Baptism Day

On Saturday, George and his cousins were baptized at Blessed Sacrament. The potential for lots of crying babies was enormous, but not one baby ever made a peep. They were all so good and looked so cute in their christening clothes. George's gown we believe belonged to my dad's dad, Ryan's was worn by his big brother J.P., Madison wore Kelly's gown, and Caitlin got a new one. They all looked adorable and everything went off without a hitch. It was wonderful for Sean's parents to be in town for this special day and my parents were of course there as well. Sean and I are lucky enough to be godparents to all three Crist babies - that's a lot of spiritual guidance on our part! We chose my sister Laura and my cousin Shane to be George's godparents. It was a very nice celebration and here are some pictures from the day:

We all got to walk in with the processional when mass started.

Our big group up at the altar:George about to be baptized: Here's us!George and his godparents:

The Crist family with Sean and me:

Merry Christmas!

We hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas - our first Christmas with George was wonderful, he had plenty of people to hold him and tell him how cute he is! Here are a bunch of pictures from Christmas Eve with Sean's family and Christmas Day with the Balluff side. This first picture is Sean's parents with all of their Denver grandchildren - this pose did not last long at all, but how cute!!

With my mom, his Gaky (it stands for Grand-Aunt Kathy, it's what my cousin Luke calls her and it stuck!)

With his stocking Xmas morning:

Opening his present Christmas morning from my parents:

We thought this would be cuter, he wanted nothing to do with being a present under the tree.

With my sister, Laura:

Here's the O'Reilly family on our first Christmas as a threesome, happy holidays to everyone!

Fun With the Family

Sean's parents are in town for the holidays so they have gotten to spend some quality time with George. We've been over there a few times in the last few days to see Nana and Pa and his triplet cousins. Here is George with Nana and I believe Sean is holding Madison (I hope I'm right, Kelly!) The girls are identical and getting harder to tell them apart!

Playing around with Pa:

Today George got to join his cousins in their afternoon viewing of Baby Einstein. George fit right in, there's always an extra bouncy seat at Kelly and Joe's! George and Ryan were very interested...
G got to try out their jumpster - I think he would love one but it doesn't fit over our moldings above any door at our house, what a bummer!

Tomorrow we'll go to church with the O'Reillys and share their special Polish dinner called Wagilia that they always have on Christmas Eve. It's a meatless meal with lots of courses that you eat one at a time like bread with honey, peas, sauerkraut, barley, mushroom soup (I always get to sit that course out) and yummy perogies. I hope everyone has a wonderful holiday and we'll put Xmas pictures up as soon as we can. Merry Christmas!

Three Months Old!

Our little G is three months old today, I can't believe it! Here's what's new with George this month:

• He sleeps through the night almost every night now. He goes to bed very easily and when he wakes up around 7:00 or so, he doesn't cry. We just hear him start to talk to the mobile in his crib and laugh. Sean goes to get him and I hear him squeal with delight to see his daddy.


• He is getting so much stronger! He loves to sit up and stand up (with our help, of course). Kelly and Joe lent us their Bumbo seat (see picture below) and I think he'll really like that because he can see the action better than laying down.


• He has started to really notice our dog, Leo. Now he'll follow him with his eyes around the room and give him smiles. They are going to be good buddies pretty soon.


• He loves to listen to me read books. I started doing it consistently this month, and he sits on my lap and we read together in his room before he falls asleep in the afternoon. He loves "Polar Bear, Polar Bear, What Do You Hear?" because of it's illustrations that catch his eye and his new favorite is "Where is Baby's Belly Button?" (thanks to Kristin). The last page is his favorite when you lift the flap and there's a baby underneath - he always gives a big squeal when he sees that baby!

Here are some pictures from this morning for his 3 month photo shoot:

Sean's parents got to town yesterday so we'll be spending a lot of time with them this week, which is very nice! My sister gets here Wednesday night and George is being baptized with his cousins next Saturday. It will be a full week of family and friends and celebrating the year. We'll post again soon!

Video Success!

Here's George's first video blog entry. Thank you to Sean who knew how to get it up and running for me. Enjoy!

Random Cuteness

Nothing too major to report this week, so I thought I'd try to upload a video of George showing off his strong legs but it isn't working. Fellow bloggers, how do you get your videos to upload? Mine has been uploading for 25 minutes and I finally cancelled it because it was taking too long.

Anyway, if you could see the video, you would see that G has decided the past week or so that laying down is not so fun, he'd much rather be sitting up or standing up. When he's laying down, he tries to pull himself up like he's doing little baby sit-ups - it's so cute. Helping him to stand up usually calms him down when he gets upset and he gets this happy, concentrating look on his face. I love it!

Here are just some other random pictures from the past week or so:

This is George's "Rocky" look - we think he looks like he's going out to punch some sides of beef.

Here's the look George gives Sean when he gets home from work, he loves his daddy!

Modeling his cloth diapers and BabyLegs...

Falling asleep with Daddy...

Sean's parents get to town this week, I'm sure they're going to be very excited to see George and his triplet cousins. It has been beyond cold here in Denver the past two days, below zero even, so we've been staying warm inside. Hopefully it gets a little nicer so we can at least attempt to leave the house once in a while. Have a great week!

Christmas Decorating

Yesterday was our big Christmas tree decorating day and we started it by going to St. Nick's to get George his "Baby's First Christmas" ornament. I had never been there before - what an enormous place! They have an ornament for every single reason or hobby or profession that you can think of. I've never seen anything like it in my life. If you know someone who loves Soduko puzzles, go to St. Nick's because they even have an ornament for them. Here's the one we found for George.

