a name and a blessing...

This January has been a doozy as far as weather goes. We got more snow the 3 days leading up to Charlie's blessing than we got all of last winter. And yet, this beautiful Sunday the snow squalls ceased, the storm clouds parted and the sun shined brightly! It was perfect representation of my heart and soul these last few months.  I was gently reminded what a miraculous gift this sweet, precious little soul is to me and his remarkable potential for goodness in this world. He is here and he is mine and he is a gift.

Chris, surrounded by so many of those family and friends closest to us, took this sweet boy into his arms to officially give him a name and pronounce a blessing upon him. It was beautiful and remarkable and touched my heart deeply. I love this child with every fiber of my being. I loved seeing him surrounded by amazing and worthy men that will serve as his example of what to strive for. If he turns out anything like his daddy and grandpas, he will be one amazing man.

We came back home afterwards and had a light lunch with many family and friends and let Charlie get loved on and squeezed by his many admirers. Most especially his grandmas and grandpas...

 

When it was all said and done and the crowds had left... we were happy and exhausted. 

Charlie took the lead of Daddy and Papa and got right to watching football...

He's learning already!

 Welcome to our family little guy! 

My life is infinitely better with you in it.

♥

a little kitchen for my littlemiss

It took two solid years of persistent nagging, however we (mostly he) pulled it off in less than a month. And wow, did daddy clause kill it this year or what?!

::littlemiss leah's very own little kitchen::

Honestly, as it was coming together I worried that there was a really good chance that I was going to love it even more than her. Seriously, I die! 

It started right after Leah was born and I came across this adorable re-purposed kitchen featured on blog I occasionally read. A quick search of the internet and pinterest turned up loads more. As I snuggled a two month old littlemiss, I told CJ that I wanted him to build her one for either her 2nd birthday or Christmas. I'm not sure he was as excited about the idea as I was...but seeing how he built our real kitchen.... I figured a play version was a no-brainer. I think he carried around the picture for nearly a year, hoping that I would change my mind and just buy one... but I didn't give up and I am so glad I didn't!!

It started with an old wooden entertainment center that we were lucky enough to discover in his sister's basement, that was ready to be donated.

Chris' dad is an incredible carpenter who can literally build anything. I knew that between the two of them they could make anything happen... so finally Thanksgiving weekend, we turned our garage into a satellite "Santa's Workshop"

They gutted the center console shelves and dividers, created new back and side walls with bead board, installed a back-splash, removed one of the glass doors, building a new bead board replacement and cut the hole for the sink all in the first few hours!

We still needed a fridge for the little kitchen, so they built and added that on from scratch...

A simple piece of scrap wood became our stove-top...

and then it was ready for paint and the fun stuff.

We used a sprayer for most of it, which was super duper fancy fast. We did, however have to do lots of touching up with a roller/brush and the counter and stove tops were obviously painted by hand.

After it was painted, we moved it inside and had a couple of late night date nights working on the details and making it perfect!!

Finished fridge with hardware and baskets in the doors.

(Ikea)

Stove Top & Oven

Ikea Coasters =Burners

Vintage Inspired Sprinkler Knobs = Controls

We replaced the glass in the door with a piece of plexi-glass for safety's sake.

They made a guide for the oven rack (jumbo cooling rack/amazon) to slide in and out of.

Ikea Utensil Bars works great for little kitchens too!

Pantry/Cabinet Storage

I found a stock photo of a simple, perfect tree swing printed to 16X20 and framed it in an inexpensive Ikea plexi-glass frame to make the kitchen window.

We even included a battery operated lantern as the light fixture.

We found an old bar faucet for the sink and finished it off with some crystal cabinet pulls as the faucet knobs.

An old mixing bowl became the sink.

An old Ikea end table got a new paint job along with some new chairs and dishes to finish her "dining room"

My incredible mama offered to make the amazing window valance and dish towels for me. She got carried away and ended up making her a perfect little hot pad and ridiculously adorable matching apron as well. 

I couldn't love them more!

Details, details, details. It's all the sweet, little details.

Every single last detail turned out even better than I had envisioned it! 

And let me tell you, I spent a lot of time envisioning it! 

And based on her reaction on Christmas morning... it was a success!

I think it's safe to say that she loves it easily as much as I do.

