Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas! This has been a wonderful Christmas for us, busy as usual, but thankful for great family and friends to celebrate this special holiday with. This is our first Christmas with Nolan and it was the best we've had yet! I'm sure they'll even get better the older he gets and the larger our family grows. Jeremy and I decided to celebrate Christmas this year at our house, that way we could wake up with Nolan and open presents (even though he was too small to know what was going on). That meant we were in charge of the Christmas dinner :0! Jeremy was determined to make his Grandma Hoeppner's homemade noodles. So Christmas eve he called her to get the recipe. I tried to convince him several times to just buy the frozen ones, but those weren't good enough. We headed to Meijer to get all the fixens (of course beer is a necessity, and a rolling pin as well)!

The noodles are left over night to dry, add chicken broth, chicken bouyon cubes, and yellow food coloring

Then the finished product!This was the first time I cooked a spiral ham, actually this was the first time I cooked a ham at all! The meal turned out great!

Grandma and Grandpa Watson joined us later in the morning to open more presents and spend the day with us. Grandma brought wonderful cookies and chocolate chip cheesecake for dessert.

Nolan opening presents with Daddy

Nolan after all his presents are opened from Santa

Nolan started off with ZERO toys before Christmas and now he has tons. I know it'll only get worse!

Nolan testing out his new toys His t-shirt says Santa Rocks, but you couldn't that by the look on his face Grandma and Grandpa Watson Nolan helping Mom and Grandma cook in the kitchenThe next day we traveled to La Porte, IN where we celebrated Christmas with Jeremy's Grandma Hoeppner and all his cousins. Nolan got some more great toys and sleepers. Later that night Jeremy's aunt and cousin came over for a little while to see Nolan and give him more toys! He has been such a spoiled child this Christmas. We're very thankful for all our family and the gifts they've given Nolan, we'll be thankful as well when they keep him busy! Sunday morning we left Grandma Heps and went spend Christmas with Aunt Tiffiney, Uncle Jeremy, and Abby. Abby had a great time opening her gifts, and Nolan got a bunch of great stuff too! Abby and her new motorized bike

Nolan and Grandma Watson opening more presents for him

Nolan and Abby, how we got her to sit her this long I'm not sure!! After Christmas celebration with my side of the family we went back to Grandma Watson's and then woke up early and headed out for my Dad's sister's house in Detroit. Nolan did great for his first "long" road trip. We spent the afternoon with my aunts, uncles, cousins, and Grandma. It was so wonderful to see all of them, they hadn't seen Nolan since the day he was born! We left Detroit, dropped Mom and Dad off in Freemont, IN and headed back to Indy. We got home Monday night around 11pm. It was a long week for all the Christmas' we celebrated, but it was well worth it! Now we have a whole year to recoup and prepare for next year's Christmas.

Pre-Christmas and the Hoeppner's

This weekend we celebrated the Hoeppner Christmas. It was Nolan's first day opening presents (not that he knew what was going on). Jeremy's parents arrived Saturday afternoon in time for dinner and presents. Jim made his wonderful lasagna accompanied with garlic bread and salad. After dinner Grandma Hoeppner dressed Nolan in a Santa outfit (not my idea, mommy thought it was corny) we sat in front of the fire and opened presents for Nolan and ourselves. We are so thankful that Nolan has such wonderful Grandparent's and Aunt's and Uncle's. He received so many great toys, I'm not sure he'll find enough time to play with them all! Christmas day we'll open presents again with Nolan and Grandma and Grandpa Watson. After Christmas we'll drive up north and celebrate with Jeremy's side of the family and then with my brother and sister in law. This year we'll make a special trip to Detroit to see Nolan's Great Grandma Watson and spend the day with Aunts and Uncles in Detroit. One Christmas down, 3 more to go!

All of Nolan's great presents!


His new Radio Fyler wagon (we can't wait till spring and we can take Shelby and Nolan for walks)


Aunt Heather and Nolan

Uncle Chris and Nolan

Grandma and Nolan in his Santa suit

Nolan and Grandpa Hoeppner

Aunt Heather and the Sux

In my attempt to lose some "baby weight" (who are we kidding I needed to lose weight before I had Nolan), I went to the gym after work. Since Jeremy had basketball and I wouldn't get home till later our sister-in-law, Heather, watched Nolan for a couple hours. I walked in to pick Nolan up and to my surprise I found him in this wonderful new outfit! After we got home, I left Nolan in his car seat so Daddy would take him out and find this early Christmas present. When I told him he better check out what his Heather did to Nolan he knew right away!

She wanted a picture for her album, so in order for the picture to be taken Jeremy had to redeem himself and put him on the Cubs quilt! Just wait Aunt Heather... Your time will come!

