What a very Merry Christmas!

This was a big Christmas for us. We were blessed with a beautiful baby girl and it was the first year Chloe got into the whole Santa thing. She still wasn't into Santa, but she knew Santa would bring presents if she was a good girl. During one trip to Walmart they were taking free pictures with Santa. Chloe was sitting in the cart and we asked her if she wanted to sit on Santa's lap. As soon as we started to pick her up she immediately put on her brakes and tightened her grip on the cart. We didn't push the matter considering it was a ghetto Santa.

I started Christmas shopping early because of some awesome deals going on in the summer. Before I knew it we had a boat load of presents for Chloe (without spending much money) so she had a very plentiful Christmas, including a new little sister. I'm not sure she thought of Alanna as a Christmas present, but one day she'll be thankful for her.

Her big present was a little kitchen. I always wanted a kitchen growing up with all the little food, so maybe this was more a wish of mine, but luckily Chloe enjoyed it too!

Christmas Eve

Because Chloe's world was about to get a rude awakening with a new baby coming we decided to do an advent calendar for the month of December to make it an extra special month for her. We filled the month with lots of different activities...making sugar cookies, making paper snowflakes, eating treats, dancing to Christmas music, Christmas shopping, reading Christmas stories and Christmas decorating. We were doing pretty good until the week before Christmas with the new baby's arrival. The last activity we managed to fit in because Christmas just isn't the same without new Christmas jammies. Chloe opened her Christmas jammies on Christmas eve and she loved them. Here she is posing with her new duds on. What a cutie!!

The first week

This is where Alanna spent her first 4 days...on the bili lights. I think this might have been more painful for us than her, but she might think differently. The first week home from the hospital I'm always very emotional so when the baby cries I cry. Needless to say we both spent a lot of time with tear soaked cheeks. This time even when Chloe cried I cried, but that's a different story. Poor Jason...a house full of emotional girls!

Alanna had jaundice, so she had to be on the lights 24/7, except during feedings and diaper changes. Not only did she have to be on the lights, but she had to be stripped down to her birthday suit (and diaper) and then lay flat on her back with her arms in a jacket straight out to her side (see below). This position is the complete opposite of what a baby is used to so she obviously didn't like it. She would cry nonstop and I even called the doctor to ask if this was healthy for the baby. Fortunately she got used to the tanning bed and even slept on it at night. We were able to take her off the lights on Christmas day so she got her Christmas wish to be cuddled all day long!

Here she is...

Alanna Reese Feher granted our Christmas wishes and arrived early! She was born on December 19th weighing 6 lb 5 oz and 18 1/2 inches long. I woke up at 3 a.m. that morning with contractions, endured until 11:30 a.m. when we decided it was time to go to the hospital and stayed at the hospital for our Christmas baby delivery at 3:33 p.m. Once again it wasn't like the movies and all the drama, which was very disappointing for Jason. We had a very easy delivery and we feel very blessed to have Alanna in our lives.

I was very worried about being away from Chloe for 2 days, but lucky for us they removed the "no kids allowed" restriction and Chloe was able to come to the hospital to visit mom and her new baby sister. She was a little emotional and clingy to her dad, but that was to be expected. As you can tell she didn't want to take any pictures with the baby.

Momma and baby before

Momma and baby after

Our little peanut wasn't much bigger than her daddy's cell phone

All cleaned up with her hair styled with Christmas bows

I know, who gets to have makeup on in the hospital, but I had a feeling it was going to be the big day!Our little Christmas present, a few days early

Guess who turned 30?

Happy Birthday, Jason!!

Alas, Jason is now in his 30's, but that's ok because the 30's are the new 20's, right? Well, that's what I keep telling myself! For the big day I surprised him with a sleepover in Park City. Thanks to grammy, we were able to sneak away for the night. And, a birthday just wouldn't be the same without the new Halo ODST...finally!

Here's to your first year in your 30's. We hope to make it even better than your 20's. Love you!

My Midnight Madness

Doing something crazy when I'm 8 months pregnant has officially become a tradition. When I was 8 months pregnant with Chloe I went to the Journey/Def Leopard concert (no wonder she likes to head bang!). Then, on November 20th at 12:09 a.m. I saw the next movie in the Twilight Saga, "New Moon." Since I'm usually out like a light by 11:00 p.m. at the latest every night this was crazy for me, but we did it. My sister and I met up about 9:00 and decided to drive by the movie theater just to see what was going on. Of course there was a long line of blanket-wrapped mummies waiting to go in, but we weren't up for that so we killed some time by getting some candy and checking out the deals at Target. We were ok with sitting in the front row so we didn't get in line until the last half hour or so. The front row was right there waiting for us when we got into the theater. We knew it would be bad, but it was even worse than I was thinking. Luckily, the annoying megaphone manager came up to all of us in the front row and said he could get us better seats in a different theater. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that they were showing the movie on all the screens at midnight. So there we were, only waited in line for about an half an hour sitting next to the people who had been waiting all day. The moral of the story is DON'T STAND IN LONG LINES!! Thanks to my Milk Duds and Skittles I stayed awake through the whole movie. I don't like critique movies, so the only thing I have to say is go Team Jacob!!

Trick or Treat!

I'm beginning to think Halloween is the best holiday ever. What other time of the year do you get to dress up as a fairy princess, run around the neighborhood with your friends and stock up on candy? Chloe's costume was inspired by a tutu from Aunt Tiffy. Then we collected pieces along the way. The top was a garage sale find for 50 cents. Score!! So, off went bat boy and fairy to storm the neighborhood. Things were going great until we stopped at our house (the second house we went to) to find the scary scarecrow monster, aka Jason, passing out candy. That was enough to put Trayce on the edge, but then we went down a couple more houses where a 9 foot skeleton in the dark put Trayce over the edge and Chloe into my arms. The rest of the night the kids were freaked out by anything out of the ordinary, but they somehow conquered their fears and made it to the candy!

Pre-trick-or-treating sucker. Must have been blue raspberry...YUM!

Whenever I ask Chloe where her happy face is I get this look!