Oh Christmas Tree....

oh Christmas tree, how lovely are thy branches!! Even if I do say so myself, the Christmas tree looks great! Kai and I set it up yesterday morning. Kai helped by being a good, happy little baby playing in his bouncer while I sorted through branches and tangled Christmas lights. It was all so very worth it, as I feel so much more in the Christmas mood now. I left the lights on the tree all day and just enjoyed walking by the tree every chance I got. Later today we're getting some snow and I'm looking forward to turning on the lights and watching the snow fall behind the tree (the tree is in front of one of our large sliding glass doors with mountain views) while drinking hot chocolate and maybe even turning on the fireplace. Now, if only I can figure out how to hang the stockings. I may have to resort to tape as I can't find any push pins in our stuff anywhere and I have yet to see a stocking holder in the stores that I like.

I can't believe Christmas is almost here! I'm so excited to let Kai rip open all of his presents. We're going to celebrate here on Monday, opening presents and enjoying our time together before we get on our 4:30 flight to Chicago. And then we'll do Christmas all over again on Tuesday with Reid's family!!! You can never have too much Christmas (at least, not with a baby in the house). I finally feel ready for this holiday and I finally feel as if we're at home, at least a little. While I still miss the familiarity and comforts of Virginia, we're slowly but surely settling in. What would really help would be to find a good girl friend out here, which is one of my New Year's resolutions. It should be interesting as our ward is mostly middle-aged, with very few babies. In fact, I'm the ONLY nursing mom in the entire ward!! So strange, when I'm used to being one of about 15 in the Centreville Ward. Oh well, maybe I'll start a trend or something.

Well, as Ty Pennington would say, there's only one thing left to say--Merry Christmas everyone, Merry Christmas!!

Weekends

I wish we had some more pictures to upload, but sadly we have been slacking in the photo sharing department lately. We've taken some pictures of Kai but we just haven't had the time to upload them from the camera. So once again, this post will be long and pictureless. Sorry!

Anyway, we just live for the weekends around here. That's the time when we all get to be together and when Reid and Kai really get to enjoy playtime together. This past weekend was no exception. We had lots of playtime and also got a good deal of unpacking done. Sunday is always a great day to do nothing....uh, I mean relax. :P This Sunday was a little different, however. I don't know how many of you heard about the shootings in the area, but for those who didn't there were two shootings at religious organizations on Sunday killing four people. I saw something about the first shooting online Sunday morning and didn't think anything about it. However, once sacrament meeting came to a close it was announced that the there had been another shooting at New Life Church. There was no further information available at that time but as this was the second church shooting in one day our bishop felt it was best to lock the doors and have the high priests guard them. (I personally find that entertaining!) About half way through Sunday School, our bishop gathered us all into the chapel and said that he felt that we all needed to go home, just to be safe. So, with that, church was dismissed. Very unsettling if you ask me. It turns out the gunman took his own life in the 2nd shooting and so we were safe. But I appreciate that the bishop was being cautious.

Well, Kai is calling. Just thought I'd share an interesting event from our weekend!

It's the most wonderful time of the year!

First, I have to start by mentioning Happy Birthday Wendy!! Yes, I know it was yesterday and it was great to be able to talk for just a little bit. I want you to know that I wish you the best of luck with everything that's coming up for you.

Okay, now I have to admit that I haven't quite been in the holiday spirit lately. The move has really distracted me from all of the normal holiday routines and excitement. While I make sure to always have Christmas music on in the car and while I do notice the decorations, etc. in the stores, I have yet to fully grasp that the holiday has arrived. There were so many things that I wanted to get done before December ever came, things that still remain undone. The most important of those being getting the house decorated for Christmas. But if there's one thing I know, we will decorate. Even if we do it on the 24th, the house will be decorated. Reid wouldn't have it any other way. Speaking of the 24th....

We're Chicago-bound!! We didn't think that we'd be able to afford the time off of work or the plane tickets this year and so we had resigned ourselves to our first Christmas ever without extended family. But Reid found 3 vacation days that he had forgotten about and I stumbled across the best ticket deal ever yesterday--and so we will now be celebrating Christmas in style. Or at least in numbers!! Almost all of the Jones family will be there. Unfortunately, we will be missing Reid's sister's family, the Neuenschwanders, but I guess that just gives us even more reason to take a road trip out to Utah sometime soon (I still haven't even met them!!) Somehow we will be squeezing in 2 grandparents, 5 sons/son-in-law/daughters/daughter-in-law, and 8 grandchildren in one house! I have a feeling poor little Kai won't be taking very many naps! We will be in Chicago from Christmas Eve to New Year's Eve and we'll return to our home in time to ring in the new year in our new home. Very fitting I think.

