Christmas in Charlotte

This Christmas was a huge event for us...our first Christmas ever spent in Charlotte and away from Michigan. We have been very excited about it, but of course sad to not be participating in traditions and with our families. That said, we had a really great Christmas and were glad to be home! Both of our girls were deemed healthy by Christmas and that was the biggest gift we could have asked for. My sister Vanessa also flew in from Vegas and spent a week with us which was a huge treat!!

Poor Auntie V arrived in Charlotte 4 hours early and I did not check my phone. So after a red eye flight, she spent the wee morning hours waiting for us to wake up and come get her from the airport (oops!). That was not a great way to start a trip, but I promise it got better. We spent most of our time at home playing, dancing, and baking with little trips of shopping in there and even a trip to see the singing bears uptown. We also were able to go to Next Level Church's Christmas Eve service, which we are sad we normally have to miss. Santa came and left a whole bunch of fun stuff for everyone and it was fun doing the Santa thing with Clare. Everytime someone asked her what she wanted for Christmas from Santa she would tell them "baby Jesus." It was very sweet and I love that she knows the true meaning of Christmas is to celebrate Jesus' birthday, even if sometimes her stories get crossed :)

The Ho family came over on Christmas Day with their son, Ayden (Clare's little boyfriend and best buddy) to celebrate with us. It was such a blessing to have another family to have dinner with and just enjoy the day. We are so blessed that even far away from family we have friends that hold such a dear place in our hearts.

Christmas night Charlotte got a lot of snow dumped on it. Being from Michigan I really had no desire to see snow this Christmas, but hey it made a lot of people smile...including my 2 year old. She woke up and she asked immediately if she could play in it. Her and LD spent a lot of time playing, making snow angels and even sledding down our hill in her plastic pool...while inside poor Auntie V was trying desperately to figure out how she would get home. The snow delayed her trip by 2 days...too bad right?!?! We were thrilled to have her a few extra days. And her extra days meant she was able to spend a day with my parents.

The day after Christmas my parents arrived and it was seriously Christmas part 2! They didn't pull in til 2am, but we put all the presents under the tree and did it all again. Santa showed up AGAIN and we got very spoiled! We had 3 great days with them playing with our new toys and seeing the bears...again...nothing gets old for a 2 year old! This morning they headed out and we sent out the signal that Christmas was officially over for us. We cleaned up all the decorations, organized the toys, and most importantly dumped every peice of sugar from the house. SIGH..and it feels good!

Our week of Christmas camp :)

We have survived!!! Clare, Elle and I have spent the last 14 days inside the walls of our home to get everyone healthy. I really wanted to rebuild their immune sytems given the holiday season and with so much junk going around I wanted to make sure we didn't catch something else. After week 1 I decided we needed some fuel to get through the week ahead. After a quick run to Michaels an the grocery store we were ready!!

During our week at home we completed a gingerbread village with only one casualty when Clare dropped a side of a house and Bella ate it up real quick. We also made a paper wreath, a Christmas tree, Rudolph and ornaments. We had hoped to make many more treats, but at least made some blueberry struesel and Chocolate mint cookies. We have lots and lots more cookies to make next week, but we were busy!

Vanessa flies in on Monday from Vegas to spend the week with us and we are ready for her to be here to celebrate the week ahead. We could not be more excited to be spending our first Christmas ever at HOME, in Charlotte. It will be different and we will be missing our family terribly, but we are blessed to have a relaxed holiday to celebrate our Savior's birth!

Let me tell you about Elle....

Our sweet newest addition is a complete bundle of joy. She is super content and a happy little girl. But for whatever reason....she has had a few challenges in her short 7 weeks of life. In the beginning they were just little bumps in the road, but as sad as they have become it is quite comical that one little girl only being in the world for 7 weeks could already face so many issues...I'm praying God is getting them all out of the way now ;)

Here's her little life thus far in a nut shell...

Birth - smooth and easy. Slightest concern she may have jaundice, but no major concern.

1 week check up - Still slightly concerned about jaundice, so we had to have blood drawn from her heel to have it tested. Also her cord had already fallen off and her belly button was not fully dried, so the dr. used a stick of some sort to close it up (not fun!). Also, Elle's little pooper was not working properly so the doctor had to "stimulate" her, which she did not enjoy.

2 weeks - Elle developed a seriously awful case of baby acne...poor girl will always wonder why there are no pictures of her from weeks 2-4 of her little life

3 weeks- take a deep breath, we got a break...except Elle is still not going number 2, so we are having to stimulate her every 48 hours at home

4 weeks - We were in Michigan and Elle developed thrush, which Clare also had so I knew exactly what it was and thankfully the dr. just called in a prescription for us

5 weeks - We went for our 4 week check up a week late because of our trip home and it turns out Elle has breast milk jaundice (who knew there was such a thing) and is favoring the right side of her head so we have to do neck exercises with her at home so she won't have to wear a helmet down the road. Also, the Dr. is highly concerned about her little pooping issue that has not corrected itself, so he sends us directly to a GI Dr. to have her looked at. The GI Dr. puts her on 1 oz of apple juice a day (much to mine and LD's dislike as we still don't have Clare much juice at all).

6 and 7 weeks - Clare gets a cold and passes it to Elle...and so it begins. (Clare's little runny nose and cough turned into bronchitis and a double ear infection after already being cooped up inside for 7 days). Right after Clare starts her little cold we notice that Elle starts coughing and sneezing. One morning LD wakes me up and says he can hear Elle choking and we both get up and she has vomited in her bed and then it turned into gagging and choking and then vomiting for the next 3 nights. To make a long story short we had 3 doctors visits and 1 ER visit in the middle of the night...not a highlight in my mommy days. With Elle sleeping in her car seat so she is elevated and Clare upstairs coughing and coughing LD and I decided to sleep in shifts and thought we made it through the worst, until today when Elle developed her own ear infection and an eye infection. Our counter has no lie--about 15 bottles of medication on it, each room has a vaporizer, we have a nebulizer for Clare and our laundry room is constantly in business.

I keep telling Elle...its a good thing she is so dang cute and happy! I have never seen a baby so happy and smiling constantly! We are looking forward to week 8...praying for some relief :)