Busy Bears

We have been very busy bears lately. It feel like we have hardly been home at all, but i guess it is that time of year. I am on vacation and getting to spend lots of time at home with my girls, which is really nice. We also have lots of family in town for Thanksgiving which adds up to a lot of fun activities  and adventures for us.

The good thing about the holidays season and all the extra family in town is that we have been getting invited to a lot of meals. It is really nice not having to cook or worry about dinner, as I have stated in past posts throwing a baby into mealtime causes all kinds of chaos. I am starting to feel guilty about all of the free food though. We definitely owe a lot of people meals sometime soon. Friday night we ate with the Campos family, they made us some delicious Lasagna. It was very good to spend some time with Lynda and Charles again as it has been a pain for us to get out much lately, you get to feeling like a prisoner in your own home. Jennies sister Wendy got into town on Sunday so we have been spending time with her and her family at both of Jennies local sisters houses. We have barbecued, started(but failed to finish) a puzzle, and eaten lots of yummy food that I didn't really need to eat (I suppose I will have to deal with it at New Years) and just kind of hung around and enjoyed each others company. I feel so privileged to get to join in the festivities this year. Normally I am working and only get to be at the meal on Thursday. I am finally getting the full on Bowler T-Day experience. 

We have also started getting in to the Christmas spirit already. Sunday morning we got up early, for us, and went back over to Casa de Campos to help with Project Christmas Child. Project Christmas Child is a program where you pack shoeboxes full of goodies and toiletries and they deliver them to underprivileged children around the world. The girls watched the babies while the men packed and wrapped boxes. We also shared a nice breakfast together. I wish we had been able to help a little more, I really only packed a few boxes and wrote some letters to put in them, but we had other plans that day and had to leave after a few hours. Nevertheless, it felt good to start out the season giving back in some way rather than worrying about presents and shopping. I hope that it helps brighten the day of the kids that receive them. It seems my brother started Christmas early this year as well. He is a paramedic on a Life Flight helicopter and apparently they spotted Santa's sleigh broken down on the side of the road and had to give him a lift in their helicopter. I bet when he was a kid he never thought he would be doing that when he grew up. 

In Ada news, there is a little bit to report. We seem to have found a bottle/nipple combo that works. It turns out after buying varied expensive setups with all the latest in nipple technology that she prefers the cheap old Nuk bottles that have nipples just like her pacifier. I wish she would have just told us that from the beginning...She has informed us rather passive aggressively that she is not pleased by our level of housekeeping. Yesterday after waking up and eating she decided to spew exorcist style all over our bed prompting an immediate sheet washing, that was a good time. Other than that she has enjoyed spending all the extra time with her Aunties and I think she is even starting to get used to riding in the car which is a bonus for us. Up until recently are car rides have been made to the soundtrack of Polly Prissy Pants' fire truck siren wailing. It is good to hear music again. With Thanksgiving tomorrow I am sure we will have lots of new stories and photos to share so check back soon, Love you all and Happy Thanksgiving!

Packing boxes for Operation Christmas Child

No Aunt Wendy, I am a bear not a turkey!

My Brother giving Santa a lift

"Please God fix these Monkeys you left me with"

Ada's Photoshoot

We got back some of Ada's pictures so I thought I would put them up here. No update today but I am off all week so I plan on doing another one soon! Happy Thanksgiving!

Ouch!

Tuesday was eight weeks since Ada's birth, so that meant a trip to the Doctor today. The good news first:

1. She has grown 2 inches and is now 22 and a half inches
2. She is up to 11 pounds 1 ounce 
3. Her head is big (no surprise there...lol)
4. She is perfectly healthy and meeting all her milestones

The bad news is it was her first time getting shots. The Pediatrician that we see is very good, but that is kind of a problem. He spends alot  of time with his patients, which means every time we go it is a long wait and she is usually not happy by the time he shows up. Being that the shots were at the end of the visit she was not in a very good mood to start with. She received her oral vaccination first and instantly spit it back up. Jennie was able to talk the guy into letting her give her the second one and did a much better job of giving it to her slowly, and Ada was able to keep it down. She received 3 shots and as you can probably guess she started crying loudly, Jennie started crying too, so it is a good thing I was able to sneak out of work and meet them there so that I could try to comfort Jennie while she tried to comfort Ada. I think we will all survive.
In other family news. We had our friend Robyn who is a freelance photographer take some pictures of Ada. We have not got them back yet or would have posted some, but we will share them as soon as we have some. Ada is growing up, as I stated earlier. We have had to move out of newborn clothes fianlly. Some of the 0 to 3 ones are a little baggy but the tight NB ones looked equally silly and it is fun to put her into new outfits everyday again. We are also still trying to find a good bottle/nipple combo that works. She hasn't quite figures out the bottle yet and they all seem to flow too fast for her causing her to choke and get really angry, so we still have work to do on that front. We are very excited that I am on vacation next week and we are looking forward to watching lots of football and hanging out with family. We will talk to you next week and fill you in on how that went. Also I started a new blog where I will be posting things not related to Ada and family so please check that out here www.thesewordsigive.blogspot.com