Well, Kai's down for a nap so I better capitalize on this time. I've been enjoying the view from our living room, watching as the clouds roll in, (a good reminder that we're at an elevation of 7,000 feet!) and drinking my first seasonal cup of peppermint ice cream hot chocolate. As I would say to Kai, "Yum yum!" I hope the day will clear up a bit as I really don't need to be in this contemplative-type mood that the dreariness brings all day. As always, there is too much to do!! Cheers.

Mexican Jumping Bean

I can't believe it's been almost a month since our last post. But then again with everything going on, the days are gone just when I feel they've started. So, what have we been doing?? Well, the moving company brought our stuff out of storage and to the house on Monday!! Yippee!! No more saying, I wish I had (fill in the blank). But on the downside, I have never seen so many boxes in my life! Nor did I ever imagine we had so much junk. :p I blame it all on Reid. Just Kidding!! So, as we sort through our boxes we have revisited sleep training with Kai. Due to the moving, staying in hotels and apartments and everything else over the last two months (yes, it really took two long months!) his naps had dropped down to a pathetic 20 minutes and he was absolutely dependent on me holding him until he fell asleep. To top it off, his nighttime sleeping had become, well, bad. I don't know how else to describe it except to say that he was waking up between 5 and 8 times a night. Poor kid, with all of the doors slamming and neighborhood ruffians out making noises at all hours, who could blame him. Monday night was our first night in the house and his first night back in his crib. Poor thing was so happy to be in his crib, he didn't even wake up once. I actually woke him up checking on him once and all he wanted was to go back to his bed. Last night (once I actually got him settled) was the same. So maybe sleep will be in my near future!! What's even more promising is that bright and early yesterday I restarted my naptime rules (aka sleep training). When we did this in September it took about 3 to 5 days before we started to see results. Today, day 2, has been amazing. He's been down now for almost an hour and a half and is still sleeping!! I feel so incredibly blessed. (if you think I'm being a bit dramatic, you must have angel babies who sleep like rocks!)

Anyway, Kai has recently been dubbed the mexican jumping bean. He loves to bounce, bounce, bounce. Anytime I hold him on my lap he starts bending those little legs and smiling and squealing in delight. He's such a joy and it's so much fun. My arms are getting the best workout they've had in over 5 years!!

Outside of Kai's world, although let's be honest, that is the world I live in these days, we are enjoying the house. It's fun to think of all the projects that we'd like to do and to see things slowly come together. All of our new appliances have been installed and a few have been tested. I'm still waiting to run the inaugural load of the dishwasher and clothes washer but that's not too far away. Kai's out of clothes and the dishes in the sink need some attention. (for those who think that I might have been slackly on my house wife duties, please note that both of those appliances were installed just a few hours ago and I was told to let them warm up--it was below freezing last night here--before I use them. Joe, that disclaimer was for you. :P)

Well, I better get back to being productive. I've enjoyed this respite during Kai's nap long enough. Long enough to find out that Lockheed is having a special Toys 'R Us Saturday this weekend at 7am. Sounds like a blast to me!! We'll have to see if little Kai thinks an early morning trip to a toy store is in his schedule. :P Hope all is well!!! And Happy Holidays!

And the winner is.....

We have slowly been working our way through all of the baby food vegetables and fruits. We have introduced him to the five beginning vegetables--peas, green beans, carrots, sweet potatoes, and squash. And of the five the hands down winner is.......(drum roll, please) SQUASH!! Yes, I am just as shocked as you are. Of all of the vegetables, that is the one that I don't eat. They say that breastfed babies normally like what their mothers eat because they've been introduced to that flavor already. For that reason I was convinced Kai would love sweet potatoes. And actually he does like them, just not as much as squash. He actually likes all of the vegetables, except peas. And I think most of you have seen that video. If not, you should check it out. It's great for laughs. Anyway, I just thought I'd share Kai's love for squash with you all. We're still testing out the fruits and so far we have found that bananas aren't that great and prunes, well, I try to get him to eat a couple of spoonfulls just to help him regulate. But he does love his applesauce. I took a really cute picture of him today staring at the empty applesauce jar for this really forlorn look. I'll have to get Reid to upload it soon. Well, Kai is calling so I better get going.

