Christmas 2015 - Kock Christmases (Part 1)

This year, my immediate family had our Christmas here in Omaha once again.

Everyone arrived on Friday night and we watched some TV, worked on a puzzle, Wade and I played a few games of Cribbage, and just hung out. 

Saturday morning was our "Christmas morning" so we got up and opened presents. It was Samuel's first time opening gifts. He would grab onto the paper and pull on it, but he really had no clue what was going on. Eventually he just decided to fall asleep while we continued.

All the kids

 After the presents were opened, we moved the party into the kitchen and made the big traditional breakfast of eggs, French toast, butter braid, sausage, bacon, egg nog, chocolate milk, fruit and an egg bake. After we were all full, we just hung out and rested and took naps and gradually got ready to head out for the Christmas Pageant.

This was the third time we've attended the Christmas Pageant at Westside Church here in Omaha. This year's show was titled The Waiting Room. It was once again a grand show with lots of music and dancing and live animals to accompany the story of Jesus birth.

After the pageant, it was back to our house for supper. We had lasagna and hung out for a while until everyone had to pack up and head out. The time went way too fast.

Thankfully it was just the first of many Christmas celebrations and we were all going to be together again in a few weeks!

Samuel Davey - Five Months

Weight:
It is a non-doctor appointment month, but from our estimate on our scale, he's at least 20 pounds... We shall see what he officially is next month!

Height:
Not sure here either, but he definitely seems longer!! Especially since some of his 9 month onesies are starting to seem a little short!

Clothes:
He's still wearing 9 month and 12 month clothes. Some of the 9 month things have gotten to be too tight or too short, but most are still in the rotation. I put him in an 18 month onesie a few weeks ago, and it was still very much too big, so I'm not sad about that :)

Sleep:
We hit a few rough patches this month in the sleep department, but that only lasted about a week or so and then we got back to what seems to be our relative normal. He averaged a little under 9 and a half hours a night in the last month with his longest being a little under 11 hours and 45 minutes and his shortest being 5 hours and 25 minutes. On the nights when he did wake up in the middle of the night, he usually would go right back to sleep after I fed him, but there were a few nights around Christmas when he'd wake up around 4:30 or 5:00 and did not want to go back to sleep. Those were some odd and not fun nights! Still, though, we have it pretty good in the sleep department.
I'm pretty sure that his sleeping problems had to do with the business around Christmas, not getting enough naps in during the day and not sleeping in his own bed or something. Things seemed to get back to normal for the most part a few days after we got back home from Christmas and when he got used to the whole daycare routine.
He spends most of his days at daycare now, so his napping is dependent on how good he does there. He sleeps in the car to and from daycare 95% of the time, so he gets a good 20-25 minutes nap each way (or longer if there's bad weather and it takes us longer to get there). His first few weeks of daycare were a little rough because he wasn't napping all that well. He had some days where he slept less than an hour total (like this last Monday when he slept for only 38 minutes!). He was pretty much a zombie those days... The end of this last week, though, he had three consecutive days with longer than 2 hour naps! So hopefully that will be the new normal! He's so much more pleasant in the evenings when we get home and we can actually spend a little time with him if he gets a good nap during the day! 

Likes:
Samuel loves attention! He loves to be talked to and played with and held. It just puts the biggest smile on his face! It's a good thing that he has lots of people around that want to give him all that attention! When he's laying down and someone is talking anywhere in the room, he will contort his body so he's able to see them and usually gives them a huge smile!
Samuel still loves to put everything in his mouth! His hands are the go-to thing unless he has any other object in his mouth! :) His teachers at daycare brought in snow for them to explore this past week and, of course, their comment about him was that he kept trying to put it in his mouth!
He went through a phase of squealing a lot and now he has been grunting and making different noises. I love it when he is vocal like that! He loves to stick his tongue out, so his sounds are normally accompanied by the tongue sticking out!

He also likes to be sung to. If he's getting crabby, we can usually hold it off for a little bit by singing to him in silly voices and getting his mind off of why he's getting crabby. That only lasts so long though! 

Dislikes:

Samuel really is a happy and content baby, so there isn't much that he seems to dislike on a regular basis. He doesn't like it when he's left along without getting any attention for an extended amount of time. Thankfully, that doesn't happen too often, so we don't have to worry about that much.
Of course, he gets crabby with certain things every once in a while, but there isn't anything consistent that he doesn't like!

Milestones/Development:
Samuel tried his first food on the 28th! He had prunes and he did really well with it. At first, he would try to get his hand up there to grab the spoon, but he figured out how to swallow the food pretty much right away. He didn't have much of a reaction other than his eyes got really big after the first bite, then he acted like he'd been eating them his whole life! Here's the video we took of his first bites! We'll stick with the prunes throughout this next month and then we'll venture out and he'll be able to try new foods!

