Baby's First Christmas

Carter, your first Christmas was really fun!  We spent the morning opening stockings and gifts at our house before heading over to Bastani-land.  The day was filled with gifts, food and lots of love.  You got to meet your Uncle Daniel for the first time and you took to him right away!  He had you smiling from ear to ear!

Even though you slept through all the gift opening, you still had a great day.  You received lots of nice gifts like sleepers, slippers and a big stuffed Rudolph plush.   We cannot wait for more holidays with you, especially once you learn about Santa and can open your own gifts.  

For us, you are the best gift we have ever received and we loved celebrating the birth of our Lord and Savior with you.  You're an awesome reminder of His great love for all of us.

We Love You!  Merry First Christmas! 

Opening gifts at home  

At home with our tree

Hanging with Grandpa

4 Generations with Grammy J and Great Grandpa Diven

LOVES his Uncle Dan and Aunt P 

Cute baby is really cute

Checking out Rudolph

2015 Diven-Bastani-Bruce-Howard Family Photo

Sitting with Dad

Ready for dinner!

Thanksgiving in Genoa

For your first Thanksgiving, Carter we went to Genoa to your Grami Pam and Poppy's house!  We were in for a treat because we got to also experience your very first SNOW!

The story is best told in pictures!

Carter 4 Months

FOUR MONTHS?

Carter you are now four months old.  A lot has happened since last month!

You are now confidently rolling from front to back and trying your best to get from back to front.  So far, you're teetering on your side.  You can do a full cobra on occasion too, I know you're just going to continue to get stronger and stronger.

You LOVE to make noise, most of which sound like Jurassic squeals from a pre-historic creature.  But we love them none the less.  It makes our hearts leap when we see how happy you are all the time.  You give out huge smiles and belly laughs freely!

You weigh almost 14 pounds!  You jumped way up in height since  your 8 week doctor's appointment, you're in the 66th percentile now!  Long and lean, not like your mom and dad, haha.

Carter, you are getting very very busy.  You love your baby gym and have started to tug and grab the dangling toys, you also like to crinkle the elephant's ears and make noise.  You're fascinated by the mirror and looking at yourself, probably because you're one good looking little baby and you know it.

We can't keep you entertained with any one thing for long.  You're trying to jump out of your glider and love to scoot scoot scoot down to the bottom of it anytime you're sitting in it, or a lap, or a chair.  You met Sophie the giraffe and think she's pretty fun to gnaw on here and there.

The big news is you are sleeping through the night with some serious consistency now.  Night before last you slept 9pm - 6am, last  night 9:30pm - 5:00am.   And for that, mommy and daddy are very grateful.  Some nights you still wake up for a 2 or 3am feeding, but that's ok because you eat and then fall right back to sleep for us.

We also transitioned you from your rock and play sleeper into your crib.  We were prepared for a few long days and nights, fortunately it was just one long day of short naps.  You figured it out pretty quickly.  First we stopped the rocking motion of your rock and play, then we moved you and your infant pad into the crib so it'd feel cozy and smell like you.  Then we removed the infant pad.  You're still swaddled up snug as a bug for now...maybe we'll tackle swaddle weaning next month ;)

Louie is still your best bud and you've figured out how to pet him when he is close enough.  It's pretty cute.  He loves you...or he loves that you are usually covered in milk which tastes good.  We're trying to limit the dog kisses on the mouth because they make us feel like negligent parents, but I read somewhere that pets in the household are good for babies, so when it happens we just try to get to you as soon as we can to stop the tongue kisses, haha.

Last but not least you're growing hair finally!  Somehow in this past month you got some eyebrows that look like little fuzzy caterpillars on your face as well.  Seems like your eyes will be brown, although sometimes when the light hits just right they look green.

Carter Michael, we are amazed at you and who you are turning out to be.  Your dad and I talk about you all the time and how incredibly blessed we are to have you as our son.  God was so good to us to give you to us.  You are the best baby and we love you so.  We're so excited to celebrate your first Christmas this month and all the new traditions our family is beginning like visits to Santa followed by Chinese food, a special book each Christmas from mom and dad and whatever else we happen to think up to make this season special just for you.

