O Christmas Tree!

Weslee's first look at a Christmas tree

Ah, a tall tree! After 4 1/2 years of marriage, we finally have a tree taller than 3'! I hit the sales after Christmas last year and scored a 6 1/2' tree for only $10 at Wal-Mart. Go me!
Life at our house is never boring, and putting the tree up was no exception. I had put all the bottom branches on and fanned them out nicely, when I realized the top section just wasn't going on right. Ken, in all his brute strength, tried to force it on a little harder. Instead, the base of the tree that holds the legs snapped, and the tree fell over. I (along with a little help from Ken) spent the next hour super gluing and holding the cracked pieces together in hopes that the tree could be salvaged. That super glue was worthless- it didn't hold anything together except my fingers (I'm lucky I'm not typing with fingers permanently adhered to each other). We tried a little duct tape over the broken pieces, and that held for a couple minutes, but the base still gave way under the weight of the tree.
Finally, in a last-ditch effort to salvage the tree I'd spent so much time putting together, I grabbed the roll of duct tape and started wrapping it around the base. It worked. Half a roll later the tree stood up as straight as it originally had. Afterward, Ken found the tree's warranty (who knew fake trees came with warranties?) and discovered we still have a year left on it, so hopefully they'll send us another base to the tree so I don't have to buy another one this year.
Weslee was in awe at the tree when I showed it to him in the morning. We put it all together while he was asleep- one so he would be surprised, two so he wouldn't get in the way. Hooks and glass ornaments do not mix with the fast little hands of a baby. He just stood and stared at the tree for a few minutes before trying to figure out how to get to it. I'm glad we have a gate to put around it.
I think we'll go shopping this year for a "baby's first Christmas" ornament. Right now we have Ken's first ornament (from 1985) on the tree, since it's for a boy. I'm so looking forward to getting to show Weslee what Christmas time is about. I know he won't understand about Christ's birth this year, but he will get the joy of all the new things happening around him, and that's still pretty cool.
Next on our list is decorating the rest of the house and putting lights up outside (that's Ken's area). This will be the first Christmas we've really had the whole house decked out. I feel like a "real" family now, starting our own traditions that we can follow through the years.

raspberries for dad

Ken and Weslee making raspberries at each other at The Chowder Bowl.

weslee's first beach trip

Dad and Weslee, first time touching sand

First time touching the ocean

Family photo

Trying to comfort Weslee

Enjoying the view from his high chair at The Chowder Bowl

Last Monday we decided to take an impromptu visit to Winema beach, and have a little family adventure. Weslee did terrific on his first longer car ride, and was very excited to see everything when we walked to the beach. The excitement ended the second Ken put him down on the sand. He did not like the sand, and he did not like the ocean... so Weslee is not a fan of the beach just yet. Hopefully when he's a little older he'll enjoy running around and making sand castles. For now, it was a fun experience, and a learning experience for us for future trips. We headed down the coast to Newport after the beach, and had dinner at our favorite place, The Chowder Bowl. Weslee loved the restaurant, and enjoyed watching all the people. Hopefully we'll find more days where we can make little trips as a family.

almost 6 months

Time sure flies. It doesn't seem like it's been half a year since Weslee arrived. Just yesterday we were bringing him home from the hospital and carefully handling our fragile package, right? Our little guy is sure growing! He went to the doctor last week and weighed in at 17 1/2lbs! That's nearly triple his lowest weight- holy cow! He can now sit up on his own, and bear walk (hands and legs straight instead of knees) to move himself across the floor. He tries crawling when he really wants to be somewhere, but much prefers if mom and dad get things for him. He love his feet, and is usually playing with them in some way. Right now he's lounging next to me with his Ellie-Phant in his hands, clapping his feet together like a seal. He's deep in conversation with the toy, lol.
He still doesn't have any teeth that have broken through, but we noticed another little white bump almost where molars should be on the bottom right. Now we wonder if he's going to have a bunch of teeth all come in at once... poor kid.

We're looking forward to the 6-month appointment with the doctor to hear her opinion on how Weslee is doing. He's always been a little bit ahead developmentally. If crawling goes like sitting up, he may be doing it by 6 months. We're excited to see what he's going to do with his first solid food. I found a recipe for homemade brown rice cereal that I'm going to try since it's more healthy than processed white rice cereal.

