Christmas (Part III : Wisconsin)

On Christmas morning we got up bright & early at 4:30...well, it wasn't actually that bright outside, pitch black in fact, but it was freaking early...to head to Wisconsin. Joy & Peter were supposed to be at our house by 4:45 so we could load up the car, squeeeeeeze us all in, and pull out by 5am. At 5:30 we had left several messages on both of their cell phones and hadn't heard anything from them. We decided to drive over to Joy's house, but her car wasn't there. We had no idea what was going on, so we went ahead and started our trip up north to Wisconsin without them. We were on the highway by 6am. Around 8:30 or 9 we eventually got a phone call. Joy had overslept, but didn't know that Peter didn't make it either. Later we got a call from Peter...he had also overslept. Neither of them had heard their alarms or their phones ringing when we called. So the two of them met up and headed up about 4 hours after we had already left.

Sophie did really well in the car. She got a little fussy with about 2 more hours to go, but luckily Matt has family in Rockford, IL., so we pulled off the highway and hung out with them for a while. Thanks Ken & Diane!

We arrived in Brookfield, WI, at Matt's grandparent's house, around 2pm to this:

Talk about a white Christmas!! Nearly 2 feet of snow! We relaxed the rest of the day, waited for Joy & Peter, opened gifts between the immediate family, and celebrated Christmas with the whole family the following day on the 26th. Matt's aunt & uncle & cousins all came over to his grandparent's house, and once again there were many jokes & much laughter! Lots of fun! Saturday was spent relaxing a bit and checking out some after-Christmas sales at the mall & at Crate & Barrel. All too quickly we were up at the crack of dawn & back on the road again on Sunday morning. It was a wonderful trip, but was too short! The ride back was long, but Sophie was a champ & didn't fuss at all.

Here are some pictures of our trip:

Sophie with her Great Grandma! She's wearing an adorable dress given to her by her great-grandparents!

Sophie with her Great Grandpa!

Joy & Peter with their little niece. She's wearing a shirt that says, "Snow Angel," I thought it was appropriate under the circumstances. :)

This was taken Christmas evening after Joy & Peter arrived and we opened gifts. We were very blessed this Christmas on all fronts, and very excited about our new video camera from Matt's dad!! Once I figure out how to upload videos, we'll be sure to post a few on here!

Somehow we managed to forget to take pictures on the 26th when the extended family came over. So sad, because it was a great evening with lots of photo-opps.

Coming soon to a blog near you: Christmas Part I & Part IV. (Part IV hasn't happened yet.)

Christmas (Part II)

You might be thinking that you missed Part I. Well, we're doing things a little out of order this time around. The reason for this crazy adventure is because apparently we forgot to take pictures on my camera during Christmas with my side of the family...which was first in the order of events. We celebrated with them on Saturday the 21st, and then my sister-in-law stayed in town with Poppy & Oskar until the 23rd. So...I'm going to wait to post about all of that until I can steal some pictures off of my mom & dad's camera.

Anywho...We enjoyed our first Christmas together by first going to church Christmas Eve evening. It was a nice service and so special to hold our baby girl singing hymns of our Savior's birth. She drifted off to sleep at the end as we sang Silent Night by candlelight (one of my favorite things about the Christmas Eve service), and tears were in the corners of both of our eyes as we held her and each other. Such a wonderful memory to treasure.

We came back to our house to have Christmas with Matt's mom; her boyfriend, Mike; and Matt's siblings, Peter, Joy, & Mitchell. It was a fun time had by all! Lots of jokes, laughter, and smiles! It was very relaxed, too, thanks to Matt's mom who brought over dinner. Here are some photos of the evening:

Our first family Christmas photo

Proud Grandma

Mitchell & Peter

Joy, after rocking her niece to sleep. So cute!


Mike & Diane

Mommy & Sophie
I can't help it. I love this picture of us!!

Merry Christmas, everyone...albeit a little late. Parts I, III, & IV coming soon...but who knows in what order! Admit it, the suspense is killing you!

It just stinks.