Home Sweet Home

What an incredibly busy last few months we have had!! Because our home was set to close on Tuesday the 6th of November, we scheduled the moving company for the 1st and 2nd. The last night in our first home was on the 1st and then we moved in with my parents. The cleaning company came on the 3rd and then Reid, Kai, and I were off to Colorado early in the morning on the 4th. For the time being, we're staying in corporate housing. The first house that we put on offer on was sold to someone else and we wanted to look at a few more houses before making another offer. We didn't waste anytime and were out looking at houses on Monday and Tuesday and by Tuesday night we were ready to make an offer. And the best news yet is I just found out that they accepted our offer (after 2 counter offers)!! So, we will soon have a home. The closing date is set for November 26th. To see more pictures of the house, you can go to Reid's picasaweb album at http://picasaweb.google.com/reidjones. It's a beautiful 3,700 square foot ranch home on 27,000 square feet (over half an acre). Kai is going to have lots of room to run and play!!

Speaking of Kai, he's had a bit of a hard time adjusting to the time zone out here--daylight savings time didn't help either. But he's finally getting there. I can't wait to get him into a new house and back into his crib, though. For Halloween he was a pea--a sweet pea. And he really is our little sweet pea.He's eating solids and doing well with that most of the time and he rolls like nobody's business. I can't leave him alone too long at the risk of him moving several feet at a time. He's also found a way to scoot around like an inch worm. He'll lay on his back and arch his back and push off of his feet. He can seriously move this way and it always makes me laugh. He's run into a few walls because he can't see where he's going. It's so cute!!

Well, I better get going. But I'll be back soon!!

Colorado, A Sale, A New House and Cereal -- Oh My!!

I can't believe how much is going on and how quickly the days are passing!! I haven't been able to post about our trip as Reid had the laptop with him in Colorado for his first week of work. Since he's come home, he has started working from our basement using, yes, our laptop. So, I'm hoping to type fast before Reid has to "go" to work.

So, Colorado is beautiful!! I loved Colorado Springs and am super excited about our move. Kai did so well on the plane, I felt truly blessed. On the way out there, we had to pull him from bed early in the morning and he didn't fall back asleep until we were on the plane. By that point he'd been up for 3 hours and was exhausted. So after take-off I nursed him and he was out for about two hours! It was wonderful. On the flight from Denver to Colorado Springs he also took a catnap. The other thing that surprised me was how quickly he adjusted to Mountain time. He was a superstar!!

While in Colorado, we had 18 home showings!! We narrowed the choice down to 2 houses by the end of the week and then Kai and I returned home. He, once again, surprised me and slept through both flights!! I have a wonderful little baby!!! When I returned home, the showings on our house picked up like crazy. We had one a day for the first three days and then in the next two days, we got two offers. Can I just say WOW?!! The first offer was so low it was almost a joke, but the second offer worked for us and now we're under contract (kind of--we're still waiting for all of the paperwork to be signed which should be done today). We close on this house on November 6th, just three weeks from yesterday. Since we have given the relocation company power of attorney we don't even need to be here for that. So, we have the moving van coming on the 1st and we ship our stuff on the 2nd. We haven't decided for sure when we will leave the area. I think it will all depend on the housing situation in Colorado.

Speaking of which, since we are soon to be homeless, we finally decided on a house and are working on making an offer today. We hope to get it done soon and that we will be able to close on that house the same week we are closing on this one. How exciting!!

So, I was just thinking that many of you haven't even seen our current home. If you'd like to check it out, here's a link to our realtor.com add.

http://homes.realtor.com/search/listingdetail.aspx?zp=20120&mnp=28&mxp=27&bd=4&typ=2&sid=c8a2db5313604100ab5e2d344e467088&pg=3&lid=1089784433&lsn=22&srcnt=53#Detail

Hopefully it works. I'll have to test it to see.

Anyway, I don't have much time left, so I'll skip to the other exciting news. We started Kai on rice cereal on Saturday. His sleeping didn't seem to improve at all. But last night he finished his bowl of cereal for the first time and then he did it. He slept through the night!!! Not just 8 hours, but 12. He went to bed at 7:30pm and I had to go get him this morning at 7:15am!!! I can't believe it!!! Like I said earlier, he's a superstar.