Thanks again Daddy Clause

and Pop

and G-mama

It's a perfect little kitchen for my sweet littlemiss!

three months

Not only are we celebrating and welcoming in a new year and but we are also celebrating three whole months with this little chunk... both of which have me feeling reflective, a little sad and a lot hopeful. It's hard to believe he's already three months old. Although it seems to have gone so quickly, I can hardly remember life without him, though I am certain that in that life I was sleeping way more. Life as a family of four is starting to feel a little more normal all the time, though our new "normal" is a little more chaotic and crazy. However, I am so smitten by this little guy that I wouldn't have it any other way. I have a crazy, serious crush on him! ♥

At three months old he continues to grow like a weed. I suspect he is somewhere between 15-16lbs and not slowing down. Though he has a handful of 3-6m clothes that I can still stuff him into, he is comfortably wearing 6-12m. What?! Slow down little guy.

He is starting to (inconsistently) sleep a little better and we have even had nights where he slept 8+ hours. That's life changing for a mama!! It's not every night yet, but I am hopeful that I will in fact get a good nights sleep again someday soon.

He smiles, laughs and giggles constantly in his sleep and it's adorable. I can't wait to get those kind of full on laughs when he is awake. I wish I knew what he was dreaming about. Fluffy Lion Cubs? Tasty Corn Dogs? Bunny Rabbits? Or maybe just chuckling at how hard he's been on his mama?

He's not a big fan of tummy time yet, though he is getting better and stronger. Mostly, he just tolerates it and waits for it to be over. (It's not easy pushing those chubby cheeks off the pillow, folks)

He loves bath time and is starting to splash and play. We usually have a huge, wet mess in the bathroom by the time we are done.

He is happy and smiling most of the time, which is a huge relief, especially after our first several weeks. I am still off of dairy and soy and it still sucks...but I have gotten used to it, more or less, and a content baby is more than worth it. 

Honestly, he just seems to get sweeter and cuter by the day. And his mama seems to fall more and more in love with him by the day as well!!

Happy Three Months Little Man! 

xox

Sunday Duds - old man sweater, seersucker, moccasins.
swoon

2013 - Happy New Year

We started our celebrations early, did a family toast at 8pm and have hopes to be fast asleep by10pm. 

We figure it's midnight somewhere and we're getting rather fond of celebrating with them.

2012 has been good to the C*K*Js and we can't wait to see what 2013 brings.

Happy New Year!

Holiday Bucket-Listing 2012

Another holiday season has come and nearly gone and we've been hard at work trying to make the most of it. 

I love the magic and spirit of Christmastime and always have. I have such happy memories and traditions from my childhood that mean so much to me now. I remember very few of the actual gifts that I ever received (save a few really awesome ones like the homemade Cabbage Patch doll that my sweet mama so lovingly made me and the awesome purple leg warmers that I wanted SO badly in the late 80's), but I remember clearly the magic that my mom always created within our home and the traditions that my parents established for our family. I desperately want my kids to have the same emotions and happiness attached to our memories and traditions and not to things. 

And that is precisely why I love our annual holiday bucket list tradition.

We didn't finish every last item.... but we still accomplished our goal of having a happy and fun holiday season making memories and being together!

:: here's a little sampling of #holidaybucketlisting2012 ::

{Trim the Tree & Deck the Halls}
with Christmas playlists blaring
The start of it all and arguably my favorite part of the holiday season. I'm one of those people that usually puts our tree up and decorates before Thanksgiving, (usually the Saturday before). I like as much time as possible to enjoy the spirit that it all brings into our home and I never want to waste one minute of the Christmas season without all the twinkling lights and decorations up!

{Christmas Countdown Chain}

Probably Leah's favorite part of each day this past month. 

She was giddy to take "one more off" every day and every time we asked her what would happen when we got to the top, she will loudly proclaim "Merry Christmas Tree" in her adorable two year old voice.

{Grandma's Cookie Bake}

One of my very favorite holiday traditions that was started by my Grandma Leah! My mom has carried on the tradition and finally simplified it this year and limited it to just the little ones again...12 and under. It was a much smaller scale and she was able to really enjoy sharing this amazing family tradition with the newcomers!

{Quaint and Charming Christmas Street}

Although I don't think it's as amazing and over the top as it once was... it was magical perfection for a two year old's wondering eyes.

{Jolleys Old Saint Nick}

Our annual visit to see the fat jolly guy. We actually got stood-up at our original appointment and had to re-schedule, which was not awesome. We had been talking about it and prepping for weeks and in theory, Leah was very excited. I think she was a little confused and sad when we left our first visit to "Santa's House" without seeing him and without the treat I had promised he'd give her in hand.

