Rylan's Christmas Party

Rylan's class has three parties this year that the parents are running.  At orientation I signed up to help with the Christmas party.  Unfortunately I didn't have as much time as I would have liked to do some really cool things at the party but it still turned out really good.  Julie (Kennedy's mom) and I planned it and had a couple of other moms help us by bringing in a few things.

We decided to start the party with pizza this time.

In addition to pizza, the kids had applesauce, juice boxes, Christmas cookies, and these string cheese snowmen I decorated ...

After lunch the kids played "Pin the Nose on the Snowman".  I was about to make my own snowman when I found the game left over from Carter's party that I did last year.

Rylan could totally see under the blindfold so I made him do it again and held my hand over his eyes.

He was not happy with me when other kids "cheated" and put the nose in the right spot.

Next the kids did their ornament craft.  I took photos of the kids a few days earlier and then Julie glued them inside foam wreaths.  We had the kids decorate the wreaths using Christmas colored pompoms.  Unfortunately I forgot to take a picture and Rylan's has already been packed away with the Christmas stuff.

After the craft it was time for another game.  Julie's game choice was musical chairs.  NEVER DO THIS GAME WITH 4 YEAR OLDS.  I think we had half the class crying when they got out by the end of the game!  Rylan quit midway through because he didn't want to lose (I let him because I didn't want to deal with his possible meltdown!).  Fortunately I had brought the music and was controlling the CD player so I didn't have to deal with the crying kiddos!

To try to calm the chaos, we decided it was time to just read some Christmas books.  Luckily, that seemed to help!

After the stories, our hour was up and the party was over!  We gave each of the kids a small goody bag with some candy and things like pencils and bouncy balls.  Other than musical chairs, it was a success!  It was basic but the kids had fun and that's all that matters!

Sweet Smiles

I can't get enough of these sweet smiles!

Report Card

Carter received his report card for the second quarter today. He's doing great!

Regarding the grading structure, here is the summary I included in my last post:

Kids start getting letter grades in 3rd grade. Before that they receive a number rating between 1 and 5 (5 being the best). In kindergarten, 5's are not given. According to Mrs. Colasso, a 3 is the rating that you want your child to receive. A 3 means "the student has been introduced to the standard and is making expected progress toward mastery". She will give some 4 ratings, but they require that the child never makes any mistakes in the area rated and has 100% mastered everything about the skill.

Christmas Playdate

I hosted a Christmas party for a bunch of our playdate friends again this year back on December 15th.  Since the party was on a Monday, Carter and the other elementary-aged kids didn't get to come but we still had plenty of kids to fill our house!  Including us, there were 8 families with 18 kids.  Still not sure how I pulled that off with a 6 week old!

The party was very similar to last year with ornament decorating in the dining room and gingerbread house decorating in the kitchen.  However I took almost no pictures :(  And I have no excuse - Grayson slept through the majority of the party!

For the ornaments this year, I ordered wooden ones from Oriental Trading Company and then bought jewel stickers, Christmas stickers, and glitter glue to decorate them.  I was much less stressed out with those options than I was last year when I had the kids paint ornaments.

I also made food for the adults since we never seem to eat when we all get together.  We had potato soup, chocolate covered pretzels, hummus, cheese, and crackers.  My friends were also nice enough to bring a few things to snack on (as well as all the candy for decorating the gingerbread houses Brian and I assembled the day before).

The party was a success and lots of fun for all the kids.  Only about half of our toys got pulled out, but, again, my friends are awesome and picked up almost everything while I was nursing Grayson.

Here are the few pictures I did take:

Rylan and Will decorating ornaments ...

Rylan decorating his gingerbread house ...

A full table of kiddos ...

Laura's boys - McCabe & Cole ...

Jen's twins - Reed & Mae ...

Melanie's boys - Colson & Brooks ...

Missy w/ Luke, Ellie, & Will ...

Happy Rylan :)

Rylan's completed gingerbread house ...

When Carter got home from school, he decorated a gingerbread house too ...

I love having this party every year.  It's so much fun to get to celebrate the holiday with our friends!

2 Month Checkup

Grayson had his 2 month checkup today.  He was a happy baby while we waited to see the pediatrician!

As these pictures prove, Grayson is a big baby!  Here are his stats:

Grayson's 2 month stats:

• Weight: 14 lbs, 11 oz (94th percentile)
• Length: 23 inches (50th percentile)
• Head Circumference: 41.2 cm (97th percentile)

This guy has grown a lot in the last 7 weeks!

Grayson's 2 week stats:

• Weight: 9 lb, 2 oz (68th percentile)
• Length: 20.75 in (61st percentile)
• Head Circumference: 14.7 in (89th percentile)

Here are the other boys' measurements at 2 months.  At least Grayson isn't as big as Rylan was!