Well, I need to go get him again and Reid needs the computer. I hope all is well. I know I have several unreturned emails and phone calls and I promise to do my best. Just know I'm thinking of all of you and will get back to you ASAP.

It's Official!!

First off, no, I am not pregnant. Our house is officially on the market! Finally!! Poor Reid had to take 3 and a half days off of work last week and work all day long to get our house to where it needed to be for showing. On Friday our realtor came over and helped us add a few finishing touches, take some pictures, and give last minute hints. And then Friday afternoon she had the house listed and brochures printed up. Now we could just use someone to actually come take a look at all of the work we have done.

With the house done, we are now ready to head to Colorado Springs to find ourselves a new house. We leave first thing tomorrow morning and plan to spend Thursday, Friday, and Saturday looking at as many houses as we can. Kai and I will fly back on Sunday, leaving Reid to begin his first day of work on Monday. Wow! I can't believe how quickly that time has passed and that today is Reid's last day in Manassas. I think I am more sad than he is about it.

As for Kai, he's handled things quite well under the circumstances. All of the activity has disrupted his schedule at times, but he seems to have come through no worse for the wear. He's been a bit grumpy this week, but at least he has started putting himself to sleep a bit more consistently. I have to admit that I am very nervous about tomorrow's trip and figuring out hotel accommodations. The hotel is going to provide a playpen for him to sleep in and I only hope that it's somewhat comfortable for him. If he only gets up three times a night, I'd say he's doing good. (Here at home he still gets up twice a night, something the doctor wants to correct by starting him on solid foods. We've chosen to wait until we get back from the trip to start that.) Also, being out house hunting all day long I hope doesn't completely mess up naps and everything. Hopefully the car rides will lull him into some sort of brief nap as often as possible throughout the day.

For those who would like to see some really recent pictures of Kai, you can check out http://picasaweb.google.com/reidjones. There is a web album of pictures and another of videos. He's starting to figure out how to sit up on his own and he's laughing a lot these days. It's so cute. His laugh is very close to his cry and sometimes you can't even tell the difference--our little sweetie!!

There are two other super important Kai moments to note. First, on Friday he finally rolled from his back to his tummy by himself. He's been very close to this for quite some time, but his head has been a bit too heavy for him. Now he loves it. Even being close to this has helped a great deal with his sleeping, because he actually likes sleeping on his side. Now he can roll onto his side and fall asleep and he loves it! The other thing to mention is that twice last week Kai took a two hour nap!! He's managing to do this by rolling to his side when he stirs in the middle of his nap and also by putting his binky back in by himself. This is super exciting for me!! While he still hasn't figured out how to make every nap a long nap, or how to do it every day, the fact that it's happening slowly but surely is very reassuring.

Well, there's a lot to do today to get ready for our trip. I hope all is well and I'll post about our trip as soon as I can when we get back!!

I'm here

There you now can't say I am not posting anything. ;-)

Kai's first Owwie and Sleep Training

So I gave Kai his first owwie today. It was obviously an accident and I felt horrible about it. What happened was that I saw numerous little scratches all over his face this morning when I got him up and so I went in search of the culprit nail. I began clipping any nail I could find and wasn't having any resistance from Kai. When I was on his left thumbnail, however, out of nowhere he kicked my hand. You all can finish the end of the story. The clippers took a small chunk of flesh off of his cute little thumb and he was bleeding. Reid helped us out by getting the first aid kit and a Q-Tip to soak up the blood. Good little Kai, though, didn't seem to be bothered in the least and hasn't seemed to notice that anything's wrong. Thank goodness.

In my last post, I mentioned that Kai was sleeping much better at nights and thankfully he still is. However, his naps had not gotten any better and it was taking a serious toll on me. I found myself sitting in his dark nursery, holding and rocking him for hours at a time and for most of my day. Slowly but surely I was losing my sanity. (Reid may actually say that I lost my sanity......) The book Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child that I had been reading indicates that by 16 weeks infants should be ready to handle sleep training. So, we allowed Kai to enjoy turning 16 weeks old on Labor Day and then the day after we began the sleep training. Basically, I established a set of rules and a routine for his naps that I need to be consistent in implementing. Everything is actually quite simple, it's just the execution that gets to be somewhat difficult.

