Happy Birthday Elsie!

Happy first birthday to our sweet baby girl! We love you so much!!!

Jolly Old St. Nicholas

Growing up we celebrate S. Nicholas Day.  I am not sure if this is a Catholic thing or a Christian thing but I do know John didn't know much about this so I had to teach him a little bit about it.  There is a great website out there that is all things St. Nicholas Day.  St. Nicholas Center  In fact it is interesting that many of our Christmas traditions come from this man such as the Christmas Stocking, the Candy Cane, and of course Santa looks an awful lot like this Bishop.  

This year I wasn't sure if St. Nicholas came the night before Dec. 6th or on Dec 6th so he came to our house the night of Dec. 6th.  I now know he comes the eve before ;).  Some people celebrate by putting thier shoes out and when they wake up they are filled with goodies.  Others celebrate by hanging their stockings and that is what gets filled.  Some state that St. Nicholas would toss gold coins into the windows of homes and it will land in the stockings drying on the fireplace.  I think next year we are going to switch to using our stockings since  clearly our stuff doesn't fit in the shoes :)

For us, St. Nicholas will bring our Christmas PJs, a book (I am all about the books), and an ornament.  He even brought John and I some PJ pants too as well as our little Pella ornament.  

Please excuse these photos...they were taken with my phone and in poor lighting :)

I think John was pretty excited for Elsie to see what St. Nick brought.  He kept asking when we could wake Elsie up to see what she got.  

She was really interested in her ornament and carried it around until I took it away at breakfast.  Right now it is sitting on her dresser and she loves to pull up and look at it.  

This was her later that night in her new Christmas PJs (one of her like 6 pairs).  

O' Christmas Tree

Each year since we have been married John and I have gone to the same tree farm and cut down our Christmas Tree.  It is one of my favorite traditions.  I do know our farm that we go to is starting to get low on inventory but we still found a pretty good tree this year.  We are a Frasier Fir family and have gotten the same kind of tree each year.  I love thier needle color, the branches are sturdy enough to hold some of my heavy ornaments, and the don't tend to drop their needles like some other kinds of trees do.

There was no snow this year but it was a chillier day. We went the Saturday after Thanksgiving.  We got bundled up and headed out.

Checking out our tree

Our tree this year was only about 6ft and John could carry it himself which was okay with me :).  In past years we have "topped off" bigger trees but I really didn't want to deal with that again this year so we just picked a smaller tree and it fit perfectly in our living room. 

Before we got the tree I was so worried that Elsie would get into it, pull at it, knock it over, etc.  My worries have not been realized at all!  She hardly pays attention to it at all.  I can't wait until she can help decorate the tree.  This year she just wanted to take all the ornament boxes out of the big storage tote.  Next year she can help hang them on the tree :)  

Our Weekend: Breakfast with Santa and a Birthday Party

Well...our weekend did not go as planned. We were planning on having my sister and her family and may parents stay at our house Fri-Sun.  The weather screwed that up.  I guess Friday the roads were slick when my sister's family left so they ended up turning around and then with the forecast on Sunday for lots of snow it wasn't worth the trek down to Iowa.  So they stayed up in MN.  Super bummed but I completely understand (I am a nervous wreck about bad roads).  My parents did make it down Friday but ended up leaving on Saturday night to avoid driving  through crappy weather on Sunday.  We missed having them around all weekend too.

My parents arrived late Friday night (it took them longer than normal due to traffic and slick roads) and they had to park at the end of our street because our half of the street was closed due to road work.  We visited a little bit and then all hit the hay.  After all, we had a big birthday to prepare for the next day.

Saturday morning we got up and headed up to Breakfast with Santa.  Lets just say Elsie was not a fan of Santa.

The rest of the day was spent getting ready for the party.  Since it was at the local church I had to make sure I packed up everything we would need for the party (of course we were running home for some forgotten items right before).

My dad frosted Elsie's smash cake-The Frosting Guru

The party went great (more to come about that on a separate post).  It was fun to see family and friends and help celebrate Elsie's big milestone! Wow!  I still can't believe she will be one on Friday!!

