Adjusting

While I've been busy dealing with this:

Emily's been busy doing this:
Our christmas tree was re-decorated numerous times and with numerous items. The favorites were the hairclips and headbands though.

The First Week

Well, we've all survived our first week together. The delivery went well and we're all healthy and adjusting to our new family life. Jacob is a content baby and loves to snuggle - two things I hope stick around. I'm absolutely in love with his dimpled smile (and count myself lucky to have two kids with two dimples each).
Emily has loved being a sister and just adores her little brother. She loves to hold him and will usually get mad if we try and take him away from her. She is VERY good at always washing her hands and is so good to be careful when she's around him. There have been a few tough moments (most of them on Jeff's first day back to work) when she's completely lost it and has become irrational and emotional, but for the most part she is handling the divided attention well. She is extremely interested in the nursing. The first morning I was home she came into the room just as I was switching sides. As Jacob started eating she asked, "What's in that side? Water?"
As comes with any newborn baby, Jeff and I are a bit sleep deprived. However I'm a lot more comfortable now and the sleep I actually do get is better than when I was 9 months pregnant. Overall we're adjusting well. We're grateful for our healthy little boy and just love him so much.

Some of our visitors:

The Proud Big Sister:

The kids had gifts for each other the first time they met.

Emily gave Jacob some Paci's and Jacob gave Emily some "Big Sister" pj's.

He's Here!

Jacob Jeffrey Holbrook

Saturday December 12th @ 8:53pm

8 lbs 3 oz, 21 inches

Final Checklist

Finish wedding/event flowers:

Check

(Finally!)

Wrap up Primary and turn everything over to my counselors:

Check

Attend ward Christmas party and see Santa:

Check

Pull out all of the Christmas decorations:
Check

Make and deliver all the neighbor/ward gifts:
Check

Complete all my Christmas shopping:
Check

Wrap all the Christmas gifts:
Check

Pull swing/bouncer/carseat from storage:
Check

Get new dresser for the kids:

Check

Get baby clothes all washed and put away:

Check

Put crib together:

Check

Do all of the laundry:

Check (for now...)

Make sure house is completely clean for brand new baby:

Check

Gather cameras and make sure batteries are charged:

Check

Pack our bags:

Check

Have Baby....

... Still Waiting.

Free

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Thanksgiving

Emily had a fun couple of days. We had a playdate with Cary, Hannah & Spencer on Wednesday. Unfortunately schedules have been crazy and the girls haven't had many opportunities to play recently so it took them a little bit to warm up to each other. But they were soon running throughout the house screaming and laughing.
After leaving Hannah's we decided to stop and see dad at work. Emily just loves playing with Jeff - especially at his work. They had a blast with the big beach ball and of course on Emily's favorite - the stool. They rolled around the gym chasing each other and riding piggyback. Emily wasn't very happy when lunch was over and Jeff had to go back to work.

Emily then spent the majority of the rest of the afternoon looking like this:

Cousin Ally was coming for a sleepover and Emily was SO excited. After waiting for at least an hour Emily finally said, "Mom! I don't see Ally anywhere!" Ally did eventually come and they were soon laughing and playing. We spent Wednesday night having dinner, playing, visiting Jeff at the church, and getting shakes at Iceburg.

The next morning the girls read stories:

Dressed up:

Played with potato heads, beads, polly pockets:

And with all of Emily's babies and stuffed animals:

That afternoon we headed over to my grandparents house for Thanksgiving dinner. After the delicious meal, all the girls headed outside to see Lisa's new car.

It was a great day and it was fun to see so much family. I can't believe Thanksgiving's already come and gone. That means I only have 3 more weeks till the baby comes. It's really hit me now how close it is. As much as I want him here and the uncomfortableness and awkwardness of the pregnancy overwith, I'm really starting to dread the actual delivery part. Right now I'm just trying to keep my mind off of it by getting the last couple of things done on my checklist.

Play House

Several months ago when we got our new kitchen chairs we made a house for Emily out of the boxes. She has loved playing in it and hiding things in it. When I was making some flowers to glue on it, Emily had to make some pictures too. She'd color my scraps of paper and then run upstairs to her house and glue them to her walls. It was the cutest thing!
We told her it was a temporary thing since that's where the baby's crib has to go. She seemed to understand and always knew she had till December with her house. Well... a couple days ago we realized that we were going to have our carpets cleaned on Saturday and a cardboard house sitting on wet carpet isn't such a good idea. Emily wasn't very happy about it at first. But she was soon compliant - she's such a good girl.
I was pretty much gone over the weekend so Jeff and Emily spent Friday night playing in her house one final time and taking lots of pictures. It's kind of sad to see such a beloved "toy" be taken away. Especially when it was so cheap. But hopefully one day we'll have more room and then we can make her a new one.