We start every nap with 10 minutes of cuddling and rocking with mommy and the binky. At the end of the 10 minutes he goes into his crib. He can be awake or asleep at this point and he will still need to go into his crib. Then he is to stay in his crib until he sleeps at least an hour or until an hour and half of time passes (whichever comes first). If he is sleeping when the hour and a half is up, I continue to let him sleep. See, sounds simple. The hard part was the crying the first few days. But after even only four days I was noticing some improvements in that his naps were just a tiny bit longer and the crying had decreased dramatically. And the best part.....on day 5, Saturday, Kai took his first hour and a half nap all by himself!! I was so proud of my little buddy.

Unfortunately, church on Sunday interfered with the training and then yesterday I caved into the crying because of an unfortunate binky incident. I have now decided that he can't take the binky into the crib with him and that will resolve those issues. So, we have experienced crying again today and I think we've regressed just a bit from where we were on Saturday. But we're still plugging along. He's in his crib fussing a bit right now, but I will remain strong. I know I sound like a hardened parent, but it really is for his own good. I have found that going in there only makes the crying worse or, even worse, completely eliminates all thoughts of sleeping at all. For him, my appearance is the beginning of party time. So, we're pressing forward and hopefully in a few weeks he'll be a much more consistent longer napper. I'm crossing my fingers and praying real hard.

Well, since I think I finally have this blog the way I like it (at least for now), I think it's time to tell the world it's here. It's up to all of you if you would like to read it or not, but at least this is a fun way for me to keep some type of journal for Kai and our family. I certainly do hope that you all enjoy these little insights and the occasional pictures!

Sleeping......To Be or Not to Be

So, many of you know that for almost 2 weeks we were having some serious sleep challenges around here. Kai started into this waking almost every hour all night long. There would be some nights that would start out well and then somewhere around 3am it would all go downhill. It got to the point last Sunday that Reid and I let him just "cry it out". It killed me and I can tell you that no one in this house slept for that entire hour and fifteen minutes. On Monday, at my mother's recommendation, I took Kai to the pediatrician just to make sure nothing was wrong. Other than being sleep deprived, Kai got a clean bill of health. Well, I shouldn't say a totally clean bill. I personally think the doctor was just trying to give me something to make me feel better and said that maybe Kai has reflux and to try baby Zantac. Well, we tried the Zantac for three days and while he did sleep better two of those nights, the third he did not. And that was the day I think I figured out our problem. Kai has a tendency to wake up and fuss and when he was younger the fussing would turn into crying. So, I have a tendency to descend upon him when the fussing begins. On Thursday night I walked in while he was fussing only to see him settling back to sleep. But it was too late! He was waking up because I was in the room. And the rest of that night he was up every hour! So, eureka!! I was the one messing up his sleep pattern.

On Friday night I turned the volume on the baby monitor off, knowing that if he needed me he would cry and that with the doors to both rooms open we could hear the crying from our bed. That night he slept from 7pm - 11pm, ate, straight back to bed from about 11:20pm - 6am!!!! I was in shock (and worried that he might have died in there!). He only ate once all night!! Now that was a record. Before all of this started he would get up 3 times a night to eat regularly and only once had he made it eating only twice. So one time was incredible!! Not to be outdone either, on Saturday night he got up to eat only at midnight and 4 am and slept the rest of the time from 7pm to 7am!!

Anyway, I'm hoping this will be his new deal. I like my sleep.....oh how I like my sleep. His daytime naps are still a huge challenge, but if we can reclaim the nights that would reduce my stress immensely. I would actually feel comfortable relaxing and, maybe, even going out on a date with Reid. So sleep little Kai, sleep.

The Beginning!!

Not that I don't have anything to do while I'm sitting at home (more that I just really dislike cleaning :P) I thought creating and (hopefully) maintaining this blog would be a good way for our family to keep our friends and extended family up-to-date on all of the adventures which we are currently embarking on......raising a baby (or is he raising us??), moving across country, and buying our first home together. So much is going on and while we are moving closer to some friends and family, we are leaving others behind. In an effort to keep us all connected and to make me feel just a little bit better about taking Kai away from his grandma, grandpa, aunts and uncle, I introduce Reid and Angie's Page. (Yes, creative and ingenious title I know, but I never was really the creative one.) Enjoy!!