The last 2 weeks have flown by as the holidays are underway and Christmas is literally just around the weekend. After my weekend in Chattanooga with my mom, I headed to Raleigh with my MIL for my SIL's baby shower. Lander of course came along, but this time Jack-Bo stayed behind and hung out with Daddy. I was obviously sad to leave him, but what was worse, he had his first karate "graduation" where he got the next belt ("novice orange"), and I hated to miss it.
GRandi had Friday night plans, so Lander and I drove up ourselves and enjoyed a quiet night at the hotel after checking in with the parents-to-be for a little while. My sweet little road trip buddy...she was excited to finally be done with the ride!
The next morning, GRandi flew in and took a shuttle to the hotel. Then it was time to head to the shower! The shower was a Christmas theme, so of course Lander was appropriately dressed!
Check out the amazing Gingerbread themed diaper cake GRandi made for Cathy! She is seriously talented!
And here is the wonderful spread from the shower hostesses! Everything was Vegan for Cathy, and also, how cute is that watermelon cradle with the "baby" melon in it? All the food was so festive too!
After the shower we had dinner at Robbye and Cathy's house while visiting with some of their family who came into town for the shower. It was a lot of fun, but after such a busy day, Baby Girl was worn out!
Sunday morning we made our way back to Atlanta, but not without a few nursing and potty breaks! Here is Lander, happy to be free from her car seat temporarily during our stops!
When I arrived home, I was SO glad to see my little Jack-Bo! He had been very good for Daddy and they enjoyed their time together, but it is better when we are all together!
They really missed each other!
Now, here we are, getting back to normal!
The week went by super fast, as I prepared our home for Christmas and shopped and wrapped and all that fun stuff. Lander hung out in the "bungee" doorway jumper for the first time, and Jack decided to regress momentarily to try out the old excer-saucer! Lander officially became a "hip baby" and is still working on her sitting-up skills. My kids are growing up WAY too fast!
On Friday my mom and sister came over for our annual "Cookie Day," and we busted out 4 triple batches of our famous sugar cookies. It was a nice day together, but it was a sad day in the world with the horrible news of the Sandy Hook shootings. I cannot even imagine...I'll end with a prayer.
Dear God, please help the families of those poor people who have suffered the Sandy Hook tragedy; help them to feel your presence and find peace in knowing their children and loved ones are now home safely with You in your heavenly kingdom. Please guide them in their lives so they may go on knowing your power and feeling your love. And God, please help guide our society in such a way that something like this will never happen again. I don't know the answer, but I believe You can show us if we all just open our hearts and souls to hear your message. Thank you, God, for all of the blessings in my life, and please continue to guide and provide for my family and our friends and loved ones. Amen.
When I first started this post I was going to try to squeeze September and October into one post and then follow up with November in another...but I quickly realized that wasn't happening. Then I thought I'd do a "Best of Fall" post and just skip September and go right to our Halloween fun...but I took way too many pictures and my computer is being SO SLOW loading them all. Most everyone saw my kids' costumes and our Burt's Farm, Boo at the Zoo and trick-or-treating adventures on Facebook anyway. As for November, I chose to participate in the "30 Days of Thanksgiving" on FB, and I feel that was a good use of my time and kept everyone in the loop...so in the end, despite my guilt for not giving Lander her proper time in the spotlight, I have decided to start over with my blog/photo updates and skip to "now."
"Now" Lander is 4 months old (today, December 10th, in fact!). I can't even believe it. The first weekend this month, my mom and I took Jack and Lander to Chattanooga, TN to explore the Zoo, the Tennessee Aquarium and the Creative Discovery Children's Museum. While we were on this seriously exhausting but equally fabulous trip, Lander showed us some new tricks! She started sucking her thumb regularly, practicing her sitting-up skills, really grabbing and gripping onto things to play with them, and, most adorably, she is now laughing and giggling when being tickled! I wish I could bottle up each stage of her development, but the best I can do is take pictures and videos.
