Gagne family Christmas

bathtime



dressed for our Gagne family Christmas. we planned to have it on December 31st because we already had plans with other parents for Christmas and the Gagne's bought their first BC home together and took this vacation time to move :D

Christmas sweetheart. she explained "polka dots!" when she put on her dress

opening a present from the grandparents

sweet babies

visit to grands gagne's new home

chillin' at home

happy to be outside and in the stroller!

my brother and miles. miles was not liking the sun at all

me & ezekiel on the move

my parents (gagne) new neighbourhood...so beautiful!

slide!

happy!

he's making the "pee" face

my cute men

chillin' with grandma g

getting bigger and bigger

Christmas Morning

ORANGE: the best part of her stocking :D

reaching deep into her stocking (this angel stocking was mine as a little girl. i had to do some late night mending on Chistmas eve).

reading the Nativity story with daddy

playing with a new puzzle. she loves puzzles and colouring right now. she was also really helpful in handing ezekiel his stocking and presents and she got to help open them. here he is with his first rattle.

playing trucks with daddy.

opening gifts with auntie M (derek's sister) over the phone in California

grandma & grandpa gagne came over for Christmas brunch. they've been taking the holidays to move to their new home.

freshly bathed buddy

our older baby burrito

Christmas Dinner with several Mellengers

poppa and grandma mellenger meet ezekiel. they had been waiting on the sale of a house on the Island and were not sure they could make it over for dinner. thankfully they made it and were able to visit the grandkids, and the big kids (us) too. diedre got a super cool purse and ezekiel got some cute festive items and a track suit for when he gets older.

the twins (derek was really into swaddling big kids today)

playing with miles' new playdough set

one month old

things with ezekiel have been going really well. he turned one month old on Christmas Day. he seems to have some good sleeping habits so far. he wakes fairly early (like 5 or 5.30 am) then naps around 8am for anywhere from one hour to nearly two. he then naps around 10 or 11am for two to three hours. he has other naps in the afternoon and hits his fussy time around 4.30pm and it lasts around 45 minutes before he falls asleep or just calms down. he usually goes down for the night around 6 or 7pm and sleeps until 10 or 11pm which is great. then his night wakings are around every 2-3 hours.

by one month he has rolled over, done a push-up with his upper body, smiled, made cute sounds and is very active with kicking and batting his arms.

diedre is doing really well in relating to him. she is excited, very excited, to see him in the mornings. she asks about him if we put her in the car first. she helps out anytime she feels like it (she used to always want to throw out the diapers for us, but now she lingers a little too long holding them so we have temporarily taken back that responsibility).

diedre's sleeping patterns are a disaster at this point. thankfully derek is off work and very willing to help soothe her and get her sleeping. she has gone to bed at a reasonable time maybe 3 times in the last 3 weeks. she still wakes up at 5.30am regardless of her bedtime. we are continually working to try to get her back to getting to sleep on her own...oh those were the days!

kids pics

victory for mom...she fell asleep here for her nap. its been a real struggle to get her to nap, although she'll fall asleep in one minute if we're in the car anytime after 1pm.















ezekiel trying to do a push-up

ezekiel rolls, diedre naps

ezekiel rolled over today! stomach to back (the easy way) but still, he is really young to be doing that! just over 3 weeks old.

anyway, diedre slept alone in her room on saturday and sunday nights. she napped in the car on the way to each party (an hour or close to each day) and then was asleep in the car when we arrived home. she woke up lightly but managed to fall asleep alone. she is sleeping on her side of the futon on the floor.

also, she napped today in her room for a looong time and since we have Care Group tonight, i figured it didnt really matter. maybe she's coming out of her separation anxiety, i sure hope so!

i am so happy to have had a nap finally!!! yay!!! that being written, derek has made it possible for me to have morning naps when he's around (on the weekends) but its not quite the same as the afternoon naps when i need to be recharged.

also, some friends that i've met through playgroup threw ezekiel a baby welcome today. it was really nice :)

diedre has received many nice big sister gifts so maybe that's helping to ease the anxiety too ha ha

beta blogger

well, i thought i had switched to beta blogger a loooong time ago, but apparently i had just signed up for it but not activated. anyway, its done now so hopefully people will still be able to post comments (you need to be signed up for beta blogger in order to post, i believe).

family party 2

diedre got to have some great cuddles with kitty at my aunt Susan's house






poor ezekiel was not a big fan of the noise at either family party. it was really stressing me out and probably not helping him to calm down.

i just felt like people wanted to see him and talk to me about him but he was so fussy and i could not calm him down. i figured people did not want to hear a crying baby at the party.

it was so hard for me to just let it be, i was so overtired having not had a proper sleep or nap for over a week (since diedre has been resisting bedtime and not napping) and i was definitely not coping well. my mom and derek came to the rescue and that really helped.


watching a Christmas puppet show.


santa arrived with a special gift for each child. here is miles manoevering through the crowd.


diedre received her first tea set (the teapot plays "i'm a little teapot") and had her first tea party with Lizzie.

VIDEO: diedre dancing


daddy with a happier ezekiel

m'boy's 3 weeks old

looking for a party

lining up the bowling animals

diedre was quite upset to see the animals knocked over

but she loved standing them back up

basket of fun

perfect fit


little mama

my brother & sister-in-law

cousin alexa


aunt deb