In With The New!

Little Miss turned 5 weeks old yesterday (Wednesday). She is quietly sleeping in the next room, and I snuck away to upload my photos. :-) She is getting so strong, and curious about the world. Even though she is not my first baby, holding her never gets old. It's my favorite thing in the whole world to do at the moment!

I took her "one month" photos on Saturday (the day after she turned 1 month). They didn't turn out like I wanted them to - I think they all look a little silly, but here is one that is not half bad. I bought the decals off of Etsy from LittleBabyBumblebee. I bought a sticker for each month, and you just put the decal on a white onesie and voila!

I always wanted to do something like this with the big girls, but I never got my act together in time. Third time's a charm, I guess. ;-)



We decided not to go to the mall Santa this year. I hope that the girls won't hold it against us when they're adults, like we deprived them of that All-American experience.

Well, we couldn't get out of the Santa visit altogether. Every year, Santa comes to each block in our neighborhood on a sleigh (with elves and everything!) and visits all the boys and girls. He comes at after dark, so it's not exactly great for a photo op. But, it certainly is convenient!

This year Paprika gave him a drawing she made of him. I hope he likes it! :-) I am going to have to go back and look, but I think Paprika drew Santa a picture last year, too! Ginger would not get within 20 feet of Santa and keeps saying that she does not like Santa. So, no picture of Ginger with Santa this year!



This past week we have been doing some major de-cluttering around here. We sold our upstairs white couch. We sold our huge fish tank (because keeping fish alive is not our strong suit and I was getting exhausted replacing the fish when Paprika wasn't looking.) Gave some stuff away for free on Craigslist, and then we also sold a bunch of things on Ebay.

All of this decluttering has felt so good. When you have so many people in a little cottage like ours, you have to be quite intentional about the things that come into the house. We had intended for our big clean-fest to make room for Christmas gifts, but now I see how happy we are with more floorspace, and it makes me less eager to fill up that space again.

The girls' big gifts this year were going to be a play kitchen for Ginger (I found one for a steal on Craigslist...almost too good to pass up), and a big 4 foot tall dollhouse for Paprika that will fit her Barbies. I know that the girls would love these things and play with them constantly...but we really have absolutely nowhere to put them. So...I don't know.

I am torn between wanting to see their eyes light up on Christmas morning and the reality of living with a gigantic piece of molded plastic and a Barbie dream house almost as big as our real house for the forseeable future. I realize there is a compromise in there somewhere, but compromise has never been my strong suit! ;-)



So, next week is supposed to be my 6 week postpartum checkup with Dr. K. He will be out of the office all week, so we had to put it off until 7 weeks. This made me exhale a little. I don't know why but I always have that expectation that I will be 100% back to my "old self" by the 6 week check-up. You would think I would have learned by now that there IS NO GOING BACK! Haha. Even so, everytime I think I'll waltz into the office in my pre-pregnancy skinny jeans, with my hair done, make-up perfect and I will have a radiant glow surrounding me.

The reality is that I am tired, still have 40 pounds of "baby weight" to left lose, need a mani, a pedi, and everything in between. ;-) I told myself I would not step on the scale until 6 weeks, but yea...that didn't happen. I have decided to put off the whole weight loss freak-out until after Christmas. Not to be cliche, but getting back in shape will be a New Year's Resolution this year.

Until then, pass the nog and cider, oh and maybe a few of those chocolate peppermint brownies while you're at it. Ha!