Many of you know that I started back at work on December 4th. People have asked how that is going and I'm never quite sure what they want me to say. "Oh, it's WONDERFUL! I just LOVE leaving Sophie at 7am so I can miss the best parts of her day when she's all smiles and giggles! It's great to pick her up at 4pm when she's tired and I'm tired and we only have a couple more hours together before she goes down for the night! I love 'watching' other peoples' kids all day so that I can pay someone else to watch mine." I feel like the answer should be pretty obvious, but I know that's just me being cynical & rude. I know that the people asking are just trying to be kind and show that they care. And I know that they do.

So while that's been running through my head, my verbal response has been pretty much the same to everyone: "Luckily, I'm good at compartmentalizing, and when I'm at work I can focus on being there. The hardest part is walking away from her in the morning, but once I get to work I do okay." And I do. But I can't wait to get in my car and zoom over to whoever she's with for the day (she's been staying with family & friends until Christmas break) and grab her in my arms and smother her in kisses. And I do. Maybe if she weren't so stinkin cute it wouldn't be so hard and I'd shed less tears every morning. But she is...so the tears will keep coming.

People say "It will get easier." I'd like to be able to go back in time so I could remember who said that to me, because either they were lying to make me feel better about the crappiness of it all OR they never had to leave their baby in the arms of someone else every day and have no clue what they're talking about. Every single working mom that I've talked to has confirmed that it does not get easier. I know I've only been doing this for about 2 weeks now, but I can say that it only gets harder every day. The reality of it sinks in more and more, and it just stinks. In fact, that's a good way to sum it all up, and maybe it should be my new response to those who ask:
"It just stinks."

Thanksgiving 2008

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. I love the weather outside, the food, but mostly I just love a getting together with family out at the lake. This year was great because we had an addition to our family, our little turkey. My brother and his family also came out for the first time to meet Sophie. It was wonderful to catch up with my brother, Scott, and sister-in-law, Amy. Poppy and Oskar warmed up to us after a bit and were A LOT of fun to wrestle around with. They're getting SO big! Here are some photos of our time out there on Thursday.

Our family picture.
I don't know why, but I love that my brother and I aren't holding our own kids. I just think it's sweet and shows how much we love each others children. I'd do anything for Oskar & Poppy and I'm pretty sure Scott thinks Sophie's pretty cool too.

This just melts my heart. I just about cried when I looked across the room to see my big brother holding my baby girl. So sweet.

My cousin Brian is SO sweet with kids. Sophie was kind of a grump this weekend and every time Brian held her she cried. He totally thought it was his fault, but it never was. She just has her moments, and unfortunately they occurred while he was holding her. She really does love you, Brian!

Grandma with her granddaughters. She was in heaven!

A funny one of Poppy checking out her tummy. She is SO full of energy!

My sister-in-law, Amy, is a very talented artist. One of her specialties is hand-dying fabrics. She started up her own clothing business a while back and makes amazing clothes for babies and kids. She gave Sophie some beautiful clothes when they got to the lake. I am obsessed with them! She's worn them everyday since Thursday! (Don't worry, there were several different outfits.) This is just one of them:

We got to celebrate the season with Matt's family in addition to our time out at the lake on Thursday. Wednesday night we got to have a lovely dinner with Matt's mom and family. Lots of laughs and good stories! And on Friday, we were able to hang out with Matt's dad who was in from Chicago. Thanks for coming and visiting Grandpa Schaefer!

We are very blessed by and thankful for family this year.

Just Crazy

Did you hear the story about the girl who was on a run in Arizona, was attacked by a rabid fox, and had to run over a mile back to her car with it attached to her arm? Crazy. She was on Letterman the other night and told her story. It was pretty crazy. The fox attacked her and then sunk its teeth into her arm. She knew it had to be rabid, so instead of shaking it off (which probably would have ripped through her muscles anyway) she grabbed it by the neck and started running back to her car. The fox was worn out enough after the run back that it relaxed its bite, so she threw it in her trunk and headed to the hospital. I mean...that's crazy, right? I am just not that tough. She told the animal control people that it oddly smelled like skunk, and they told her it had probably killed and eaten a skunk recently...which is probably where it picked up rabies.