Princesses!

Emily and I had a girls night with my family last week. We all went to see the Princesses on Ice at ESA. The girls just loved it. Emily was so excited to see Mickey & Minnie and all the princesses. She was especially thrilled whenever the princes joined the princesses and was in heaven when they kissed and danced. She is such a romantic.
Unfortunately our camera broke and I was relying on my mom's camera to take pictures. I was only able to snap a couple before the batteries died and we didn't have any replacements. So pictures were slim. (But on a side note - hallelujah! We just got our camera back and it works great).

Children's Museum

I've thought about taking Emily to the children's museum several times. But since it's $9 per person, we've never ventured there. I had a couple free passes that expired the end of October so I decided I didn't have anymore excuses. Jenn and her kids met us down there and I'm so glad they came. Emily had a lot more fun with Sara & Ally there. I think the museum was well put together and I'd love to visit more often. But seriously, having to pay full price for me to sit there and watch Emily play is a little much. Not something I'm going to cough up the money for very often.

Playing with all the balls
Loving the market
(Emily's favorite part and where we spent the majority of our time)

Gas'n up the car

Playing with Grace in the baby area

Miscellaneous pics of the girls favorite areas

Halloween

Emily had a halloween party at preschool. They all got to wear their costumes and have a little parade. Then they made fun halloween crafts, sang spooky songs, read scary books and had some great snacks and treats. They ended with "trick-or-treating" with all the treats everyone brought to share. It was really cute and Emily had a blast. I can't believe she's big enough to be in school. It's so fun to see her there. She absolutely loves it.
On Halloween we had dinner at our ward and then did our annual trunk or treat. I took Emily around once and then she refused to go again saying she had already been there. So Jeff decided to go and tried to make another loop with her. She would only go to 2 or 3 more cars before she was adament that she'd already gotten candy from those cars. She then said she was done and went and climbed into the car and buckled up. I don't know if I have a really well mannered child that would only take candy from people once or if she was just really excited to go to Gma & Gpa Holbrook's house.

I'm leaning more towards the wanting to go to Gma's house rather then the extremely well mannered. Mostly because she knew she could see Ella when we got there. We were all excited to have Brad & Heather in town for Halloween this year (that's not usually a holiday they come out for). We snapped a few pics of the girls and then went out for a little bit of trick or treating. The girls just loved being together and laughing. They were so cute in their matching costumes. Emily shared her pom poms with Ella and was so cute when she would jump around and yell "Go Utes!"

Our First Pumpkin Carving

First Snow!

We were thrilled when we had our first snowy day. Emily was so excited and wouldn't keep the door closed. She kept sticking out her tongue and trying to catch the snowflakes. She also got a little confused and kept asking if the baby was coming that day (we've told her not till christmas/winter/snow).

I was in love with the big flakes too.

Fall Traditions

Last Sunday we had our annual Halloween Dinner with my family. My mom's been doing it for over 20 years. It's a fun tradition where we all order 3 courses of food that have been named different things (ie: cat vomit... which is really disgusting and my mom was particularly gross this year). The fun part is that the utinsels, napkin, and drink are all included in the menu. I was fortunate enough to get one utinsel with each course this time. I think my favorite memory was when my brother got a plate of peas, a knife and a napkin ... and no drink. He hates peas.

All the cousins in the costume before dinner

We also celebrated Chris's birthday.

Last week we also went to my brother Matthew's last game (before playoffs anyway). Matthew played the whole game and did awesome. He got the 2nd touchdown of the game ... right after I turned my camera off. So no pics of that unfortunately. It was fun to see him play. It made Jeff miss reffing even more ... although he didn't miss working with sloppy crews. He says the officials that night were horrible with their mechanics. Fortunately, they didn't make bad calls and affect the game however. Skyline beat Murray 59 to 35.

Last Friday my mom and sisters and I had our annual lunch at Gardner Village. It was a lot of fun to be away from kids and be able to carry on a complete conversation without interruption. I'm glad we all live so close to each other and can get together so often - even if it is with the kids sometimes.