Back to the old way

So, last night was the second night in a row I went without much sleep. After our eventful evening Friday night we continued to leave Nolan unswaddled. Saturday and Sunday night he slept wonderfully. I thought, boy this was easy! Oh, how I was mistaken... Monday night he woke up 4 times from 1:30am-4am. At 4am I had the last straw, Jeremy got up and swaddled him and sure enough he was back to sleep and slept silently till 6am. I thought for sure he would do better Tuesday night since he didn't sleep that much Monday night. Again, I was wrong (seems to be the theme of the week). At 2am the whining started, at the advise of my mother-in-law, I would just let him cry a little in hopes he would calm himself back to sleep. By 2:15 the whining began a slight sob, by 2:30 the sobs turned into a crying that made him more and more upset. There was no way he was going back to sleep on his own. I decided for my own sanity it would be best to lose the idea of sleeping free and go back to swaddling. It worked like a charm. He slept till after 6 and I didn't hear one peep out of him from 2:30 on. With two weeks vacation coming up we might just try again, until then we're going back to the old way and wrapping him nice and tight!

Just our luck

So it was advised to us that we try weening Nolan off his swaddler at night. For those of you that don't know what a swaddler is, it looks like a blanket with a pocket at the bottom for his feet. Once his feet are in the pocket you wrap the blanket across him to hold him tight. This was a miracle blanket for us. Nolan had really bad startle reflexes and this was the only way he could sleep. We decided last night was the night. Boy we picked a great night to try this, here's a breakdown of my night...

3am - up fussing, binky solves that

3:30am - still fussing, change diaper and binky

4:00am - moving around grunting and making all other kinds of noises that keep mommy up

5am - loud shriek, in to check and sound asleep, must have been a bad dream

5:15am - Dad up to check on Nolan after the loud shriek and to our surprise a diarrhea accident from Shelby

5:17am - Mom cleaning up the accident... not fun at 5am

6am - up to feed Nolan, back to bed

8:30am - laughing and giggle and cooing, time to get Nolan

9am - downstairs to feed Shelby, time and get up, another accident on the rug in front of the sliding glass door.

9:30am - wash rugs, call vet

It's been a long time since he's woke up in the middle of the night, I'm hoping tonight goes a little better. We called the vet, he suggested Imodium for the dog and no food for 24 hours. Hopefully this will solve cleaning up messes at 5 in the morning. Needless to say we apparently picked the wrong night to lose the swaddler. I'm thinking tonight will be the same, less the accidents.

My lungs are working

Nolan was abnormally loud last night, screaming and squealing. It was so cute - as soon as he would squeal, I would squeal louder and then he'd come right back and scream and then I would scream louder. Jeremy loved it!! After about 20 minutes of that both Nolan and Jeremy got tired of listening to it! He's definitely developing a pair of lungs on him that are for more than just crying. He's SUPER cute at this age, makes me want to have another one right away!!

Today was Shelby's grooming day, I love when she comes home from the vet, smells great and looks so cute and festive!!

Leave me alone Mom... what the heck! You're pissing me off!

I thought this day would never come!

Need I say more, I've whined and complained about the fireplace for months now! The day has finally arrived, we now have heat! I LOVE IT! It's almost too warm, I've had to turn it down a couple times. Now we wait in anticipation for the gas bill.

Big Boy

Yesterday was Nolan's 4 month appt at the doctor's. He passed with flying colors! He weighs 12lbs 11.5oz and is 24 inches long. He's ranking in the 25th percentile for heighth and weight, but his head is measuring in the 50th percentile. He has an extra large head for his body! We're trying to beef him up a little so his body matches the size of his head. The doctor suggested we start introducing rice cereal and foods. Well last night was our first attempt at rice cereal. I'm not sure if it was how I made it or what, but he wasn't too impressed. I think I put too much formula in the mix, so today we'll make another attempt with less formula. Hopefully in a month he'll get his tongue working right and we can introduce foods - that'll be interesting!!!!

Tis' the season

Tis' the season for decorating! With Christmas fast approaching decorating in the Hoeppner house is moving right along. Last Wednesday we got our tree trimmed and decorated. Every year we get the finest tree from our local Home Depot, bring it home on top of the car and Jeremy trims it with his finest skills from when he worked on a tree farm in high school. Every year he strings the lights and I decorate with bulbs.

After pulling down all 5 tubs from the attic to my surprise I find each year I buy more and more decorations and have no place to put them. This year we have a new addition to the christmas decorations, well kind of, it's the fireplace, a place to actually put all the decorations. Years past we always hung the stockings from the tv entertainment center with care, BUT this year we have a chimeny/mantel to hang the stockings with care. I don't have them hung yet, I still have to purchase those hanger things and an additional stocking for Nolan! In those 5 tubs I also found 10 boxes of cards. Ten boxes of cards you ask, why so many? I asked myself the same question, actually it was more like "what the hell was I thinking". Our normal mother daugter tradition is to get up early the day after Christmas and stock up on more decorations for Christmas. Apparently these cards were too cute to pass up! I remember I was 5 weeks pregnant last year at Christmas and probably wasn't thinking along the lines of actually sending out Christmas picture cards of Nolan instead of actual paper Christmas cards this year. Looks like these will go back in the attic and wait for another Christmas to be used! It looks like this year I should probably clean out some of those tubs, donate some of the Christmas goodies and make room for MORE!

Excuse the paint on the fireplace, we haven't finished trimming it out.