Rylan's 2 month stats:

• Weight: 15 lbs, 12.5 oz (98th percentile)
• Length: 23.5 inches (66th percentile)
• Head Circumference: 41.5 cm (81st percentile)

Carter's 2 month stats:

• Weight: 11 lbs, 6 oz (45th percentile)
• Length: 22 inches (22nd percentile)
• Head Circumference: 40 cm

My only real concern was discussing the amount of spitting up that Grayson does.  He is very similar to Carter so I'm not worried but I wanted to get this pediatrician's take on it.  Grayson is obviously keeping enough down based on his weight.  When I told the pediatrician that I only feed Grayson on one side every 3 hours and that he usually only eats about 5 minutes, he said that my let down must be really quick and that I'm probably drowning Grayson.  He's getting so much so quick that his tummy is full before he even realizes it.  I can try to feed him less at each feeding but increase the frequency of feedings, keep him still after feedings, try burping him even more, and just keep lots of extra dry clothes on hand :)  We agreed that Grayson doesn't seem overly bothered by the spitting up so acid reflux medicine wouldn't do much for him since he'd continue to spit up just as much (the medicine only takes away some of the burn).

Grayson got 3 shots and an oral vaccine today.  He was way more upset about the oral vaccine than the shots.  He did cry during those too but stopped as soon as I picked him up.  He wasn't any more fussy than normal today from his shots but he was running a fever (100.3F the last time I checked).

The pediatrician didn't have any concerns about Grayson's develop and said he looked great.  Grayson goes back in another two months for another checkup.

Home Depot Kids Workshop

We finally made it to a building workshop this weekend.  We always have games on Saturdays and never seem to be able to make it to Lowe's or Home Depot anymore.  But yesterday I took all three (in the rain) to Home Depot to build and paint a sled.

Rylan only hit my thumb once.  Luckily it was on the hand that I'm still dealing with numbness from the pregnancy carpal tunnel so it didn't hurt too much :)

This guy spent 50% of our time there screaming and 50% sleeping.  The music and pounding hammers drowned him out most of the time.

Testing

Testing out the camera on my new phone (Galaxy S5) this morning with this cutie pie ...

Silly Faces

Papa Mike and his grandkids ...

2 Months Old

Grayson is 2 months old today.

"WHAT?!?!?!?" ...

He's doing great.  Even if he is our fussiest baby.

We are starting to figure out how to handle Grayson's fussiness (sometimes).  As I've mention, when he's awake during the day, he's usually crying or we are having to hold him and bounce him just right so that he isn't screaming.  But I'm starting to figure out the occasional times when I can put Grayson in his bouncer, let him cry for 5 minutes, and he'll fall asleep.  I'm also finding the time when I can put him on his playmat and he'll be content for 10 minutes.  At least this time around, I know the fussiness will eventually end and it doesn't bother me as much.

I haven't really figured out the spitting up.  There just isn't a solution I've found for that.  Grayson usually goes through a few outfits and several bibs a day.  Spitting up is an understatement.  I'm honestly surprised Grayson is gaining so much weight!

Grayson is starting to smile a little easier (though he doesn't share many with us yet).  He's also cooing more (I love that sound!).

I finally ran out of size 1 diapers and Grayson is happy to be in size 2s.  He's also growing out of his 3 month sized clothes (even the new ones that haven't shrunk so much because the other boys wore them).  I need to pull out the 6 and 9 month sized stuff this week.

Grayson will kind of take a paci.  But I usually have to hold it in for him.  Occasionally he'll fall asleep with one while in his bouncer or carseat and it'll stay in.  He never uses one at night.

Grayson is still sleeping in the bed with me.  But he's sleeping so amazingly and it's the only time I get to cuddle with him that I just can't move him yet.  He's gone 6 hours between feedings a few nights.  Typically though he'll get up in the 1 o'clock hour and 4 or 5 o'clock hour.  But he always falls asleep on me eating so he's never up for long.  If I want to stay sane with all of Grayson's daytime fussiness, I need to keep getting sleep!

Life with three kids is great and I couldn't imagine not having Grayson!  I love, love, love this guy.

Sweet Friends

I am so lucky to have found the most amazing group of friends here in Nashville.  We all have kids around the same ages (most of us have at least 3 kids), everyone is a runner or super athletic (we all motivate each other), and we all are up for getting all our kids together and trying just about anything to keep it interesting.  These ladies are awesome mamas and the kindest friends.

Suzy and I share a birthday - January 1st.  A group of the ladies took us out to lunch yesterday.  This is such a busy time of year and it was so sweet of them to do this for us!

Missy brought along a cookie cake ...

And Suzy and I both got a bunch of little gifts.

Love you guys!!!