Ya know something else crazy? I wouldn't have been able to tell animal control that it smelled like skunk. Wanna know why? I can't smell skunk! Isn't that crazy? I have a very strong sense of smell, but I have never been able to smell skunk. Other people will be all like, "Ewww...do you smell that? Skunk. Gross." And I'm all like, "Nope. Can't smell a thing."

So there's your story for today. Nothing to do with my cute daughter...just some weirdo thing about her mom that she might inherit. Crazy.

(Feel free to share something you know is crazy in the comments!)

Problem Solved

I noticed lately that I have very few pictures of Sophie and me together, so I've tried to remedy this problem. Here are a few that we've taken recently.

Before a walk

I think we were heading out for a walk here too...can't remember.


Before a bath. (Sophie LOVES bath time. I'll post some pictures of that later.)

After a bath. We can't believe we captured that grin! So cute!

And lastly, a family picture. I've also realized how few family pictures we have taken.

A Special Gift

My aunt Jane made Sophie a beautiful quilt that came in the mail a week or so ago. We absolutely love it and today I took a bunch of pictures of Sophie on it. I think these are the first smiles I've captured on camera! She must really love her quilt!

And, yes, she has on her "I Voted" sticker given to her by the cutest old man working at the polls. He insisted that she have a sticker.

All swaddled up...right after her nap. Then I decided to release her since she was in such a giggly good mood!

Her hair is getting more and more out of control cute every day! We can't quite make it stay down in the back, and that's okay with us! :)

(Ignore her high-waters...the legs of this outfit aren't quite long enough.)

I tried and tried to rotate the two pictures that are sideways and couldn't get it to work. I've never had problems with this before, so I'm not sure what I did wrong. Just turn your head a little and they'll look right.

A Sleepy Story

Sophie didn't really nap well yesterday...just cat naps here and there. So by the end of the night she was a little beside herself. Not pretty. We had to run some errands, and we thought she might calm down in the car and sleep a little while we were out. No such luck. She calmed down, but didn't sleep. When we got home, we gave her a bath, she nursed, and then fussed a little more. So I swaddled her up, rocked her a bit, and then handed her off to Matt! Ha! I knew she was about to hit a wall and crash, but so was I. Within 15 minutes...Matt'll probably argue that it was less than that...Sophie was off in dream land. Beautiful. Off to the crib for her and into bed for me. (It was around 10pm by this point. She's usually out for the count much earlier than that!)
Well, the next thing I knew it was 3:30 and I heard her crying a little. I felt pretty good about that, because she's been sleeping for about 5-6 hours when we first put her down for the night. After that stretch she usually wakes up every 3 hours. So this was pretty typical and I thought, "No problem, I'll just nurse her and put her back down." So I went into her room and she was still sound asleep. I was a little shocked! I mean, she cries in her sleep fairly often, but I was shocked she was still sleeping so soundly. So I figured, what the heck, I'll just see how much longer she can go. I climbed back into bed figuring it would only be another 10-15 minutes. Nope. Wrong. THREE more HOURS!! That's right, Sophie slept until 6:30 this morning. 8 1/2 hours straight!! This is a milestone ladies and gents.
Hopefully it wasn't a fluke.

Announcing...

So, we're not really sending out baby announcements to everyone we know. Sorry if you were anxiously waiting by the mailbox. We're ordering just a few cheap-o ones from Sam's to send to out-of-town family, and I was able to cut and paste the "preview" after I made them on-line today. Here's what they look like. For a cheap-o generic announcement, I think it turned out pretty cute. It's a little blurry, but consider this your official announcement!

7 Things You Might Not Know

So the whole tagging thing seems a little silly to me, but I like the concept behind sharing things about yourself that your fellow blogging friends probably don't know. It's just fun.

Anyway, we were tagged by a friend and I'm going to go ahead and do it. Here are the rules that she sent me: Share 7 facts about yourself on your blog.* Tag 5 people at the end of your post by leaving their names as well as links to their blogs.* Let them know they are tagged by leaving a comment on their blog...

I decided to hodge podge things about all three of us.