Love,

Mom and Dad

Two Generations...of Jingle Bears

On your left, Carter's Jingle Bear, a gift from his Grami Pam.  On the right, Corey's childhood Jingle Bear.  In the middle, the cutest Jingle Baby ever.  

Here Comes Santa Claus!

Baby's first Christmas means starting traditions for our little family.  One tradition we're excited to begin is a visit to Santa!  We went to see Santa at Blackhawk Plaza.  Big, jolly Santa met teeny, tiny Carter.  Carter was a champ, didn't even cry!  

Afterwards we went out for Chinese food for lunch.  I think that should be part of the tradition too ;)  The special thing about the particular restaurant we chose is it's the same place I used to go when I was a kid with my dad.  The same waiters STILL work there.  They met me when I was 9 years old and here I am 25 years later with my son.  Wild.

O Christmas Tree

This weekend we got our first family Christmas tree from the tree lot in town run by Boy Scout Troop 900.  They are just the nicest boys!

We actually bought the first Noble Fir our scout showed us.  The whole trip took about 20 minutes which was perfect for baby.

It was also Carter's first trip in daddy's truck!  I think that just might have been more exciting to Corey than getting the tree.

Dropping the "Dream Feed"

"Is he sleeping through the night yet?"

Probably the #1 question I get about my baby and a source of anxiety for me honestly as most of the time I answered..."Sometimes"...

It's a mommy mark of pride when baby snoozes away for 5, 6, 10 hours straight it seems.  But, it's also something I feel like you have very little control over.  I'd heard how sleep deprived parents of newborns are, I assumed that lasted a month at best, maybe two...but here we are inching closer to four months and I'm still tired!

I read all the books with schedules and advice. I bought these books on amazon prime usually at 3am when I was at my wits end...someone SOMEONE must know how to get a baby to sleep more than 3 hours in a row, right?  I listened to his pediatrician who said stuff him full of milk during the day.  He also told me not to hold my breath for a full night sleep since babes is still small weight wise and that I probably wouldn't catch any relief until Carter hit 14+ pounds.

The piece of advice most of the books and blogs swore by was the "Dream Feed".  It's a feeding you do right before you go to bed around 10:30 or 11pm.  I have been doing it for about 2 months now.  "Before I go to bed" is a subjective term...I cannot go to bed at 10:30pm because I'm so exhausted there's no way I could just stay up until then anyways.  I try to go down at 8:30 or 9 when the baby goes down.  Then I set an alarm and drag myself out of bed to dream feed the baby at 11pm and pray it lasts him until 2 or 3am when he'd wake up and need to eat again.

Did I mention how sleepy I am?  How miserable having an alarm go off at 11pm is after I just fell asleep?  How tired I am of being tired?

Ok, now that I got that out of my system...

So last week I dropped the dream feed.  I was tired of it.  It wasn't helping him sleep through the night anyways, he was still waking.  I figured I'd let him wake me up when he was hungry, whenever that might be during the night.  He's old enough to do that now.

And wouldn't you know...

That little bugger has started sleeping through the night most nights.

9pm until 5 or 6am.

Go figure.

2015 Bruce Family Photos

Christmastime is the ideal time to do family photos, perfect for the annual Christmas card (of which were sending out a bazillion this year because we only sent birth announcements to relatives).  

A friend of mine recently started her own photography business, I've used her before for other shoots and was excited for her to capture our little family.  I was also excited to look a little more alive than I did 5 days post-delivery at our newborn photoshoot ;)

The holiday special pricing was for 5 hi-res images from the session.  It was tough to pick as the lighting for the shoot was perfect and the baby was cooperative, but in the end, I did decide to just pick the 5 I liked best and were well rounded as a group (me and baby, dad and baby, family artistic, family straight on and the cute kissy one).  

Just like I said with the newborn pics, you get all these images and praise God when there's more than one decent one, but what do you actually end up doing with them...mine tend to sit on the computer for the most part so 5 was just fine with me.

We'll for sure be blowing up the artsy one (image 4 below) for a canvas for the house.  The rest you'll see on the Christmas card!