2 months old!

On Friday, Dax turned 2 months old, my how the time has flown by!!! We celebrated by going to the pediatrician for his 2 month well-baby checkup. Boy has my little boy grown, he's put on almost 5 pounds since he was born, coming in at an impressive 13.2o pounds! They measured him, but I'm pretty sure the nurse did it wrong, she said he was only 22 7/8" long, but he was 21.5 at birth, and he's about to move into his 9 month sized clothing because he's too long for his 6 month sized stuff. Derek and I will remeasure him later this week for a more accurate length. I have some cute pictures of him that we've taken recently, but our usb cord for our camera has gone on hiatus.

Dax has really started talking more, smiling, and laughing. He loves playing on his playmat, we frequently find him staring at himself cracking up. He loves talking to himself, and batting the toys on his playmat. Bathtime is still one of Dax's favorite things. He smiles the entire time, and gets pretty upset when it's time to take him out. He is still sleeping 6-7 hours at night (way to go Dax), and is a very content and happy boy. While we've had some struggles nursing lately, he's been getting better, and is still eating like a champ. He's obviously gaining weight, and our pediatrician thinks he's going to be a big boy. She tried to convince us to look into baby modeling for him - she said he looks like he's 4 months old, which is how old the Gerber babies are. The older Dax gets, and the chubbier his cheeks become, the more he starts to look like my baby pictures - at least with how chubby he is :) He is still 99% dad and 1% mom at this point. Pictures are coming soon - as soon as we find our camera cord!

Holiday Cards

This will be the first year that Derek and I are sending out a Christmas card. We decided to combine our holiday greeting card with Dax's birth announcement, mainly to save on the cost of doing 2 separate mailings. We wanted to do a picture card with several of the pictures that our photographer took. I contacted my friend, Sara, who does amazing digital cards - invitations, annoucements, holiday, etc - and she's also a great photographer too! She has an Etsy store for her creations, Less Ordinary Designs , and she can customize pretty much anything and create an amazing card for you. Her prices are inexpensive ($15-20/design), and she'll send you the file to print at the location of your choice. This is the design she pulled together for us, I can't wait to get the prints so I can mail them out :)

News Announcement (you may want to sit down for this)

....I am officially not going back to work!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I would put enough exclamation points to show you how happy I am about that, but there would be about 5 pages of them and I don't want to lose any readers because of that :) Derek and I have spent a lot of time praying and wrestling with finances (yes wrestling, kind of similar to lassoing a bull I suppose) to see how this will work. Let me tell you, God is a miracle worker. This summer when I was looking at our finances to see if it was possible for me to not return to work and it was impossible. Our expenses required 2 incomes. I did the math a gazillion times this summer and nothing worked. A few weeks after I had Dax we sat down again, after lots of prayer, to see what was possible. Somehow God waved his magic wand, and with a little cutting here and there, it has become possible. We are both really thankful and I feel so relieved to know that I will be raising my son. I have another post with a picture to show off the awesome birth announcement/Christmas card that my friend, Sara designed for us. She does great custom design work (and is an awesome photographer too, she did our engagement and wedding pictures!!) and has super reasonable prices! More on her later :)

Breastfeeding Woes

If you don't want to read about breastfeeding, then you should stop reading now :)

I have been exclusively breastfeeding Dax and intend to do so for an indefinite period of time, but that's not the point of this post. When Dax was 2 weeks old, he ended up getting a bottle of expressed breastmilk due to reasons that I won't elaborate upon here. We continued to give him 1 bottle of breastmilk a day, Derek would give it to him at night while I would pump.

This past week, Dax has been extremely fussy at night when I would try to feed him. Then on Friday night, we made our first mistake and could not get the poor boy to calm down, and he would not eat from me. So, we lovingly warmed up a bottle of milk that I had pumped, and Dax ate as if it was the last meal he was ever going to get. That marked the start of a 3-day (or maybe longer, I'll know tomorrow) scream fest every time I tried to feed Dax. What Derek and I quickly came to realize is that Dax was suffering from nipple confusion and had developed a preference to the bottle. After talking to a few people and doing some online research we decided to go cold turkey with Dax and eliminate all bottles and pacifiers for an indefinite period of time. This has temporarily turned my happy son who never cries into a screaming monster when it comes time to eat. I learned a trick though - if I can get him to eat while he's sleeping or just waking up, he doesn't put up a fuss. Today has been much easier, but I don't think we're out of the dark just yet. This would be mistake #3: we introduced a bottle too early. Next time around, a bottle will be introduced around 4 or 6 weeks instead of at 2 weeks.

