We Moved…Again and Christmas

We weren't able to do much decorating early on in the Christmas season since we moved on December 21st.  We did do our advent calendar, though, and Jack was pretty obsessed with it.  All he could think about most days was getting the piece of chocolate out.  Here he is telling Auntie Amy during her visit, "Maybe you can pick me up?!" so he could get his chocolate nugget as soon as he woke up.

Jack and Owen really liked Christmas lights, so we decided to hang some up as soon as we moved to build extra excitement about our new house.

Our second night in the house we put up the Christmas tree and hung ornaments once Owen went to sleep.  There were clusters of ornaments at Jack level, and he had such a great time being a part of the decorating.

As you may notice, we had a baby gate around the tree and all ornaments at least slightly elevated due to grabby 1- year old hands :).

The night before Christmas we made and decorated cookies for Santa.  We also peeled carrots for the reindeer.  Jack helped me write a letter to Santa telling him the food was for him and where to put the presents.  We placed everything on the kids' table next to the fireplace, and Jack turned the fireplace on to warm it up for Santa.  We told him we would turn it off before we went to bed so Santa didn't land in the fire.

The next morning when Jack woke up, all the cookies were gone except for one that had a bite out of it.  All of the carrots were gone except one that was nibbled on.  Santa left a note for Jack and Owen telling them how good they had been all year and that he would see them next year.

Both Jack and Owen had a fun morning opening gifts and playing with their new toys, books, games, etc.

That night we had a special Christmas dinner and decorated a Happy Birthday cake for baby Jesus.  One of my favorite memories of this entire Christmas season is that no matter how many times we told Jack about baby Jesus, he always called him baby Joey.  I laughed so hard I cried the first couple times he said it, because it was just too cute!  We decorated a cake saying "Happy Birthday Baby Joey" (with poor spacing on my part), and I took a picture so I could have a great memory of the sweet innocence and immediate faith Jack has for the story of the true meaning of Christmas.  Whenever he would play with his Fisher Price nativity scene or do a craft about the Christmas story at MOPS, he would always be so excited about baby Joey!

As far as our new home goes, we decided to move on up to a 3-bedroom instead of our previous 2-bedroom place.  We are so happy here and loving the new neighborhood.  We actually moved into a neighborhood where three girls from my MOPS (Mothers of Preschoolers) group live, so we have friends very close by.

In even more exciting news, our move finally led to Owen sleeping through the night!!!!!!  This deserves about 100 exclamation marks, because he had not ever slept through the night…not even once…even on accident.  He always woke up at least one time per night, but usually closer to twice, and sometimes up to four times per night.  Our first night here on December 21st, at 13 months and 1 day old, he slept 12 straight hours.  I woke up the next day in shock, because I was preparing myself to do a bit of sleep training now that he wasn't sharing a room with Jack.  After that night, he has not only slept through the night, but he has slept 13-14 hours straight every night that we have lived here {knock on wood}.  I feel like an entirely different person.  I've not only gotten unbroken sleep, but I've gotten to sleep in!!  Jonathan says I look bright eyed again, and I'm back to being nice :).  I'm not sure what exactly changed besides just being in his own room.  Jonathan and I have analyzed what possibly could have caused such a drastic shift in his sleep patterns, but we also don't want to look a gift horse in the mouth. Yay for sleep!