We had a wonderful holiday together as a family this year, although it started a bit rocky.
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| Sweet sleeping boy |
The week before Christmas, I came down with the worst case of mastitis I'd had yet. I had a fever of 102 for two days and was unable to keep anything down. We ended up spending one night in the ER. After resorting to a course of antibiotics, I started to feel better after several days. To our delight, our friends from Belgium came to visit right around the time I was sick. We were sad that I was sick during our visit, but it was so wonderful to spend time with them. They barely made it in as we had a crazy snowstorm when their flight arrived. We have been fortunate that they have come to visit the last three years in a row. We miss them already!
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| Mommy and baby on Christmas Eve. Excuse the bags under mommy's eyes. |
Jonathan drove them back to the airport and the next day we celebrated Christmas Eve. We baked gingerbread cookies and put them out with milk for Santa. We read a bedtime story to Quinn and went to bed. Christmas morning we opened presents as a family after breakfast. It was a special first Christmas together in our new home. My mom, sister, and her boyfriend came over to open presents later that morning, and we had a lovely time eating cookies and listening to Christmas music. Jonathan's mom came to visit the next day and we had a lovely lunch together.
New Year's Eve was rough. We stayed up until midnight with a screaming baby rather than champagne. Poor Quinn wasn't feeling well while I was on the antibiotics. He's been fussy all week - he's teething and might be going through a 3 month growth spurt.
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| Surprised! |
This age is fantastic. He is now holding his hands together and playing with them, holding them to his mouth and chewing on them, and reaches intentionally for our hands and toys. On New Year's Eve, he started laughing when we tickle or kiss him after changing his diaper, which is so adorable! He watches things so intently; you can almost see the gears turning in his head. He also rolled over for the first time on the 23rd. At the doctor's office last week, the chubs weighed in at 18 pounds. He's wearing 6-12 month clothes now! Some of the 6 month stuff is already too small. He's working on sitting up by himself, and loves to stand on our laps with support for balance. He babbles, squeals, and coos all day long. What fun!