It did, however, give us another couple of days to prep... but in the end, it still wasn't enough. She took one look at him and froze solid. It was like she had lead in her shoes. She didn't want to make eye contact with him and she most certainly did NOT want to sit on his lap. 

 A family portrait with me holding her was our only option and her face says it all... stone cold sober!

 {A Night in Bethlehem}

Our second year doing this... with many more to come. It's quickly become one of my new favorite traditions.

Candlelight, yummy finger foods, blankets on the floor, Nativity Story, Christ centered playlist playing and people that we love! What's not to love? (though Charlie certainly doesn't seem impressed or sold on the idea yet)

{Snow Day}

Build a Snowman * Throw Snowballs * Make Snow Angels

Though ours was easily in the running for the world's tiniest snowman, it counts and Leah LOVED him! Christmas time is one of the only times that I really love the snow! It was perfect to have Daddy around a little more and we enjoyed some very fun snow days!

{New Christmas PJs}

yes... Charlie is busting out of his new 6-12m jammies. And yes Leah's 24m are falling down.

 {Write Letters to Santa}

Leah loved coloring and "writing" her letter and helped with Charlie's as well. She was so proud of her "official" letters and we had lots of fun leaving our special letters along with some yummy treats for Santa on Christmas Eve. In addition to the Candy Cane Joe-Joes we left him, we decided to leave him a special dairy/soy free brownie as well...

and I'm pretty sure "he" appreciated it!!

{Downtown Date Night}

I love downtown this time of year. I love the addition of City Creek. I love, love, love that the candy windows are back.  And most of all... I love my three sweet, amazing dates.

***

All in all... our Christmas was as perfect and happy and chaotic and magical as it should be with wee little ones.

And that's just exactly what we were going for!

(Stay tuned for all the details of Leah's awesome Christmas gift and some huge props to her Daddy Clause. He killed it this year!)

two months.

Holy cow do we love this boy! 

As hard as he has been these first several weeks, he has us so firmly and tightly wrapped around his little chubby, dimpled finger!! We have seen some real measurable improvements this past month since adjusting his dose of reflux medicine and eliminating all dairy and soy in any form from our(my) diet. For that we are so thankful, but it has been hard. oh so very hard. It turns out that dairy and/or soy are in everything, literally everything. Even deli meat... seriously! Most vegan substitutes and alternatives for things like butter, etc still contain soy... so eliminating both has been a challenge and a huge learning curve for me. The good news is that I have not yet starved to death. whew. As hard and frustrating as it has been.... he's worth it, more than worth it. I would literally move mountains for this little piece of my heart. I feel like these last couple of weeks, we have started to see glimpses of who he really is and it's not just a fussy, inconsolable baby. He has a smile that can light up a room and melt your heart into a huge giant puddle. His cheeks and chins are as kissable as they come. And those dimples? Oh my goodness, those dimples!! Those smiley dimples make me think I may be able to live without cheese and butter forever. maybe.

He is finally sleeping some longer more "normal" newborn stretches. On a good night, we will get at least one 4+ hour stretch in addition to some slightly shorter stretches and we are praying that now that he is feeling a bit better... those stretches will continue to improve, getting longer and a bit more consistent.

Leah has come around a lot this last month and I am pretty sure that we haven't ruined her life after all. For the most part she dotes on him and smothers him with love and sweet attention, though I do have to keep my eye on her, seeing how sometimes she literally smothers him. or sits on him. or swats at him. Surprisingly, he tolerates her well... though he may just be calculating his revenge, knowing that he will likely be bigger than her within another few months time.

Honestly this kid is packing on the lbs like it's his job (I guess it kind of is). At two months, he is already solidly wearing 6+ month clothes. I just exchanged both his Christmas outfit and his blessing outfit for the 6-12 month size, because the 3-6 size is already getting way too snug on him. By contrast, Leah can still fit into many of her 12-18 month clothes, especially the pants... so they should be able to share clothes by Spring! His size 2 diapers are already seeming too small and I think the next case we buy will be a size 3. Within another few months.... I should only need to buy one size diaper (and unfortunately I don't think it will be because Leah is potty-trained).

2 month stats:

14 lbs 5 oz (98th percentile)

24.25 inches (95th percentile)

16.14 inch head circumference (75th percentile)

Definitely not petite, but so ridiculously lovable that I can hardly stand it!

Happy Two Months!