Sledding

During the past two years, when it has snowed - Mike has taken Colden "sledding" by pulling him on the sidewalks in the red sled.

 This year, we found a little hill in our neighborhood and ditched the red sled

We replaced it with the blue sled.
Colden and Mike went down the hill together.  Once.

Then Colden asked to go all by himself!

(Click here for "Sledding" video)

And the best part about sledding in the snow?!?

Why, coming back and drinking hot chocolate with marshmallows...of course!

Bottles

We gave Reese her first bottle at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) when she was only one week old because she was so worn down from a virus that she was having trouble nursing (see "CHOP" post).  

She...has...not...taken...a...bottle...since!

Pictured below is Colden giving Reese her first bottle since the whole CHOP nightmare - when Reese was around 5 weeks old.  I snapped this picture right when Colden started feeding her.  Two seconds later, the bottle was spit out and Reese was hysterical.

A million different bottle brands, a million different nipple types, and a million different feeding positions = the same one response:

One ticked-off baby!
(And two frustrated parents)

I even gave Reese a deadline by which she had to learn to take a bottle: the night of my office holiday party.

The deadline came and went.  I was able to enjoy the party for three hours.

She wouldn't even take a pacifier...

...until Christmas Eve, when finally...

 Yay!  She accepted a pacifier at bedtime!
Which gave us hope that maybe, just maybe...a bottle would be next.

And then, our Halloween baby gave us a Christmas miracle:

She drank from a bottle!

Girls' night out - here I come!!!

Holidays

Wow.  I didn't realize how far behind I fell with my blog posts!  

Halloween

Thanksgiving

Hanukkah

Christmas

All in one post.

HALLOWEEN

Because Reese was born on Halloween morning, Colden went around trick-or-treating in the evening with Mike, my mom and my dad.  I spent the holiday snuggling with my baby girl in the post-delivery room in the hospital.

Colden dressed up as a firefighter.  A firefighter who likes Elmo.

A firefighter who likes pink boots!

If you are wondering - no, the pink boots are NOT hand-me-downs.  My mom and I took Colden to the store to pick out rain boots and we came to a huge display of boots.  Every color in the rainbow neatly in a row.  He went right for the pink boots.  I asked if he wanted red or black boots to match his fireman rain coat.  He ran over to the pink boots, put his arms around them and said, "I love pink boots. They are so pretty".  My mom and I texted a picture to Mike, who was at work at the time.  His response?  "NOOOOOOOOO".

But, my boy loved the pink boots.  So, he got them!  And those boots are his favorite!  He wears them all the time and couldn't be happier.

When we came home from the hospital with Reese, two days later, my dad had fun taking pictures of our little Halloween baby with Halloween props.

Reese dressed up like a tiger:

Our "Little Pumpkin" was smaller than the pumpkin we picked:

THANKSGIVING

Thanksgiving this year was at my mom's house.  At only 3 weeks old, this was Reese's first Thanksgiving

Unfortunately, the whole family couldn't be together this year for Thanksgiving - but for a happy and great reason...Reese's cousin, Gabriel, was born on the very same day as Reese (twin cousins!!)...so part of our family was out in Arizona spending Thanksgiving with Gabriel.

Of course, we wouldn't let a couple thousand miles keep us from spending the holiday together!  We Skyped!

Hello cousins in Arizona!!  (Thanks, cousin Alex for holding the iPad)

The rest of the family had a great time together in New York!  It's great to see our family growing!

HANUKKAH

We hosted a latke-eating, menorah-lighting party at our house on the first night of Hanukkah.

Colden made fun Hanukkah decorations to display in the house

Mike made scrumptious latkes (not pictured here because we were all too busy eating them to take pictures)

And we lit the menorah.  Four of them to be exact:  Colden and Reese each have their own; the 3rd was a gift when Mike and I got married; and the 4th one I made in Kindergarten (just for fun).

(Colden sitting in front of his sports menorah and Reese in front of her butterfly menorah)

And of course it was fun to see how many adults it took to put together Colden's presents:

I'd say it was a fun first night of Hanukkah!

(So would Colden!)

CHRISTMAS

This year we were lucky enough to have a somewhat white Christmas

Christmas involved a lot of cooking and baking:

 Breakfast:  Buttermilk biscuits shaped like gingerbread men
(to go with our homemade biscuits and gravy)

Dinner:  Pumpkin-filled ravioli

Dessert:  Molasses cookies (What a disaster!  A yummy disaster!)

(Click here: "Molasses Cookies" video)

Happy holidays!

Family Photo Shoot

A colleague of mine, Matt, does photography on the side.  He actually took Colden's 6-month-old photos (see "Picture Day" post).  So, when Reese was 2.5 weeks old, we invited Matt over to our house to take pictures of us.

We all learned how challenging it can be to photograph a 2.5-year-old and a newborn at the same time...but I think we got some great pictures out of the photo shoot.

Matt asked Colden to pose before the photo shoot started so that he could test the lighting in our house.  Is our boy not ready for a modeling career or what?!?

After Matt figured out the lighting, and my handsome boy was done posing, we took some fun family photos.  Here are some of my favorites:

 (We tried to get Colden's hand in here too...but this was at the end of the photo shoot and he was beyond done by this point)

Of course, any photo shoot with 2 kids has got to have some outtakes...

At this point, towards the middle of the photo shoot, we were bribing Colden with M&Ms and cookies.  I had to wipe chocolate off of his face before we could continue taking pictures.

 Thank you for licking her face.  And we wondered how she ended up with a virus (see "CHOP" post) ;-)

Poor Colden.  Reese was crying hysterically, which really made him upset - he does not like it when she cries.  But he was trying so hard to be a good sport.  I would also like to point out the color difference between Colden and Reese.  Her red coloring was not because she was crying.  You will see in the picture below (where she is content) that she is so red compared to Colden (or any of us, for that matter).  

This picture would have been cute(r)...but Colden refused to put his shirt back on.

A crying newborn and a sprawled out boy.  We're done.  

Overall, a success.