1.) Katie: I don't like showering. Yes, you read that correctly, but only for the reason that it's just a hassle. I like the shower itself and find it quite enjoyable, relaxing, and refreshing. However, I don't like all of the work that comes after the shower. Dry my hair. Choose a new outfit. Put on make up. Style my hair. Slather on lotion. And on and on. It takes too long! If body odor and greasy hair didn't exist then I'd be quite content to never shower again.

2.) Sophia: She loves fresh air and sun. It was definitely our life-saver when she was first born, because the weather was so nice for so long. If she was crying or fussy, all we had to do was step outside and she calmed down. We'd go on walks and she'd fall sound asleep, but the second we stepped back inside (even if we kept walking around the house) she'd wake up and start crying again. Luckily Mom & Dad like being outside, too!

3.) Matt: I was born in the same town that Tea Leoni calls home.

4.) Katie: I love mashed potatoes. I could eat them all day. It is my favorite "meal" food. As far as my all-time favorite food it is a close tie with ice cream. I think I love both equally. One year at Thanksgiving, my aunt was in charge of bringing the mashed potatoes and she brought INSTANT mashed potatoes. That's just plain wrong!

5.) Katie: Speaking of Thanksgiving...it is my FAVORITE holiday. I love it because my whole family gathers out at my aunt & uncle's lake near Warrenton, MO. They've turned part of the barn on their property into a loft and we smoke the turkey in the big smoker outside...we also deep fry one. :)
It's better than Christmas to me, because the food is SO GOOD, the weather is still nice enough to take a long walk after we stuff our faces, and there's not the stress of getting presents for everyone. We just get to talk, play games, laugh, eat, and be together out in nature for a day. LOVE IT!

6.) Matt: He loves to cook. I'm always surprised at the new creations he comes up with. I enjoy cooking, too, but at the end of a long day at work it's the last thing I want to do. Matt, however, doesn't mind getting in the kitchen and coming up with something new and creative! (I took over this one for him, because #3 was lame and he was being a bad sport about thinking of something else.)

7.) Katie & Matt: We want to live out in the country. That may not be a surprise to some of you, but it is something we both dream of! We want to buy some land and build our own home someday...hopefully designed by Katie's brother who is an environmental architect.
My (Katie's) dream includes a weeping willow (my favorite tree) and a big oak tree in the front yard. I also want lots of woods surrounding our house so that our kids can built forts like my brother and I did when we were growing up.
Matt's dream includes a big greenhouse where he can have reptiles, birds, and lots of plants. (This will not be attached to the house if Katie has any say in the matter...it will have a huge pad lock and bolt on the door so little children can't sneak in without their father.)

And even though I think the tagging thing is silly, I'm going to do it anyway, because it's the only reason I ended up doing this myself. I'm not going to add comments to their blogs, so if you girls read this post and want to do it...then consider yourself officially TAGGED! :) And if you don't see your name below, but want to do it...then consider yourself tagged, too!

1.) Erin D.
2.) Jen N.
3.) Jessica B.
4.) Stephanie H.
5.) Katie H.

The Happiest Baby On The Block

Katie and I finally watched "The Happiest Baby On The Block" DVD last night. It was recommended by the nurse who taught our "baby" class and a lactation consultant. The St. Louis Public Libraries did not have the DVD in their system, but Katie's mother was able to obtain it for us through her library network. After Katie's mom watched it and gave us a glowing report, we were eager to find out how to have the happiest baby in this sector of the universe. I'm sure baby Wookies are pretty happy as they live in the lush wroshyr forests of the beautiful planet Kashyyyk. It has been a long time since I have played any Star Wars Battlefront games.

Ever since our little Wookie was born (she has a lot of hair, c'mon!), we were convinced that she was one of those few babies who refused to be completely swaddled. While we were in the hospital and adjusting to the first few weeks at home, she would scream and wiggle until her arms were free or we released our little bird from her cage. I'm sure she will use that analogy in a decade. Well, we stopped swaddling her completely. Sophia has been somewhat cantankerous lately, constantly fidjeting, waking herself up repeatedly during the night, and waking up whenever we would put her down. We were hoping our movie would remedy the situation.