The real author of this blog

Tigger towel 

At the Doctors 

New Big Girl Clothes

The Many Adventures of Honey Bear

Time marches on at the Reese compound. Bear (that's the nickname we have given her) continues

to get bigger, and we keep slowly becoming parents. We didn't do too much new or exciting this last week, but I will fill you in on what we did do.

Last Sunday we took a family trip to the mall. It seemed like a good idea at first, but once we got there she suddenly seemed very small, and we realized that she is not quite big enough for crowded public spaces yet, especially since she hasn't gotten her immunizations. We were however, able to get our family Christmas ornament. Yearly ornaments is a Reese family tradition, and one that Jennie and I have adopted. Every year we pick out a special ornament with the year printed on it to hang on the tree, and then we get each other one as a gift. We have added to the tradition by getting one when we go on vacation as well. I might do a special blog series on here at Christmas time about our ornaments now that I think about it. Anyway, this year we got a "babies first Christmas" one while we were at the mall. We can't wait to hang it on the tree!

Other than that, we had a few dinners with family that were nice. We broke bread with the Bennions on Sunday and saw their famous new fancy kitchen. Then Monday night we had a Halloween party with the Sheahans. I posted Ada's cat burglar costume last week. Over the weekend we went out to eat twice, albeit one of the meals was only Denny's. Then Saturday night we went to Grandma and Papa Sheahans to watch a football game and snuggle with grandma in her rocking chair. We finished off the week at omelet with the Bowlers (monthly family dinner). It was a pretty nice weekend, and great to spend so much time with family.

That is all for this week. I have vacation time coming up thanksgiving week so we are looking forward to that, and decorating for Christmas soon. All of the holidays seem fresh and new with our little Bear around. It is a very exciting time to be a Reese!

Snoring Contest

Big Girl in a Bumbo

Pretty Bow

Enjoying The Outdoors

Baby Steps

Today Ada is six Weeks old! She is doing such a great job and I think we are getting the hang of things a little bit as well. I took a week off because I was deep in email conversation with the Bowlers, and I felt like they were probably tired of reading me talk. There has been so much going on with Ada in the last two weeks though I felt it was time for an update.

We had been having a really rough time about two weeks ago. Ada was crying for hours at a time every evening and we couldn't seem to figure out why. She was also staying up for a good portion of the night and her and Jennie were hardly ever making it to bed. So we did some reading and other research and decided to try and make some changes and they seem to have worked. It turns out she needed a little less attention, in the evenings rather than being held the whole time, she likes to lay on her back to play and sing. We also found that white noise is the most powerful baby sedative that you can find. I found a phone app that has 40 different types of noise. She loves it! She is also sleeping through most of the night in bed, waking up just to eat. This means Jennie is sleeping and feeling better too. 

She has taken a few bottles now too, which has allowed us to leave her for a few hours with someone and have an adult dinner without running out of the restaurant. She is such a big girl. The other big development has been some random little smiles, it is so cute. We can't wait until we get the full on real thing. We are going to start transitioning her out of our bed and into her bassinet. The Kitty is starting to get a little less scared, and a little more interested in her and has been smelling her in her co-sleeper. He has a tendency to walk across sleeping people so we think it is best to get her into there as soon as possible. Plus it will help when Jennie starts going back to work next month. 

I know I am forgetting some things, I will write another post when I remember. I am a little tired. We hope to have some professional family pictures soon, so we will keep you all in the loop on that. With the Holidays and vacation time coming up I am sure we will have lots of fun things to report. So keep in touch!

I Was a Cat Burglar for Halloween 

She Loves Bath Time

Playtime With Daddy

Steven Thought He Needed to Check in on the Photo Shoot