Well, the big night is tomorrow ready or not.  I am mostly ready, though I might have one sneaky little last minute thing I want to do before the shops close tomorrow, but it will depend on how things go around here in the morning.  There are presents to wrap, a REAL gingerbread house to decorate (made by Greg with plans from Bob Vila), a turkey to cook (I know, chinese food would be simpler, but I do love turkey leftovers and soup), and about five activities we still need to do from our advent calendar.   All this interspersed with feeding baby every 2 hours because she is spitting up a lot, so we are trying smaller, more frequent meals.  Good times!  We have Grampa Berries here for backup this week so with any luck everything will get done.  Last year I did a lot of hand made presents.  This year there are none which makes me so sad, but the closest I get to making anything is to look at Ravelry (my knitting porn-site as Greg calls it) and add things to the list of items I want to make eventually.  Sometimes I gaze at my stash of wool languishing in drawers, and I wish for Martha's ability to function on no sleep.  Alas we will all still be spoiled I'm sure, and maybe by next year I'll have figured out how to squeeze in a little crafty time.

This was a fun little pre-holiday photo shoot we did!

  It's hard to get 3 kids sorted out for a picture.  I was literally dancing like a monkey behind Greg to make them smile.  Crazy Mommy!

We love our new neighbourhood and went to the children's Christmas party down the block to see santa and have some holiday goodies.  Sophie chatted his ear off about her wish list and made sure to include a  little something for Sadie in her requests.  Ollie was creeped out and wouldn't say anything!

We are finally mostly moved in to our new house with all of our furniture.  I really, really missed our furniture while we were selling our other house, but it's sold and we are now rich with couches.  Bye bye lawn chairs in the living room.  Hello chaise lounge!

I'm sure there's more I should be adding..... but I can't think straight so I am going to bed.

Merry Christmas to all.......

and to all a good night!!



P.S.  Sadie is 6lb.5oz if you are wondering.  She is 3oz off Ollie's birthweight now!  She also has the most radiant smile which is keeping me from eating her.

And there goes November!

Wow, that month went fast.  I have had these photos uploaded for a week and haven't had the brainpower to sit down and write anything.  Sophie and Ollie are at the park with cousin Kendra at the moment, and Sadie is napping, so I'm sitting in silence (SILENCE!!).  How rare.  How lucky I am to have my team of cousins, grandparents, and friends to help me out so I can have these brief periods of quiet and (almost) solitude to collect my thoughts.

Here's the numbers as of today:

The tiny bird weighs in at 5lbs 9oz

She is 99 days old

She is 44.5 cm long and her head circumference is 35.2cm

Her adjusted age is 3 weeks and 1 day.

And now the important stuff!

She has had her first tea party.

She had her first bath with the big kids (it was VERY quick!)

She has been blessed by the sticker fairy.

 And she learned to walk.  How advanced!

She is still the cuddliest little baby and loves to be carried all day long.  She is not gaining weight as quickly as the nurse who visits us would like, and seems to be having some issues with reflux, so we are going to get her to the doctor tomorrow.  It's likely that an antacid will help her tummy feel better so she will eat more and maybe sleep a little better.  It seems to be a pretty common problem with preemies according to some NICU nurses I know, so with any luck a little medication will sort out her digestion a bit. Here's hoping.  She is still inching her weight upwards, so we'll keep a close eye on her and hopefully things will pick up soon.
I think I have four loads of laundry to fold, a pail of stinky diapers to wash, a quick little craft to finish for our advent calendar (not a moment too soon),  and a tiny little person is starting to grunt for her lunch so my sit-down moment is over.  Hope all of your Decembers are starting out splendidly with lots of secret elf plans, cups of hot chocolate and cuddles by warm fires.  More pictures of our halls being decked to come soon!  We are just starting to get in the spirit around here, and it's shaping up to be our finest Christmas yet, with the best little present of all under our roof.