On the 28th he also started to sit up on his own a little. We had sat him up a few times before that, but this was the first time that I really noticed that he was able to sit alone for an extended period of time (30 seconds or so) and balance on his own. Since then, he's gotten even better at it. I'd say it was about the 20th of January when he was able to start recovering when he'd get off balance. He will still try to straighten out his body or whip his head back and fall over, but he has learned that he can catch himself with his hands and sit himself back up to recover from his little wobbles. He needs to build his stamina with the sitting because it's hard work, but I can't believe how well he does! It makes him look so grown up to see him sitting up straight by himself!!

He seems to have discovered his tongue on the 3rd of January. He started sticking it out on that day and licking his top lip and now it has evolved into him just always sticking it out and squawking away. Very cute!

Samuel started daycare on the 4th of January at the Union Pacific Child Development Center. By the end of his third week, he has started to figure out their routine there. I think everything has been going great. We're kind of falling into a routine now. I'm sure it will continue to evolve as we figure out what works best for everything, but I think we're doing pretty good. You can read about Samuel's first day here.

Samuel having fun at daycare!

Samuel has discovered his feet and reaches for them every time he's laying down. He's even gotten the foot in his mouth a few times! You can see what I mean in the pictures below!

Some other 'firsts' from this month were Samuel's first time to a restaurant, which was The Emporium in Webster City when we were there visiting Great Grandma Fredericksen.

At The Emporium with Nana and Taylor

Samuel went to Lauritzen Gardens for the first time this month. He stayed in the stroller this time, so he just got to look around from there. We have a membership to the gardens, so I know we'll be back as he gets older and I'm excited to take advantage of all the kids' activities they have available there during the year as he grows!

And Samuel also went to his first sporting event on his 5 month birthday which was a UNO hockey game. He did really well at the game. He spent the first period looking around and was real happy and content and then right after the start of the second period, I held him so he couldn't look around anymore and he pretty much fell asleep right away and slept the rest of the time.

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Samuel is still mostly Buddy and Baby to me and occasionally Honey Bear (I seem to use that one the most when he's crying and he doesn't do that too often, so it doesn't get used much). Trent still calls him Stinker and Stinky

As I had mentioned last month, we were gone from the night of the 21st until the 27th to celebrate Christmas with our families. As I mentioned above he had a little trouble sleeping a few of the nights, but other than that, he was his happy self, maybe just a little sleep deprived version. Samuel was absolutely spoiled by everyone and we are so thankful that everyone wanted to show him love through those gifts. He did help to open a few presents because he likes to grab onto anything, but mainly just wanted to eat the paper. He didn't quite get what was going on other than that, but he'll figure it out by next year. We were so blessed to spend our first Christmas as a family of three this year!

Trent and I gave Samuel a few presents from us after we got home from all the celebrations away from home. I know he will have no memory of opening the presents and that we did it just for our sake, but it makes me excited to start our own family traditions with him next year that will continue until he's all grown up!

See how much Samuel has grown:
One Month
Two Months
Three Months
Four Months

Some extras!
(as you can see most of my pictures were blurry this month, so I was getting super frustrated. I don't know why I can't figure that out! He's so cute and it makes me sad that they're blurry!)

He's a big deal!

 Let's get real, he IS my blog now :)

Onesie from Lauren :)

Samuel's First Day of Daycare

Today was Samuel's first day of Daycare at the Union Pacific Child Development Center. 

He slept all night and woke up at 6:05, which was a pretty good time that fit into our planned morning routine! (All 5 of us slept in our room last night, too. No kennel for Millie or anything!! New year - new normal, I guess!)

Trent had gotten up around 5:20 to work out, so after Samuel work up I fed him and then handed him off to Trent when he was done working out. I finished getting ready and while Trent got Samuel dressed and gave him a pep talk (Samuel really didn't want to get dressed - he just wanted to keep playing!)

We had gotten everything ready to go the night before, which was huge, so we just had to plop Samuel into his carseat after everyone was ready to go and we were out the door at 7:03.

We pulled into the parking lot a little after 7:30. Samuel slept during the ride downtown and was pretty content in his car seat while I got him and all his stuff inside. There was quite a lot of stuff for us to get inside since it was his first day, so from here on out, unless we need to stock up on something, I should hopefully only have to bring him and his milk for the day inside.

I felt a little lost/unorganized trying to get everything in its place just because I didn't know for sure where everything should go, but I know we'll get our routine down as I figure it all out. 

Samuel had lots of smiles for Angie, one of his teachers, and stuck his tongue out at her in true Samuel style, so that made me pretty happy that he was in a good mood and not mad at me for leaving him (yet, anyway).

As I was leaving the room, I wasn't really sad, but I definitely felt strange. I had left him with other people when I went to work for a few months already, but I just didn't want him to realize at some point in the day that he was with strangers and a bunch of other babies and think that we had abandoned him... I'm not even sure his brain is capable of those thoughts yet... 

The infant rooms at the daycare line the parking lot, so, after I got in my car, I waited until a spot was empty outside his room and moved my car down and sat there and watched him for a while. First he was sitting in Angie's lap by some other babies and then she laid him by a baby and talked to them. He just kicked and looked around for a while. He looked perfectly content, so I made myself leave.