As we watched the DVD last night, we realized we had given up on swaddling too soon and learned a number of new techniques to pacify and relax our little girl. After our movie time, we tried the techniques mentioned in the DVD and Sophia was soothed immediately. We swaddled her tight and followed the rest of the "program." We were amazed and still are. The developer of this approach and his methods are truly genius. If you have a baby and have not seen this, rent it, now. You, yes you, dear reader, rent it. Unless you are the baby whisperer already.

Good science demands replication of experiments. Last night's experiments confirmed our initial hypotheses and we are anxiously awaiting the collecting of data tonight. The pictures below depict little Sophia Grace sound asleep, comfortably and tightly swaddled. I swaddled her, positioned her at her preferred side angle, swung her for a few minutes, and she was out! Using the methods introduced by the DVD, we can soothe the wildest screams and squirms in minutes.
We already knew some of the information and had developed or stumbled upon our own techniques, but the DVD was immensely helpful.

Swaddle-Side/Stomach Position-Shush-Swing-Suck=Boojah!

What a cute little girl!

Our Little Pumpkin

Today we went to Rombach's pumpkin patch! It's in the area I grew up and I have a lot of fun memories of going there as a kid, so I wanted to start sharing the memories with my daughter. Sophie wasn't so sure about this adventure with Mom and Dad. She definitely wasn't the happiest pumpkin in the patch. I can't blame her, though, we were pretty unrelenting in trying to get a cute picture of her amongst the pumpkins. Here are some of the shots we got.

Sophie propped up against some pumpkins. Check out her cute pumpkin socks. Her bib reads "My first Halloween."

Propped up in a new way...still not happy.

Here's the dialog that occurred before the picture above:
Dad says: "Let's put her on top of a giant flat pumpkin."
Mom says: "What? Just lay her down all sprawled out?"
Dad says: "Sure. Why not?"
Mom thinks: This is really going to tick her off and won't be very cute.

Turns out...it was cute. Funny and cute.

Personally, I think this is the best shot we got all day.

The family.

Beauty Sleep

Sophie is getting more fun every day. She's finally responsive to us and is smiling more and more! Morning is my favorite time with her. I love how happy and giggly she is right after she wakes up. It's just so sweet!

Lots of people ask how she's sleeping, so I thought I'd answer it on the blog, too. She does great at night. Once she goes down anywhere between 8pm and 11pm, she'll sleep really well between feedings, and usually only wakes up once during the night. Some nights she'll go 5 or 6 hours between feedings, but usually it's 3 or 4 hours. Overall, she's letting me get rest and I don't really feel overly tired most days. That said, I am looking forward to her sleeping through the night for the first time.

We started using our cloth diapers last week. It was recommended to start using them when she reached 8lbs, and she was 9 lbs 5 ounces at her 4 week appointment on Oct. 6th, so we figured it was time. It's going great so far! They're still a little big, but she's doing well with them and doesn't seem to mind. These aren't just any cloth diaper. Forget the whole "pre-folds" that you have to pin together and put a cover over. Oh no. These are some serious diapers. They work just like disposables, but you don't dispose of them. You just take out the insert and wash them. I highly recommend them if you're considering using cloth. Go here to find out more!

I took this picture today:

She's snoozing in her diaper with the magic pacifier. I think I've created a monster with that thing. We try not to use it too often, but we've been relying on it more and more these days. It just works so well when she's tired and can't stop crying in order to fall asleep. Oh well. We'll probably pay the price later, but for now it sure is helpful.

With that aside...isn't she stinking cute?! Check out the rolls on that tummy of hers! She's gaining weight like a champ!

(P.S. Yes...we usually do put clothes on her. Today just seemed like a good day to go topless!)

All You Need Is Love

One thing is for sure...our little girl is loved! She will never be without people to coo over her and bathe her with smooches. And really, what more does she need? Okay...maybe a little food and a diaper change every now and then, but some good lovin' is equally essential!

