Caitlin's Milestones and Holidays

As she approaches five months (crazy?!), Caitlin has been busy hitting new milestones. First of all she is getting big (as evidenced by the adorably chubby bath picture below), and weighed in at just under 15 pounds (Isaac hadn't even hit 15 pounds at 6 months!) at her doctor's appointment today. She is also getting two teeth on the bottom, which are causing her some discomfort and giving her adorable bright red cheeks (apparently that's a symptom of teething, who knew?). She's a trooper though, and for the most part smiles right through it. Finally, she has decided she is done with the swaddle. We had a week of very rough nights with Caitlin fighting furiously against the swaddle but being unable to settle down and get to sleep when we tried putting her down without it. She eventually gave in and slept with the swaddle only to wake up a few hours later having flipped onto her belly and without the use of her arms, she couldn't flip back over. This also made me nervous that she would suffocate against the bumpers, so I took them out temporarily. She finally worked it out, and now goes down with relatively no problem with no swaddle and almost immediately flips onto her belly or side to sleep. Unfortunately this newfound comfort has not inspired her to sleep through the night, and we are still waking up just about every three hours to the minute for a feeding. The plan was to let her cry it out this week before I returned to work, but she has a really bad cold and I don't have the heart to do it. So...another week of three hour naps for me, I guess :)

Hanukah came early this year and while we celebrated in Denver with my family, we had our own celebration at home with the kids where Bill made delicious latkes and homemade apple sauce. We also lit real candles with Grandma on Oovoo and Isaac had fun lighting and relighting the "candles" on his felt Menorah too.

We have also been busy getting the house ready for Christmas. Instead of honoring our multi-year tradition of cutting down a Christmas tree, we decided to take the easy route this year and buy a tree from Home Depot. Not as romantic, but a lot easier (and cheaper!). Isaac and Bill picked out the biggest tree they could find (shocker) that was actually meant for a house three times the size of ours, and had a great time setting it up and decorating it. I have to admit, I was not thrilled with the fact that our entire dining room was displaced, but now that it's set up, I love looking at it and smelling it too.

Isaac had his second dentist appointment last week and did great. Apparently he still hasn't gotten his two-year old molars yet. Great... It's funny, whenever he hears the word dentist now he says "ahh" in anticipation!

We have been trying to pack as much fun as possible into the last couple of weeks leading up to my return to work. Last week Isaac and I made cookies from scratch. Well, more accurately, I made the cookies, he sort of helped mix, and definitely helped eat the batter! In any event, it was a lot of fun to watch - he really is getting better and better at "helping" and doing stuff "all by myself".

We also went to the Botanical Gardens (5 times) to see the train exhibit. Every year they set up an elaborate holiday display with trains running through the whole thing - this year the theme is countries around the world, and they even have Thomas and Percy running through it! Isaac loves chasing the trains around, and it's a great indoor activity for a cold day.

Finally, on my last day before going back to work, we had a couple of inches of snow. Isaac had a great time running around and playing in the snow, though I had to tell him about a hundred times to stop eating it!