The Chattanooga Zoo is small, and it has some really unique exhibits, but our favorite part wasn't even the live animals; we loved the carousel! "Mr. Bill" was the operator during our visit, and he told us that the carousel's base was built some time in the 20's, but the animals had been carved by a local artist in 2007 and 2008. There were some traditional choices like horses and the normal up-and-down on the post creatures, but there were also some I'd never seen before...like a life sized panda holding a bamboo baby seat, a yellow tree frog, a "school" of fish and some other animals that were lower to the ground for younger children to ride unassisted. Jack took a liking to the brown horse named Ruby, and Lander enjoyed her short stint with the Panda. :-)
We didn't get to see the new baby snow leopards, but this Mama came right up to the window so Jack could blow her a kiss. She was so non-threatening. In fact, many of the animals seemed to interact with us as we checked them out including the cougar and the meerkats!
And of course anywhere there is a train, Jack loves! This caboose was part of the cougar exhibit; the other side is the glass side to the cougar enclosure. You can't see in this pic, but there is a huge train yard right behind the zoo, and trains were going by the entire time of our visit. Jack was in HEAVEN!
The Tennessee Aquarium is much different from ours in Georgia. Instead of going in and just seeing what you want in the order you want to see it, you have to go on more of a guided tour or exhibit path. It took us a long time, like 2 hours, just to get through the first building. Jack was already sorta bored and a little stir crazy, so we moved more quickly through the 2nd one, but it was still very enjoyable. Mom and I thoroughly enjoyed the penguins, the jellyfish exhibits, and I think we all were pretty fascinated with the sharks!
Perhaps what Jack wanted to see most was the alligator. Later when we asked what he would have done if the alligator opened her eye while we were so close, Jack said, "Hey, you're a crocodile, I'm a person! Enjoy your sleep! Don't bite us!" Not sure why he said "crocodile," but it was really funny either way!
Jack being crazy with the crabs and Grandma with piranhas!
We spent a lot of time at the touch tank with all the rays!
I was sorta fascinated by this zipper-like guy.
Sadly, The Dawgs lost in the SEC championship game, but Jack and Lander were both representing all day!
Jack's favorite part of the trip was visiting the Chattanooga Choo-Choo Hotel where we got to see the historic train and ride the trolley. We went the first time on Friday night and ate dinner at a restaurant there called The Station House, where the servers perform on stage during your meal. Jack loved the singing and dancing of course. We promised him we would ride the trolley, but we missed it both Friday and Saturday evenings, so we went first thing on Sunday. It took a LOT of coaxing and dealing with some tears to pry him away from his imagination-at-work, pretending to be the conductor and letting his role be known to all other "passengers" who attempted to explore HIS train. Most everyone thought he was cute though, and overall he was a nice boy to the other kids who wanted to check it out. When we finally convinced him to leave, both my mom and I were exhausted and we hadn't even been to the Children's Museum yet! We made it there with about an hour before they closed, so we zipped through and then headed back to Atlanta.
The classic Chattanooga Choo-Choo on Friday night
Lander really enjoyed her ride on the trolley!
Of course, so did big brother Jack-Bo!
During the ride, Jack got a chance to ring the trolley bell! He was so proud! And after the ride, he posed with the conductor, who kindly shared his special hat! Of the conductor during the tour, he said, "He knows a lot of stuff! He's talking a long time!"
In the museum, Jack really loved the "Corner Clinic!"
He also enjoyed a quick dino-dig and being a "Pretendasaurus!"
Big brother Jack-Bo loving oh his baby sister and Lander
all dressed and ready to go out to dinner!
Wearing Grandma's glasses before swimming...
Lander rocked her swimsuit!
Lander practicing her sitting up skills and hanging with some new friends!
Grandma and Jack had fun with the luggage cart, and Lander was super excited to be heading home to see her Dada! When we got home, it was a quick and busy week before I would be heading out of town with Lander to attend Aunt Cath's baby shower in Raleigh, so here are a few pics of our week...
Lander was excited to see her GRandi and show off her sitting-up skills!
Our elf "TrickLee" visited for the first time to remind Jack to behave a bit better!
Tummy time!
Another stripe for Jack-Bo and a little thumb-sucking/ring-holding multi-tasking by Lander!
Having fun in her excersaucer and loving her date with Mommy!
And finally, sweet baby girl's 4-month stats (as of Dec. 6th, so a few days early):
16 pounds, 1 ounce, 24.5 inches and 17.5 head circumference!
She is in about the 90th% for weight and head size, but only 60th% for height!
Our PERFECT baby girl!!!!
Okay, signing out for now...will post about this weekend sometime later this week and hopefully be able to keep up with my goal of staying current!!! Happy holidays to everyone!
