Baptism Day

Today, Caitlyn and Ashley were baptized at First Lutheran Church in Tacoma. Many of our family and friends joined us in church and afterwards at our house for refreshments. We thank everyone for the gifts and for celebrating this very speical day with us. Enjoy the pictures!

Christening is a day of joy,
a day of promise,
a day when I have shared with my daughter and husband the gift of faith.

Happy Birthday, Jesus!

I cannot believe how fast Christmas has come and gone. This year our families tried a few new traditions. We went to Christmas eve service at First Lutheran like we do every year, but this year afterwards, we all gathered at Ash’s parents house for some holiday cheer and spirits. After everyone headed home, Ash, Caitlyn, and I exchanged gifts with his parents and sister and also headed home. When we got home we each opened one gift… new Christmas pajamas and headed to sleep!!! Christmas morning was the most wonderful 1st Christmas ever for Caitlyn. We all woke up from a good nights rest (must have been the new jammies). We made hot chocolate, sliced a honey crisp apple, and began our first ever family gift exchange! Caitlyn laid between us and was very interested in her gifts. She especially enjoyed holding and playing with the wrapping paper. After we exchanged our gifts my family came over and my dad made his traditional brunch…this year with Ashley’s help, and we exchanged another set of gifts. ‘Tis the season of giving! As if the day wasn’t perfect enough… it began to snow. We immediately took Caitlyn outside for some quick pics.

I couldn’t help but to tear up… I couldn‘t have been happier! Ashley and I thank everyone for all the wonderful presents that were sent our way. It’s hard to believe that this time last year Ash and I announced that we were expecting a baby. Caitlyn is by far the best Christmas gift ever, she truly has made this holiday more special than ever! We are very blessed to have everything that we do…especially such an amazing family! We finished the evening by watching a movie… just Ashley, Caitlyn, and I. Happy Birthday, Jesus!

Bathtime

Caitlyn loves her bathtime... as do I. She is so happy and loves to play with all the bubbles and her rubber ducky! Most recently, she uses her time in the tub to explore her feet and toes. She loves to kick and squirm and is so excited and surprised each time she makes a splash. Leaving the bathtub usually brings tears to her eyes but this day her happiness continued into the nursery even while she dried off. This picture is by far one of my favorite of her!

Special Day

Happy day of dedication to Miss Avery Jeanne.

Let your light shine!

Last Night...

I had a mini meltdown. I finished the 7th and final season of the Gilmore Girls. I have now watched 7 full seasons since I've been on maternity leave. As I was watching and crying through the very last episode, I realized that not only was I finishing mine and Caitlyn's relationship with mother and daughter, Loralai and Rory Gilmore, my maternity leave was also coming to an end. I return to work on the 2nd of January which seems way too close. I have been tremendously lucky to have one week short of 5 months off to be with Caitlyn. My mom attempted to cheer me up today by reminding me that I'm only going back to work as a 0.6 FTE, which means only 2 days a week (wednesday and thursday) and every other weekend. One might think that is not bad at all... but to me, an eight hour day seems like a lifetime to be away from Caitlyn. Especially because she rolled over for the first time on Sunday and I know that she will be continuing to grow and learn so fast now... I don't want to miss a thing! I'm tearing up right now just typing about it. I love being a nurse but I love being a mom so much more!!! I don't want these next 15 days to end. I am doing my best to make them last and to cherish every second, but with the hustle and bustle of the holiday season... the days are going by way too fast.

Holiday Sweater Party

Well, the 2nd annual holiday sweater party was a huge success! The evening started with a few helpers who prepared some of the food trays (Thanks Mom, Grandma, and Ashley). The night was filled with family, many friends, holiday spirits, seriously sweet holiday attire, picture posing, rear end modeling contests, more holiday spirits, itchy feet, charades (polar express), dancing, apples to apples, broken glass, hot sauce shots, mistletoe smooching, late night little weenies and tacos, and more holiday spirits with designated drivers. Everyone looked marvelous in their holiday apparel.

Last year’s Best Holiday Sweater Winner (Brian Ferguson) arrived looking better than ever in a fire red mock turtleneck sweater decorated with white snowmen, red and white candy canes, and delicious looking gingerbread men. Over the sweater, Brian showed off in a black sweater vest embroidered with green stitch, filled with beautiful blooming poinsettias and dressed up with shiny red sequins. This year, the 2007 Best Holiday Sweater Award went to a couple… Jon and Mandy! They arrived in style, wearing matching home made sweater vests. Their vests were lined with jingling holiday bells and filled with sponge Christmas trees decorated with colorful strands of garland, glittery gold leaves, green and red stocking (which was used as a pocket), a red Christmas ornament trimmed with gold glitter designs, a branch of full red berries, and lastly… a bird sitting on a tree bough which sat on each of their shoulders. Under her sweater vest, Mandy wore a red turtleneck filled with green and white holiday stockings and holly. Jon wore a plaid green turtleneck which complimented his vest very well. This year’s runner up was awarded to Scarlet who also arrived in a home made green holiday turtleneck. Her turtleneck was decorated with a lovely felt fireplace scene where the mantle sat directly on her mantle and was decorated with a stocking (which was given to her by Ashley and me last year when we announced we were expecting Caitlyn). Above the mantle was a picture of Caitlyn framed in a lovely red frame. She wore red Santa shorts which complimented her turtleneck well.

