Our First Famiy Easter

For our first family Easter together, we started off by going to church. Brian and the bell choir he directs played at the 3 morning services. We had some Easter breakfast at church, Soren especially loved the pumpkin muffins. After service we quickly packed the car the headed down to IA to visit Brian's family. We were able to make it down around 4pm and catch some family which was nice! We then stayed down in IA until today just hanging out and doting on Soren. I think grandma and grandpa are smitten ;-). Soren slept great the night before and Easter nights, he slept 7 hours straight and only got up once that night! Last night was another bad night, we'll see how tonight goes. He has been chewing on his finger alot today, I'm beginning to feel more confident that these setbacks lately are due to teething. We didn't snap a whole lot of pictures Easter morning as we were rushing to get out, but here's a few:

His Easter basket, included 'puffs', dollar spot books, teething rings, and play rings

Reaching for the book first :-)

At Gma & Gpa Johnson's house- he LOVED all the ceiling fans!

Trying out the stairs for the first time

Overall, it was a great, low-key holiday

Christmas

Wow I feel like a terrible blogger, considering it's been a week since Christmas and I haven't posted anything yet! I do need to cut myself some slack though considering December was a crazy busy month for us due to all the training my new job brought, Brian working overtime, and holiday madness in general! Our Christmas kinda seemed like it didn't happen, it was weird. I had to work Christmas Eve until 5pm so I missed out on the anticipation and excitement that generally existed in years past. I headed straight for my parent's house where I was met by a large crowd of family. I was so exhausted and emotionally drained from work that it was difficult to really take in and enjoy the evening. I ate dinner quick, then the gift opening frenzy began! Soren got alot of cool gifts, we're so thankful for all the love and support he has in his life! After gift opening he was so stinkin tired it took a long while to get him to take a nap! Eventually he went down for a little bit but then woke back up. We went to the 9pm Candlelight service at church, and it was a pretty special moment for us to have Soren there. I remember last year being pregnant and so excited about having a baby to celebrate with this Christmas.

The next morning we all woke up feeling under the weather, but we packed up and made the 3-hour drive down to IA to visit family.

We first visited Brian's step-mom's family.




The next stop we made was Brian's grandpa's house in the same town.

Remember these three munchkins?!? Look how much they've grown since their first picture together!

After that, we drove to Brian's parent's house about 15 minutes away from the town where the gatherings were. When we got back to their house about 8pm, we opened gifts between the 5 of us. Soren got lots of cool stuff, it was pretty awesome!

"On the day you were born" recorded by Grandma with his added birth stats.

We were able to stay down there until Tuesday, then came back home. I think we're still slowly recovering from the holidays, and all sick with colds. Luckily it hasn't seem to hit Soren or I too hard (yay breastfeeding!), just a little congestion.

And in case you wanted to see the Christmas Cards I designed this year, here ya go:
Hope you all had a blessed Christmas, next up, New Years!

Soren, Meet 'Sophie'

This evening my parents, my niece, Soren, and I went to the General Store in Minnetonka to do some holiday shopping. I absolutely LOVE this place, the bottom floor looks like Christmas exploded, and the top floor is all sorts of cool knick-knack gifty stuff. The place is HUGE! Last year we went and I had just found out I was pregnant, and was nauseous most of the time. This year Soren was in his stroller and squealing for most of the 2 hours we were there...he was definitely a fan! One of the neat things they have here are ornaments that you can have personalized for free while you shop. Here's last year's ornament grab:

And this years:

I still want to find a "Baby's 1st Christmas" ornament where I can put his picture in it, I'm gonna do a hunt online since they didn't have one in the store.

I have been eyeing this popular "Sophie" the Giraffe, which is basically a glorified squeaky rubber giraffe. I finally bit the bullet and bought it (at an outrageous price). BUT, after seeing Soren play with Sophie for the first time, I would say it was well worth the money:

For whatever reason, Soren woke up about an hour after I had put him down for bed tonight. While he was sleeping during that hour, Brian and I set up the tree. When he woke up I HAD to come show him our first family Christmas tree all decorated. He was too sleepy though :-(


Just a couple more days before work starts, and I have a to-do list about a mile long. Thanks for all the ideas on the last post, they're all very helpful!

Soren's First Halloween

One year ago I was in my two-week-wait wondering, hoping, and praying that our 8th IUI cycle had worked. Seeing all the little ones in costume made my heart yearn even more for a child of my own, a child to someday take trick-or-treating. Little did I know at the time, that little Soren was growing in my belly.

Tonight was fun dressing him up in his costume and taking him around the neighborhood. I'm thinking next year will be even more fun. He happened to fall asleep right before prime-time trick-or-treating, but we took him out for a couple of houses in my parent's neighborhood. I don't have mittens for his little handsies yet, so we didn't stay out for long. I went generic and warm this year for his costume: a monkey. Next year we need to step up our game and think of a more creative outfit for him. It will probably be the last year that I will get to pick :-/. We didn't get too many good pictures of him in his outfit because he was tired and really wasn't so much a fan of the costume. But, for your viewing pleasure:



(My brother & Soren)