. he talks all the time, and if he can't think of anything to say he asks me random questions, a lot of which he knows the answer to, haha - if reese is asleep, "where's reese eyes?" or sings his ABC's or counts...i'm not exaggerating. he talks CONSTANTLY. :)

so far these two look a lot alike and have a lot of similarities (at least as babies) - aside from just looking alike and being born a week apart, but the way they like to be soothed, held, sleeping habits, eating habits, it's really kind of crazy.

at this time of year, it's good to remember what we are truly thankful for. and i want to remember that this experience has been one of the most challenging of my life - taking care of a CRAZY three year old and a newborn is no small task, but it is also the most rewarding. i swear i would have twenty kids (okay, maybe not twenty...but a lot) if my body could hold up for it. they are a blessing and i truly cannot imagine life without our little nuggets. love them to pieces. thank you God, for our sweet family!