There’s been another string of busy weekends in the Baxter household since I last checked in. Since I last wrote, our house hosted the Baxter Thanksgiving and Christmas! I’ve been meaning to write for weeks, and so I’m hoping that I can remember what I meant to write about.
Between Thanksgiving and Christmas my parents were once again able to visit Utah. They found plane tickets for a steal and just couldn’t pass up another chance to play with two little boys. As usual, I dreamt 
up a project for while they were here. I’m so thankful they are up for my crazy ideas! They have been so helpful with this new house and we are able to accomplish so much each time they visit. Having grandma babysit really frees up the other adults to get some work done. This trip’s project of choice was installing laminate flooring in two downstairs rooms. I got the laminate off the classifieds for a steal so we just needed to purchase trim, a couple random tools, and some painting supplies. I figure I will have both rooms re-done for about $500. One room has been and will continue to be used as a guest room, and the other room is in the process of being turned into a craft room/office. The flooring turned out great although progress has really slowed down since they left. I have managed to get the guest room repainted although NOTHING about that project went as I had planned. I took a day off thinking I could finish this project. What I thought was a one-day project has turned into a 3-4 day project. I will point out that wood paneling is a pain to paint, and because I decided to change the color half way through the project I was able to experience the joy of painting it twice (4 coats total). Yuck! As a side-note I did also let my parents have a bit of fun while they were here. The first night we took in the lights at Temple Square, later in the weekend we attended a family baby blessing and did some shopping, and before they left we had dinner with Jason’s parent’s and opened early Christmas presents.
At the end of November I put the finishing touches on my advent calendar. It was a Kaisercraft mdf craftwood kit that I painted/assembled/decorated/embellished myself. It was a ton of work but I’m hoping it can be a family tradition with the boys for many years to come. I hit up the dollar store this year for daily ‘prizes’ and each day William got to take a number out of the drawer to match to a numbered bag containing that day’s prize. It was pretty fun. We didn’t remember to do every day, but I’m guessing in future years William will make sure we get our treat every night. 
On Christmas day we hosted brunch with Jason’s immediate family. Doing brunch was a lot of fun, and way less stressful than the traditional holiday dinner. Everyone was off to nap time by afternoon–one of 
the most relaxing Christmases I’ve had in recent memory! Santa was very good to us this year. Daddy got an iphone 6, Mommy got a lawn edger and bought herself a couple new pans, and the boys (especially William) got completely spoiled. Our house now includes a large red Megaforce Power Ranger, an Ikea train set, some Mega Bloks, some pretend tools, a set of instruments, a nerf gun, lots of new clothes, a couple sets of toddler-friendly dishes, a play tent sewn by our neighbor, and quite a few other things I have forgotten to list. The purchasing of the IKEA train set was comical. I gave my sister-in-law Misty that idea for my boys, and her girls ended up wanting the same thing. Our exchange went like this: “M:My girls totally want the same thing as your boys. Do you want me to pick up two? S: Yes, If you think that’s a good idea. We’re dorks. M: Seriously. But efficient dorks. I’ll try to wrap them in different kinds of paper.” So she went to Ikea and purchased two of them..which reminds me I still owe her the price of one train set. 🙂 We purchased a real live potted tree this year, so Santa’s elves decorated it Christmas eve and then promptly planted it 2 days after Christmas. I’m hoping to get some seedlings and grow our own Christmas trees in the yard for future years. If our first experimental one survives til spring it will be even more tempting.
My little Christopher turned 8 months old the day before Christmas. He’s sweet as sweet can be all day long, but each night he turns into a ravenous night-nurser. I am becomming less pleased with this by the day, but we’ve not yet come up with a plan to put a stop to it. It’s easy to make excuses 
for his poor sleep–maybe he’s teething, maybe he’s too warm, maybe he has a tummy ache. He has been rather constipated lately. By lately I mean the last 2 months. I didn’t realize it had been so long until I checked in with the nurse at the pediatrician’s office for the second time, and she pointed out that I had called 2 months ago. Poor uncomfortable Christopher. I had been feeding him nothing but prunes, pears, peaches for 8 weeks and it had fixed nothing. Christmas eve I sent Jason off the the pediatrician’s office with our poor stopped up bug. Christopher was diagnosed with a stubborn case of constipation and a mild case of eczema. Maybe being constipated and itchy makes it hard to sleep. We were sent home with Miralax and prescription strength cortisone. So far he’s pooped 4 times today (we’re still adjusting the dose) and his rash is almost gone…sleeping however is a different story. In other Christopher news he’s still a little gummy toothless smiler, yet he’s managing to get better and better at self-feeding a variety of foods including some which I wouldn’t expect him to handle very well with his lack of teeth. He’s still not crawling, but has mastered sitting up and scooting in circles around his play table. Just this past week he’s starting waving…which is pretty much the cutest thing ever. He also mimics “ba ba ba ba”–it cant’ be too long before we get a few ‘ma-ma’ or ‘da-das’ in the mix.
William was uber-excited about Christmas this year, but is still young enough to not have a concept of time, and therefore went to bed without an issue on Christmas eve, but also thought Christmas day should have happened about 4 days in a row. He learned some fun Christmas songs at daycare so we were serenaded with “We wish you a Merry Christmas” and “Jingle Bells”. He is pretty obsessive about legos lately–crying when he has to leave them at daycare. Thankfully grandma Marion got him some Mega Bloks for Christmas. Maybe leaving daycare will not be so traumatic next week. His imagination runs wild these days. It seems everything has a story of some kind–usually about fighting bad guys.
Now that I’ve sent out Christmas cards, and given out Christmas gifts, I can officially write about having our family pictures updated to include Christopher. One of my co-worker’s wives did a family mini session with us at the end of October when the leaves were pretty and the weather was so warm. Keeping this event a secret from the Grandmas was hard on me! We got all dressed up, had the perfect lighting, the perfect weather, the perfect photographer (www.nataliefeltphotography.com) and then my smiley Christopher decided to be a stone-faced soldier, and my 2 1/2 year old William decided he wanted to wiggle and run like a maniac. I was terrified we wouldn’t get a single family picture, but I’m very pleased with how they turned out. Thank-goodness for digital photography and a talented and patient photographer!
On the days that I feel burnt out and sleep deprived (which are a lot of days lately), I try to remember that overall, 2014 has been good to our family. In 2015 I resolve to get out and get moving again, figure out how to have a few more date-nights with my husband, and come up with a strategy to separate the things I NEED to do from the things that I WANT to do. Wish me luck! Happy New Year!
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