Everyone was dressed so well this year, which made the voting very difficult.
Thanks to everyone for celebrating the holiday season with us! We are incredibly lucky to have such amazing friends.

Also Caitlyn wanted me to thank everyone for the gifts that were left under the tree and for the especially soft teddy bear that was left sitting on her glider in her nursery room.
We are looking forward to the 5th annual New Year’s Eve Cocktail Party which is thrown by Jon and Mandy and is a blast every year.

4 Generations

For the past week Caitlyn has enjoyed meeting and getting to know her great grandma Hollman. She is visiting from Wisconsin for the holidays. We plan to visit the Singing Christmas Tree while she's in town.

Best Friends Forever

Today, Caitlyn invited her best friend, Avery, over for their first holiday baking and cookie decorating day. Avery brought along her mom (Tiffany), her grandma (Ludy), and her Aunt Jamie and Aunt Krista. Caitlyn had me, Babcia, Cocia Ksavera, and Cocia Hana for help.

The cookie makers started to get a little frisky! We made some delicious and colorful cut-out cookies, peanut butter cookies with Hershey kisses, and some decadent fudge with a hint of peanut butter. The day was filled with lots of love and plenty of sugar. Santa dropped by to see if the girls were being naughty or nice… of course they were both really nice!!! I couldn’t have asked for a better ‘first holiday baking and cookie decorating’ day. I am blessed to have such an amazing best friend, family, and friends!!! The day was topped off with the first episode of the seventh and final season of the Gilmore Girls (for those who don’t know… the first six seasons helped Caitlyn and I learn to breastfeed during those long sleepless nights).

Four Months

Today we celebrated Caitlyn turning four months. We didn’t do much except our usual videotaping of her (for her 3 months, we went to the San Diego Zoo, so I included some of her favorite animals). She is now oohing, ahing, and squealing. She giggles now, which I love! She loves to stand and hold on to our finger for support. She is beginning to enjoy tummy time… she used to hate it. Now she likes it and I can tell it won’t be long until she’s scooting all around the house. She lies on her tummy and gets her legs up under her with her toosh straight up in the air… It’s hard to describe so maybe I’ll try to capture it on camera next time she’s in the position. Each month Caitlyn has learned so much as we have learned from her. She is the light of my life and I thank God for her everyday.

Last night we enjoyed Zoo Lights with the Newgard family and are looking forward to cookie baking tomorrow!

Holiday Tradition

Caitlyn and I spent all of Thursday at Babcia and DziaDzia’s house (my parents… Grandma and Grandpa in Polish) making eight batches of Chex Party Mix (with my SECRET ingredients… and no… you can’t see what it is in the picture). They have two ovens, so I can cook twice as much Party Mix in half the time! DziaDzia is home now for a six week holiday vacation and Caitlyn was so excited to see him… and by excited… I mean she cried almost every time he held her. She was so sweet with him and would spend about two minutes trying to figure him out and then she would make the biggest sad face ever in the history of sad faces and then cry. There was ONE time I held her until she was so sleepy she went to him and they napped for about an hour though. I think she might be afraid of his mustache or something because she has also done this with Grandpa (Ashley’s dad). I’m sure it’s just a phase and soon enough she’ll be begging to go over to Grandpa’s and DziaDzia’s house.
Here's the finished product of a long day of stirring every 15 minutes. I love how the house smells after a day of baking Chex... it's one of the true scents of Christmas (and yes... thanks to a tip from Tiffany and Ludy, I do have holiday shaped pretzels in my mix)! This weekend Ash and I plan to get some holiday shopping done and venture out to The Point Defiance Zoo Lights with the Newgard Family… I can’t wait to see how Caitlyn and Avery enjoy all the pretty Christmas lights.

The Perfect Tree

What a perfect day!!! Ashley and I woke up this morning to such a smiley and talkative baby. I’m sure she was attempting to tell us how excited she was to adventure out and find our perfect Christmas tree.

With our hot toddies in hand we headed up to Pfaff’s Tree Farm off of Highway 18. As soon as we arrived we packed up Caitlyn in the Baby Bjorn and it began to snow.

She was wide awake and was gazing into the snow. Ash and I were in heaven watching her fix her beautiful big blue eyes on the snowflakes.

One giant flake landed smack dab on the tip of her nose and melted. It made me think of the book my good friend Tiffany bought me for my birthday, Someday, by Alison McGee and Peter H. Reynolds. In it there was a line that read… “One day the first snowflakes fell, and I held you up and watched them melt on your baby skin”. Of course, because of the book and the giant perfect snowflake…I was super emotional and Ashley thought it was funny.

We began our journey into the land of a gazillion trees.

Each tree we passed the snow came down harder. It was beginning to look a lot like Christmas! Ashley and I enjoyed the snow by posing for a few fun photos.

After a little over an hour of searching there it was… Our perfect tree.

Ashley sawed it down and we carried it to the truck.

After paying and loading the tree into the truck we made a quick stop at Santa’s to wish for peace on Earth (Caitlyn slept through the visit).

We made it home safe and Caitlyn put her First Christmas ornament on the tree.

Ashley and I finished decorating our perfect tree.

Our house is now fully decorated and ready for the holidays... and the sweater party!

(This is a pic of our fake Christmas tree)

What a day!