Preston's First Christmas

This Christmas was obviously the most special that Kevin or I have ever experienced. Last year, on the morning of the 24th, I took a pregnancy test and was astonished to see a faint second line come up. My family had an idea when I was drinking water throughout the evening, and Kevin and I were cautiously excited until actually having a blood test done to confirm. Needless to say, last Christmas, our head was spinning with the news that THIS Christmas we would have a baby. Now, though- it seems impossible to remember life before him.

This past week has been a whirlwind of family events and celebration of the season and Preston handled all of it wonderfully. We are so lucky to have such a social little man who doesn't mind being passed around, cooed at or loved on.

We kicked off the holiday by meeting Matt, Natalie and Emma in Marion for dinner. (We decided it was the halfway point between Muncie and Fort Wayne.) Going for some local Marion fare, high style as it may be- we chose a restaurant called Little Rosies or Rosie's Little Italy or something... It may have been a bit of a dive, but we got to see the Pryor family for our annual Christmas dinner with them and Nat and I got to snuggle with our Godbabies which is always a treat.


On Sunday afternoon, we hit the road for good old Elkhart to make the family rounds. Preston was a doll and there was no shortage of gifts for him by any means. He scored some awesome toys and clothes from Grandma and Grandpa Roberts and Aunt Tori and Uncle Collin treated him well, too!


Later, with the Willig side of the family, he was spoiled with books and stuffed toys and lots of hands willing to hold him. (Or should I say, waiting their turn with him?) Great Grandma Joan got some special time with him reading one of his favorite books, The Big Red Barn, and Preston later became enthralled with the pattern on her shirt. This is quite possibly my favorite picture of the week. Check out this face!


This picture is specifically for my Aunt Diana, who checks the blog and has requested more "smiling" pictures of Preston. So here he is, on my cousin Austin's lap, smiling at Diana:


Kevin's family gathers every year at the Erb house for Christmas Day festivities of games, gifts and a huge meal. Again, Preston was showered with love from adoring family. As I've mentioned before, he is the 9th grandchild on that side, (soon to be 10 in April!!!) They range in ages from 16 to 4 months, so you can imagine what a challenge it is to get all 9 to sit still for a picture, but we still tried:


Here are some more from our Christmas Day celebration:





I hope that everyone out there in blog-reading land enjoyed their holiday as much as we did. May the spirit of Christmas and the holiday season be with you and yours throughout the year!

Gandalf and grrrrr part 2

I got it!!! I have been trying to get Preston's new sound on video since my last post, and finally on Wednesday of this week, he was growling away at my mom's group, so I grabbed the camera and luckily was able to catch it. You have to listen closely as he's trying to eat his clutch cube toy and there are about 20 screaming babies and 20 chatty moms nearby.


Preston also got a new hat this week. Who doesn't need a new pointy-ball chin strap knit hat when it's cold out? We'll call it an early Christmas present.


One of the only things I'm anal about as far as a routine or schedule goes is the bedtime ritual I've mentioned before. As most of you know, Preston is not a "long" sleeper, per se, so we need every advantage at night to remind him of that wonderful dreamland that he's about to enter. We bathe him 99.99% of the time. (Maybe once a month if he's really out, we'll skip bathtime.) But most nights, it's a science. When he gets out, he gets wrapped up in his big hooded towel (looking like Gandalf the wizard) before getting dressed in jammies and swaddled before nursing and then getting rocked to sleep.

However, HIS new bath time routine includes a serious splash fest in which he totally spazzes out in his little baby tub. Kicking, flailing his arms, and arching his back- not in protest, but in pure delight. It's like he's showing off for us- we eat it up, of course, which only encourages more spazzing. I was able to get bath spaz on video as well. For your viewing pleasure:



In other news, he was weighed on Wednesday the 19th and tipped the scales at 14 lbs, 10 oz. His previous weight on November 28th was 13 lbs 10 oz, so he's gained an entire pound in just three weeks. Which is great, because they only need to be gaining half a pound a month, so he's obviously packing on the weight just fine. Everyone keeps saying he'll slow down, and honestly, I can only hope so because he basically can only gain another 5 lbs before we have to get a new car seat. ;)

He's been rolling over from belly to back quite a bit lately, which works well for him because he's not a huge fan of tummy time. And from the way he'll get himself onto his side, I don't think the back-to-belly roll over is far behind!

We are gearing up for his first Christmas!!! Stay tuned as I'm sure we'll be posting tons of pictures and hopefully some video, too.

I hope everyone has a wonderful holiday and enjoys each precious minute with your friends and family. Merry Christmas from the Erbs!

GRRRRRRR!

Preston has started this adorably strange sound he's making with his throat. He does it non-stop and seems quite amused by himself. We think it's hilarious, but have no idea how long it will last, so I had to catch it on video before he's on to bigger and better sounds. However, trying to do so has proved to be pretty difficult. This kid is usually jibber-jabbering and "growling" these days pretty much constantly. ...Until there's a camera in front of his face. He clams up- who knew stage fright could start at 4 months old?? My dreams of Broadway greatness are dashed. Anyways, here's a peek at what I was able to capture- if you listen closely at around 15 seconds you get a split-second of the growl.


Today is P's four-month birthday! I cannot believe how quickly the past four months have gone... although if you were to ask me when he was about 6 weeks old, I would have said that it's dragging on.... HA! Nowadays, he's such a joy, though, that I wish I could bottle him up and keep him like this forever. I am absolutely in love with watching his little personality develop. Like Grandma Judy said the other day- "His personality is starting to show and it's a good one." We certainly think so. The poor kid gets literally about 200 kisses a day from us.

The past week or so, he's been waking up more frequently at night, so I'm wondering if it might be time to start some rice cereal. If I can survive the holidays with trying to sell our house, traveling out of town and finishing up the Christmas shopping without losing my mind, he might actually get a chance to try some real food. If you can call rice cereal real food. gross.

By the way, you read that right- I said "trying to sell our house." As of today, it's officially on the market. About a month ago, we found a home nearby that we like, (of course it's another project house that will mean ongoing work, even though we swore we'd never do that again.) but we need to sell our home before we can purchase the new one. If any of you, dear blog readers, know of ANYONE in the market for a perfect starter home, send them our way! ;)

Preston Pics

When I posted earlier about the amazing pictures Betsy took of Preston, I realized I hadn't added my favorites yet, so here they are! Some of the others are shots that I'm using for our Christmas card, so I can't "reveal" them right now! ;) (If you scroll down on her blog, you'll see more.) Thanks again, Bets- I am so happy with them!


The mom's group that I attend had tons of holiday backdrops up yesterday so that people could bring their babies in and take their own pictures. There were several that had cute rocking chairs or rocking horses, or required the babies to sit up, so I only got a few good ones of Preston:








And finally- just some other shots for your daily cuteness fix. ;)




Hope everyone is having a great week and getting into the holiday spirit!