Getting Ready For Christmas

Lane is just loving his little sister. Estelle is awake more often now, although she slept most the day yesterday. I am hoping that she is sleeping a little better at night before we go up to WA! Last night she woke up every 3 hours, which was good, but I really don't know what to expect each night.
She took her first bath on Tuesday. She did good, and only fussed a little bit. She had her 2 week appointment on Monday. She weighs 9 lbs 10 oz. I can tell she is getting longer and chubbier. She is pretty much out of newborn clothes and into 0-3 months and is wearing size 1 diapers. She is such a sweetie.

The day after Thanksgiving we got most of our Christmas stuff out. Now all we need to do is put some lights up outside. Lane was all about decorating the house and the tree. We had clusters of ornaments on the tree and random decorations placed through out the house. I love how excited he got. We have had a busy week and I am hoping next week will be calmer. It's a little chilly in our house today. We can't use the heater. Yesterday I had maintenance and an exterminator at the house, today I am waiting for someone to fix the heater, and clean out our heating ducts. Yesterday morning we woke up to a pile of insulation/duct tape, etc on the kitchen floor that had flown out of the heating vent. My first thought was mice or rats, the exterminator came and confirmed that that probably wasn't the problem but that a hose was detached from the heating unit in the attic and was just sucking stuff from the attic and blowing it throughout the ducts. Nice.

I wanted to hang up Case's stocking with Lane and Estelle's. Lane likes it and told us that he will have to open Case and Estelle's stocking presents. I am trying to think of something I could put in Case's stocking each year to give to the other kids, to make it special and remember Case by. I framed the picture of Case with his stocking last year, I am so thankful I got that picture. I don't have Lane by his when he was a baby or at any age for that matter. Throughout the past year I have seen so many things that God had just orchestrated so that we would have wonderful memories of Case. I never even gave a second thought about the picture of Case with his stocking until after he died, God had me take that picture because he knew what I didn't know.

I am battling a little with the "baby blues" the last couple days. I think some of it has to do with the annoying little problems like the heater and no childcare provided for Reese's work Christmas party tonight (they usually have childcare) that has set me off a little. Having our first Christmas without Case is emotional for me obviously. Last year we decorated the house with him. I remember Reese and Lane decorating the tree while I was giving Case rice cereal for the first time. Another thing that I am facing is going up to WA for Christmas and coming back at the same time we did last year, then less than 2 weeks later Case died. This time will be bringing back a lot of memories and that is looming over me a bit right now.

Our sweet Estelle Hope loves laying under the tree and looking at the lights.