Hopefully I'll keep up on blogging fairly regularly now that Weslee can kind of amuse himself for short periods of time.

my view on santa

It seems that I've had many conversations this holiday season about Santa Claus and what we will be teaching our son. Ken and I have talked about this for a while now, and we have decided not to teach our children that Santa is real. Instead we will treat him just as any other fictitious character our children would know about from books or the media. It seems to be the most sensible approach that I can think of.

I know that I want to teach our child about Santa before somebody else does. It is much better that they hear from us that Santa is based on a real person who used to help the poor instead of being a real person who is magical. Christmas in our house is about Christ, and there's no reason to perpetuate the belief that Santa comes into the house to give good kids presents at night. We're not even convinced that presents are all that important, unless we're giving the kids something they really need, like new clothes. I know that we're going against the norm, and even against what our parents did when we were little. It doesn't sit well with me to lie to a child, though. I think that kids are perfectly capable of understanding that certain things are not real. My nephew loves lights, frosty the snowman, and other holiday things, but when asked why we celebrate Christmas his answer is, "because Jesus loves us." Even a child can tell the difference between fun fictional things and the real reason behind this winter holiday. I wonder why adults think they won't be able to handle the truth.

I do think that the idea of Santa can offer a somewhat tangible example of somebody displaying Christ-like qualities that kids would understand, like being charitable, loving one's neighbor, caring for widows/orphans. We make parallels between things today and things from the Bible, and I see no harm in pointing out to children the positive actions the original St. Nicholas did. I do not believe the character himself is inherently evil, but the way society exalts him to a god-like status is wrong. It is no different from the way we worship food, tv, sports, comics, video games, etc. It just happens to coincide with a holiday dedicated to Christ. In reality we should be worshiping Christ every day, not just on a select few days of the year. We must be careful not to let anything become more important than our Savior.

That's my view on Santa- fictitious character based on a real person who did nice things to help others. Great opportunity to segue into Christ's characteristics and the real reason we are celebrating Christmas. After you discuss it with your children there's really no need to re-approach the topic, since I think kids are pretty smart and there's a reason Christ said our faith should be child-like. They know that Jesus loves them, and they accept it. Santa need not be a substitute.

Christmas is coming

I am so ready for Christmas! I've been avoiding all of the Christmas advertisements on TV for the past week, but now I can embrace them since Thanksgiving has passed. I have two rooms full of boxes from the apartment that I still need to put away, but as soon as it's done I'm decorating our house for the holidays! Ken and I will be working hard to find a place for everything today so I can start decorating by Monday. We've only got a few weeks left in the holiday season, and I want to make the most of it! There's just something about all the beauty of the colors of this time of year that makes it so special to celebrate Christ's birth.

I'm looking forward to all the holiday baking, and then sharing that baking with family and friends! I still have all the ingredients out for my apple muffins, and hopefully will have some time to get to them today after the walk-through at our apartment. I am SO happy to be done there! We spent the entire day emptying and cleaning the place yesterday, and I'm hoping all that hard work pays off today.

Every time we move I swear I will never do it again because it always ends up so stressful. Now I'm looking forward to being able to decorate the house, and then the Weslee's room, which will be pretty exciting for me. I can't wait to take pictures of the finished product to show everybody!

'tis the season

This time of year is my favorite! It's nice and chilly outside, perfect weather for sweaters and scarves. This year Ken and I get two Thanksgivings- one at his parents' house, and one at my parents' house. It's a week of festivities!

I'm thinking about decorating the apartment, and trying to decide how I will do that. I know I want white twinkle lights- everywhere! I think the tiny Christmas tree will go in front of the fireplace for now, and it's easy to move if we decide to have a fire. I will also be rearranging our guest bedroom in hopes that I can somehow find more room in there! I don't know what we'll do when we have to make room for the baby.

We've had maroon and silver, and blue and white so far since we've been married, and I think this year I want white and silver- like snow. Maybe if we're lucky we'll actually get snow this winter! Yay for winter! Yay for holidays! Yay for Christ who was born and died for our sins!