That's him laying there with the navy socks on :)

I called to check on him for the first time at 11:00. I had noticed that he hadn't slept yet (we get notifications on our phones as he does things throughout the day like get his diaper changed, eat, sleep, etc., as well as get pictures and videos of him) so I was mainly curious of what he was acting like since he hadn't taken a nap yet.

I talked with Connie, his primary teacher, and she said that he was doing great but he just hadn't slept. They had rocked him to sleep a few times and he had dozed off but he'd wake up when they put him in his crib. That's not surprising at all because that's the way it goes at home, too! She said they let him lay in his crib for a while after they put him down hoping that he would fall asleep, but she said he just laid there quietly and looked around for a while but never did fall asleep.

Finally, at 11:17, we got a notification that he did fall asleep, but it was only for a short 24 minutes. Then, around 1:00, he did take a great nap and slept for a whole hour in the afternoon!! I found out later that they swaddled him for the afternoon nap, so the baby straight jacket seemed to help!

By the end of the work day, I was getting anxious to go see him and hold him, so I took off as close to 5 as I could! When I walked in to pick him up this afternoon he was giving smiles to his teacher, Angie, and had plenty of smiles for me as well when he saw me! It was so great to hug him and give him lots of kisses!

Almost as soon as we started driving home he started moaning to himself as if he was finally relaxed and then shortly after that he was asleep until we got home. He also had some big smiles for his dad when we got in the house, so that made me happy.

We got home at about 6 and Trent had supper made (a scrumptious one at that) so we ate while Samuel sat on my lap. He was happy for a little bit, but before long, he was getting fussy, so Trent took him up to get ready for bed, I fed him, and then he was asleep right before 7.

Hopefully he gets caught up on his sleep tonight so we can do it all over again tomorrow!

This is the picture we got this afternoon of Samuel while he was playing at daycare.
I found myself looking at this picture on numerous occasions this afternoon. I love him so much and it makes me smile!! He just looks like such a big boy!

Happy New Year!! - Goals for 2016

Well, last year, I set a few goals for 2015, and, like many people I'm sure, I miserably failed!! I am going to use my excuse of the year for last year and say I didn't get them done because I was pregnant!! I was too busy being tired and planning for a baby and, eventually, was just in too uncomfortable to accomplish much after work (not to mention the whole having a new puppy thing). 

Sooo... I am going to set most of the same goals for 2016 and really try to work on getting them done - not that it will be any easier this year with actually having baby in the house! It would have been a lot smarter had I done it when he was in my belly when he was a lot easier to handle since he didn't cry or need constant attention or anything! ;) Oh well - lesson learned! 

So here are my goals for 2016:

1. Take a course on how to better use my camera.

I actually have this one about halfway done. I started watching a free course that I signed up for during the times that I have been in the lactation room at work by myself. That hasn't seemed to happen for a while now, as there seems to always be others in there with me lately (which isn't a bad thing), but I am able to watch 15-20 minutes at a time if I get in there by myself. I will probably need to watch some of the videos more than once to be able to really commit it all to memory and then actually watch the videos with my camera in hand, but it's a good start anyway!

2. Knit something

Sadly, the knitting stuff that I acquired at the end of 2014 hasn't even made it out of the basket I got it in. I just need to make it a priority and make this my extra curricular activity for a while! I guess I did accomplish the first step in knitting something which is make a Pinterest board about knitting ;) So maybe after I get all caught up from the holidays and get this whole having a kid thing down, I'll get to this one! It does sound like such a nice cold weather activity!

3. Finish my 2011-2014 (now 2015) Photo Year Books

 I did actually start a 2011 book, but that's about as far as I got on that one. I don't even really have a good excuse for this one. With all the TV I have watched, especially towards the end of my pregnancy, you would have though I could have gotten at least one more done, but no such luck. And now I have another book I want to get done for my mom along with a pregnancy book, so I've got my work cut out for me on this!!

4. Go hiking at Dayton Oaks where we got engaged

This one should be super easy, we just need to make it a point to get there on a weekend! We probably could have gotten it done this past fall, but there wasn't any way we were going to drive there when I was super pregnant or when it was super hot and then we weren't going to do it with a newborn, so we should be able to get it done this year! We've talked about even going with Samuel  and maybe even making it a tradition we do every year or every few years or something. Might be a fun thing! We'll see what happens with this!

5. Work out more than I did in 2015

I'm shooting low with this one because I worked out ONCE in 2015 that I remember... And that was just on the day after Christmas when our family played basketball... So unless you count all the walking I did throughout my pregnancy, I did nothing... This should be an easy one!

Even if I don't end up doing all these things I know 2016 will be another great year, just as 2015 was! 

I can't wait to see how Samuel grows and changes throughout the year and see what the year has in store in all aspects of our lives! 

Happy 2016 from the best part of our 2015!!