Mistakes

Tonight I would say that we made our first official "mistake" as parents. We had dinner with friends, so before we headed over we fed Dax-a-roo, got him all bundled up and headed over. I'm still a little uncomfortable breastfeeding Dax (even with a nursing cover) in front of non-family members, so we took some breastmilk and a bottle, and figured that 5oz of milk would be enough for Dax until we got home. That was mistake #1 - especially since Dax has been eating about every 1 - 1.5 hours this past week. We arrived around 6:15, and Dax was fed around 6:45. By the time we were getting ready to leave around 8:50 or so, I could tell that Dax was starting to get hungry, but I assumed that we could make it home in time to feed him. That was mistake #2, our 20 minute drive home drove me to tears, Dax was crying like I have NEVER heard before. We got home, I promptly pulled him out of his car seat, pulled out the girls and proceeded to feed him. I forgot to mention that he had tears streaming down his face, his face was ready, and he was sweating because he got so hot from all of his crying. My little boy wanted nothing to do with food, he was so upset it took about 20 minutes to calm him down enough to eat and when he finally was calm enough to eat he went to town.

Lesson learned, next time feed the baby, it is NEVER a good idea to think/assume that a 2 month old can wait 20 minutes to get home. I'm now happy to report that Dax is sound asleep and will hopefully get a full nights sleep out of exhaustion from crying.

Winters' Family Thanksmas

This past weekend the Winters' Family celebrated Thanksgiving and Christmas. Benj, Anna, Kyle, and Vas all flew in to celebrate, and we had Kelsey on Skype. It was a great time, here are some pictures:

Uncle Kyle and Aunt Vas with Dax


The Caramel Pumpkin Gingersnap Cheesecake my dad and I made:


It was delicious:


Another family photo:


Telling stories to Aunt Vas:


Snoozin' with Uncle Benj:


Talking to Aunt Anna:


Look Mom...no hands!


I took a nap with daddy


I read stories with Grandpa (if anyone knows of a good tool to remove red-eye let me know)


In our family, everyone has a handmade stocking. Over the past few years I have taken on the task of making one for all of the newcomers (and my parents, because they didn't have them), so I got to make one for Dax this year:


Dax in his new Christmas PJ's from Grandma and Grandpa


Hanging out with Grandpa and my new snowman from mommy and daddy


Check out my new reindeer hat from Aunt Jessie and Uncle Dustin


We had a great time and it was wonderful seeing everyone, but really sad to see them all go. I sometimes miss the days when we all lived in the same house together - we never had to spend any holidays apart.

Baby and Holiday Pictures

Do you like the new picture of Dax that I am using as my header? Me too. I've always wanted to take great pictures. In high school I took a photography class and would always try to capture artsy shots and images that would really stand out. I usually ended up with a roll of film full of pictures that looked like someone was trying to take an artsy shot instead of capturing something amazing naturally. Sadly, despite all of my efforts over the years to try and become the next Ansel Adams, I am still just your average jill when it comes to capturing those timeless moments. Since I am not anywhere close to being a professional, we decided to have a photographer come to our house and do newborn pictures, as well as family pictures for our Christmas card/birth announcement. When my dad found out that we wanted to get portraits done, he immediately recommended a woman from his church, Brooke Borton. She does amazing work, much better than a session at your favorite place in the mall. Plus, she comes at a time that's good for you, brings props, backgrounds, and takes amazing pictures. She took the one that is on my header and these 2:


This one is my favorite so far:


As many of you know, when I have had a great experience with a product or service, I am very vocal about that experience and will do what I can to spread the word. Even though I haven't seen all of the pictures yet, I am highly impressed with the sneak peak and know that the rest will be just as good if not better. If you get the chance, check out her facebook page , she's a mom who takes amazing pictures and is willing to travel :)