I've been trying to get him to hold onto things lately, but it isn't really that successful yet. He'll grab hold of what I put in his hands, but he's completely oblivious to the fact that he's holding something. I tried to let him hold onto his ornament, but he just tried to suck on his hand and found it more difficult than usual with something in his way!



Here's the view of our decorated tree from George's perspective in his swing:

Today I put together George's stocking to match the ones I made for Sean and me last year. I love that we have George here for Christmas and each year it will get more and more fun!!

George's First Christmas Tree

Today we went up to the mountains to cut down our Christmas tree for this year and the whole family went! Sean found a beautiful tree where no one else was looking and I love it!

Last year when we cut down our tree, I remember saying to Sean, "Next year when we do this, I'll probably be pregnant." Little did we know that we'd have baby George along for the trip. He did a great job, mostly slept and I carried him around in his wrap. After we cut down the tree, we went to the fire station up there where they were serving chile and they had a Santa Claus there and pictures and I have to say, George's picture with Santa is the best thing ever. I'm pretty sure it's going out as our Xmas card so I'm not ready to post it and spoil it quite yet.

All the decorating that happened today was that I put the lights on the tree but they sure calmed down George was he was fussy earlier. He seemed to be mesmerized by them. Tomorrow we'll decorate the tree and try to track down a cute "Baby's First Christmas" ornament. It was a very fun day and now George is fast asleep with sweet dreams of Christmas lights and I'm headed to bed myself with sweet dreams of him.

Happy Thanksgiving!

We had an excellent first Thanksgiving yesterday with George. We went over to the Balluff's, of course, and had a very good meal and had lots of fun seeing everybody. George was passed around quite a bit, but he never complained unless he was hungry. It was the least I've ever held him in a day and when we got home, I needed some cuddle time with my boy!
From the looks of these next pictures, George managed to stuff himself with turkey, resulting in his enormous belly! When we went for his 2 month check-up last week, he weighed 14 pounds 10 ounces putting him in the 96th percentile for both weight and height. He's going to be a big boy! He only got one shot last week, but he handled it like a champ. He let out a scream as he got pricked, but calmed down right away and was fine all night.

We certainly have so much to be thankful for this year. We are so blessed to have our beautiful, healthy baby and I'm so thankful that I get to stay home with him for the time being. I love everyday that I get to spend with him and they keep getting more and more fun as George continues to grow and do more things each day. Happy Thanksgiving!

2 Months Old!

Our little George is 2 months old today! Like I did last month, here's a list of important things to know about our boy, G:

• He is an excellent sleeper (knock on wood!). We can now count on him to go to bed (not in the car seat anymore, that only lasted a week) around 9:00 or 10:00, sleep about 6 hours in a row, wake up to eat and then sleep until about 7:00. I only have to get up the one time to feed him, so it works out so nicely. Sean gets him in the morning as he's getting ready for work and brings him into the bed and we all snuggle for a bit before we start our day.


• He loves the mobile in his crib, the peacock that hangs above his changing table, and the Snoopy characters that hang in front of his bouncy seat. He will happily just watch any of those things and laugh all by himself at how fascinating they are!


• If he's upset, take off his diaper. He loves being naked.


• He gets his first shots tomorrow, I hope we both handle it alright!


• He sleeps whenever we visit friends. There are some people who have yet to see him awake. The car always puts him into such a deep sleep that he doesn't open his eyes until we've gotten out of the car, hung out with friends, passed him around, put him back in the car, and we're back at home. Then he's wide awake!


• He has grown out of so many clothes! I can't believe how many cute things are already packed away because he's such a big growing boy. He'll get weighed tomorrow, I'm guessing it's in the neighborhood of 13-14 pounds.


• We love how closely he'll watch us now and every single smile from him is the best thing we've ever seen. Even after a long day with just us, if Sean comes home and George starts smiling at him, I have to run into the room to watch - they just never get old!

The Many Faces of George

This week, George has shown us the extremes of his emotional range. He is really starting to smile more and even kick his legs when he's really happy. He seems to love looking at Sean and having him make silly faces and sounds. He was also thrilled yesterday when I sang "I like to move it move it" over and over and he also likes when I sing "The Wheels on the Bus." Here are a couple of his happiest faces:

On the opposite end of the spectrum, here is poor G looking as sad as humanly possible.

I'm such a horrible mother that I decided to reach for the camera when he made this face instead of comfort him (I did as soon as the picture was taken!). Everything is going well here. George and I try to do one thing outside the house everyday just to get us up and going. This week, we went to visit Katy and James in Longmont, went to our La Leche League meeting today, tomorrow we're having lunch with my friend Madelyn, and on Friday my mom's new work is having an open house. In closing, here are a couple cute picture of George and his dad falling asleep the other night.

A Boy and His Dog

Sean and I were very curious to see how our dog, Leo, would react to having a baby in the house. Here's what we've learned: wherever baby George is, Leo is never far away.

At first he was very disgruntled about being woken up all night, but now he's very used to it and absolutely hates being away from George and me. Getting him to even go outside to his lovely new backyard is a huge chore. But I guess that's a pretty nice reaction to the baby instead of destroying the house or something.

Here are some other random cute pictures of George from the week. He went to the doctor on Tuesday and he weighs 12 pounds, 15 ounces! What a chunky monkey! He has also blessed us the past 3 nights with sleeping for 5-7 hour stretches!!