Elsie must have been exhausted since she slept straight through until 6:30 am, took an hour and 15 minute morning nap and a little over 2 hours for an afternoon nap.  We went and had lunch with John's parents and his Grandma and Aunt who came from out of town for the party and then just did some house stuff the rest of the day.  It was a pretty relaxing afternoon for the most part.

All in all a great weekend.  I did become dissapointed a little when I found out someone lied to me over something that didn't need to be lied about.  I am not sure why people do that or feel like they need to do that-it just boggles my mind.  Just be honest! Especially about little things.

Now that Elsie's party is over it now time to focus on Christmas!  Our house is all decorated, our Christmas cards are out and we have definitely been in the Christmas spirit but I need to buy the last few presents and get them all wrapped.  This week I am also going out to dinner with a friend who will be moving to Kentucky at the end of the month.  She is the wife of one of my co-workers from camp.  It is kind of funny because while working at camp we never really hung out even though we both lived on site.  Now since I quit two years ago (yes it has already been two years since leaving camp!!!!) we get together pretty regularly along with another co-worker.  I will miss her so much!! We also have Elsie's One Year photos on Wednesday.  We are trying a new photographer so we will see how that goes!  I am excited!

I am a bit behind on my blogging so expect the next few to be ones from the late November :)

Bye Bye Bottle and Baby Food

As we near closer to the one year mark we are beginning to say good bye to two things that Elsie used a lot of in her first year, the bottle and baby food.

Bottles:
A week before she turned 11 months I realized we really need to get her to consistently drink from a sippy cup.  We introduced the sippy cup to her around 6 months of age but it was only like once or twice a day and she more or less just played with it but didn't really drink out of it and when she did she mostly just drank water, formula she didn't hardly drink at all.  Between the ages of 12-18 months a child should no longer drink from a bottle or need to drink from a bottle so the pressure was on.  I set a time limit that by 12 months we would be done with bottles.  I am not sure if that is realistic for us at this point since that is just over a week away but we have made some definite progress.

So about three weeks ago I started giving her milk out of her sippy cup and trying to be consistent.  When she would wake up she would get a bottle of milk (6-8 oz).  I would try a sippy cup during her breakfast, am snack and lunch.  If she didn't drink much I would give her a bottle before nap, then sippy cup again until her bedtime bottle.  Now a week shy of her first birthday we are only giving her a bottle before bedtime.  I think we have made more progress than I thought we would.  Now comes the transition from formula to whole milk.  We are hoping to start that this week.  I am going to call the pediatrician today to see what the best way to go about this would be.

I am really looking forward to getting rid of the bottles.  It will be nice not to have to worry about washing them since we will probably just throw the sippy cups in the dishwasher.

Baby Food: 
We have been giving Elsie table food for a a few months now but mainly just fruit and veggies and plain ole hamburger and chicken but not like we are now.  We haven't opened a jar of baby food in a couple weeks.  She had her first kids meal from a restaurant the Saturday after thanksgiving.  She had chicken strips and steamed veggies from Texas Roadhouse and last week she even had some cheese pizza.  She LOVES meat and will just gobble up hamburger and chicken and she LOVES veggies (especially broccoli).  We are still struggling with fruit though.  She is just not that interested in them.  She will eat everything else except her fruit.

I have to admit...it was so easy going into the cupboard and grabbing a jar/pouch of food but it is also nice not having to worry about having special food for her as we can find something out that she will eat.  Ever since we discovered she in fact is not allergic to egg I have been pretty lenient in what we have been feeding her...not 3 day wait for us anymore :).  We do still have some pureed food left over, mainly fruit so I can mix that in with some plain yogurt to get rid of it but we are done buying it which is awesome!

Family Photos-2012

This is the first year we have done professional family picutres.  We had talked about it for the last few years with John's family and kept delaying it due to poor weather, waiting for Elsie to be born, etc.  Well this fall we finally got it done!  Here are a few of my faves.  