Both of our families dote on her, but this post is a shout out to Matt's side of the family. Here are some pictures of her adoring fans:

Uncle Mitchell

Uncle Peter

Great-Grandpa Meyr

Great-Grandma Meyr

For some reason I don't have any pictures of Aunt Joy on our camera...so we'll remedy that very soon and get her picture posted! When Uncle Nathan comes for a visit, we'll get a few shots with him, too!

Sweet Sophie

Sorry for the delay about the pictures that my friend, Erin, took last week. They turned out to be SO cute! Much to my chagrin, however, little Sophie didn't want to sleep, so Erin suggested coming back again to try to get those sleeping baby pics that I wanted so much. I felt so silly going back, but I'm really glad I did, because they are adorable!! Erin is SO creative with her photography and I love all of the pictures she got of our family.

Go here to see the pictures from last week's photo shoot. The event code is: Sophia
Go here to see the additional photos that Erin took of her yesterday.

Thank you, Erin, for being so willing to have me back to get those shots! You're the best!

Pictures

I was telling Matt the other day that I just don't feel like any of the pictures we have taken show how cute Sophia really is. What's the saying? "They don't give her justice." Something like that. Niner.

Anyway, I'm hoping today will change all of that and I'll get to show you some stinkin' cute pictures of sweet Sophie. A good friend of ours, Erin, is a photographer and she's going to do a shoot with our little girl in a few hours. I'm SOOO excited! Erin is great and her pictures always turn out so adorable! (Check out her photos and art work here.) I just hope Sophie cooperates so that we can get those adorable naked sleeping baby pics.

Until then, here are some more pictures of our little Sophie taken by Matt and myself.

The classic "sleeping on daddy's chest" picture.

Snoozing with her arms stretched above her head. I totally do that when I'm conked out.

Her froggie outfit. The feet are little frog faces. So cute.

A proud dad

It is fitting that my first post on our blog occurs after the birth of our first-born child, Sophia Grace. I didn't plan for it to occur at this time, but I'm joyful it has.

We named her Sophia, which means "wisdom" in Greek, as our hearts were won over by wisdom literature in the Old Testament. Wisdom and Folly are personified in the book of Proverbs, both calling out in the sixth chapter, "Whoever is simple, let him turn in here!" Both "women" have something to give to those who respond to their calls, yet the delights and eventual path of the partakers are vastly different. Wisdom leads to life; the path of Folly leads to death.

In Proverbs 8:35-36, wisdom says "For whoever finds me finds life and obtains favor from the Lord, but he who fails to find me injures himself: all who hate me love death."

All who hate wisdom love death!

When God redeemed my life in 2001, I was in great need of wisdom. I still am. I had some friends from college who were attending Greentree Community Church and I started going with them. I was blessed to join the church and a community of believers who invested in me and took a lot of their time and energy to help me grow in my faith and wisdom. Amidst many blunders on my part as others were compassionate, faithful, and gentle in their correction and guidance, my heart was drawn to the wisdom literature of the Old Testament. I am in debt to many of you who read this post.

I rejoiced as I read Job, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, etc., gaining practical wisdom and insight. It became far easier for me to make decisions in life, obey the leading of the Holy Spirit, and know that my life had intention and direction. I try to read a chapter of Proverbs every morning. The thirty-one chapters match well with the typical thirty or thirty-one days in a month.

The name Sophia won our hearts as we began praying for her and journaling to her long before she was born.

I pray that Sophia grows to know the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
I pray that Sophia's life is marked by wisdom, that she makes decisions in obedience to the Lord.
I pray that she is a blessing to others, living in such a way that others are drawn or called to salvation through faith in Christ Jesus, the risen Lord.

We decided to give her the middle name "Grace" because we thought it sounded beautiful with "Sophia" and it reminds us, and hopefully her someday, of the undeserved, yet freely given, mercy we have received from God, our Father. I was a little slow in accepting the name because we have very dear friends, who we consider family, whose recently adopted daughter was given the name Grace when she came into the family. Anyway, this past week I grew to treasure the name. Great timing, right?




Baby girl and daddy's hand.


My wife has been an amazing mom to our little girl. I am so proud to be her husband. The Lord has richly blessed me.