When we received the disc with the pictures the photographer said that none of the ones with just John, Elsie and I, or any with just John and I.  The photographer said that none of them turned out so she offered to retake them.  So these are from that session.  

Here comes our little Elsie Monster! 

Holiday Traditions

Growing up we had many holiday traditions.  They began the day after Thanksgiving.  My dad would bring up the boxes filled with decorations, my mom would put a Christmas record on the record player (I loved the Brenda Lee one) and we would decorate the whole house.  Each of us children had our own Christmas tree with our own decorations that we put up in our room.  The ornaments were ones that were given to us by our parents and by my godparents.  I got new ones each year and today these are what decorates our Christmas Tree at home.  The house felt filled with so much joy!

Another tradition, which I believe was started later in my life, not when I was a itty bitty one was to go downtown Minneapolis to Dayton-Hudson's for the 8th Floor Holiday display.  I am not sure we even made it every year but this was a tradition I enjoyed and really remember. It was something I wanted my children to experience but sad to say, the past few years was the same display.  I hope at some point they can get back to having a new scene every year.  

Traditions are what creates memories...these are the memories I want to provide my child(ren).  Elsie was around last Christmas but at 10 days old we did very few new traditions.  John and I had some traditions we had already set into place but it wasn't a big focus for me.  After all, I was just getting used to being a mom.  Here are a few things that we have done/plan to do to start some traditions.    

Cutting down our Christmas Tree

For the past six years, John and I have traveled to a local tree farm to pick out and cut down our Christmas Tree.  This is something we look forard to every year.  Cinder gets to come on this family outing too!  A few years we were able to top off some bigger trees and get a pretty good one, one year when we were living in the valley we were able to get a big tree becuase we had really high ceilings in the cabin.  This year we got a nice size 6 ft tree which fits perfect in our living room which is on the small side.  

Christmas Books

When our first nieces, Emma and Olivia were born I wanted to give them something that would last them a lifetime...not just a toy they would play with for a few months and then toss to the side.  What better lifetime gift than that of a book-a traditional Christmas book.  This has also carried over to my other nieces Allie and Piper.  I hope that they will keep them and read them each holiday season.  We started this too with Elsie.  Maybe someday she will share her books with her children.  

Saint Nicholas Day
Saint Nicholas Day is Dec. 6th.  As a child I remember setting out our shoes when we were little and when we woke up in the morning we would find a surprise in them.  I would like to incorporate this into our yearly traditions (we did it this week...more to come).  I think out yearly tradition will be that St. Nicholas will bring them their Christmas Pajamas and yearly tree ornament.  I originally thought that it would be in their stocking on Christmas morning but have now rethought this so it can be enjoyed over the Christmas season.

Christmas Ornaments
Each year I have received a special Christmas ornament.  I want to to give my nieces and Elsie their own special ornament so that when they will have ornaments from their childhood for their tree.  Also, we get a family ornament each year representing something/trip we did during the year.  This year, we got a little painted Dutch shoe from our trip to Pella, IA during their annual Tulip Festival.

Christmas Tree in Elsie's Room
I put up a little Christmas tree is Elsie's room this year and decorated it with a few little decorations...my hope is as she accumulates more ornaments her little tree will grow.  I LOVED decorating my tree as a child and hope she will too.

The Night Before Christmas/The Christmas Story
We started this last year but each year, before we go to bed, we as a family will read Twas the Night Before Christmas  as well a book about The Christmas Story since after all, this is what Christmas is really about-Jesus.  

I know that when Elsie grows up not all of the traditions we have will be started right now...they will evolve or some will be added as she gets bigger.  These are just a couple of ideas I would like to do.

1.  Advent Calendar

2.  Elf on the Shelf
3.  Evening out looking at Christmas Lights

As a Christian I would really like to keep focus on the true meaning of Christmas and what Christmas is really all about.  That begins now :).

I love hearing about family traditions so feel free and share.