Keith took amazing, candid pictures of the Bad Kids’ kids while we were in Orlando, so I thought I’d share some here:
All posts by leslie
Bad Kid Christmas Orlando
Our enjoyment of the Christmas season is quickly followed by our annual Bad Kids Christmas reunion with some of our seminary friends. It is one of the best weeks of the year! This year we hosted everyone at a huge rental in the Orlando area. We had plenty of space for our 15 person-strong group (9 adults and 6 kids now), and the weather cooperated (highs in the 80s). This allowed us to enjoy the heated pool and hot tub everyday (even me)! Henry shared a room with one of the sisters (on rotation) and got his wish for a roommate.
We went to the small Legoland (Disney Springs) and the big Legoland in Winter Haven, where he lived his best life. He keeps talking about it because building things and riding fast rides are his jam. I didn’t really care about Legoland but could definitely see why little kids love it…Henry could do almost everything as a 3 year old.
We returned to the Alifia River for a boating party (thanks Dan Jr.) where people did some back porch relaxing and riding on SUPs, in addition to the main boat ride down the river. It’s really a perfect place, and I’m so happy our family shared it with our friends.
My favorite part, like always, was simply hanging out with everyone, catching up on our unique experiences of being clergy families, and the hugs. Because I love these people and once a year is not enough time but we make it work.
The 12 Days of Christmas Are My Favorite
We survived Christmas Eve service in the front row of worship and zero meltdowns. The boys behaved as if angels were whispering sweet songs into their ears the whole time, mesmerizing them and keeping them calm and happy. I’m sure it won’t happen again until they are teenagers, but I’ll take it!
Henry loved opening his presents, and Elliot tried his best to eat the wrapping paper. Everyone ate more delicious food than they thought they could consume, and love and laughter were ever-present as we first got together with my parents and then with the Walbolt/Miller clan. The remaining 11 days of Christmas were my favorite part because Keith had some time off to spend with us.
We spent our time playing with Henry’s new toys, walking around the lights of Lake Park (the model train and candy cane factory were two highlights), drinking beer at Green Bench Brewery with Brent, and going to Honeymoon Island State Park, because what else do Floridians do for Christmas break when it’s shorts weather?!
The beach has beautiful, powdery-white sand that even Elliot thought was too pretty to eat. He spent most of his time wrapped up in the k’tan so he didn’t have much of an opportunity to gobble it up. We checked out the nature center with it’s expansive views, but didn’t have time to hike the trails because little boys must take their naps or turn into dictators. Next time we’ll check out the nesting eagles and whatever other natural wonders the park offers up.
Extra Advent Photos
So I took a million and seven pictures during Advent season that I couldn’t include in the actual post. I mean, I had to capture Elliot in each and every one of his super cute Christmas outfits, right?! So here’s the overflow; enjoy!
Simply Having A Wonderful Advent Season
The weeks leading up to Christmas Day are busy for everyone, but I think they feel especially busy for clergy families. Even though Advent is a time for waiting for The Christ-child to be born, I find it difficult to breathe and enjoy the pause before Jesus joins us here on Earth.
I’m usually torn between wanting to make memories with the boys and wanting to do things the way I like. Sometimes these goals are one and the same, like baking cookies or decorating a real Christmas tree. The process, however, looks very different from how it should go in my head.
For example, Henry is an excellent baker, but wants to dump everything into a batter all at once, including egg shells. THIS DOESN’T WORK! So I try to practice my breathing and calmly tell him to refrain from dumping the ingredients until it is time. Sometimes I can do it, and others I lose my sh*t.
The Hen was interested in decorating the tree this year…until he wasn’t. He put half of the ornaments up on the bottom third of the tree and called it a day. This left me to complete trimming the tree and to reorganize the ornaments that were bottom heavy. But not too many, or else he would notice that I moved them from their spots. The struggle is real for Type A parents with toddlers!
We also worked together to create the saddest looking gingerbread house ever. I thought since we had a kit my lack of artistic skill and structural engineering wouldn’t be an issue. It was. The roof caved in within the hour, and it looked like a toddler had iced the house. Except my toddler refused to ice it, so it was all my fault it didn’t look like the picture. Luckily, the candy was delicious so it saved the project.
I won tickets to two shows in December. First up was at the Straz Center in Tampa – a fantastically imaginative touring off-Broadway production of Into the Woods. I took my mother-in-law, Margo, and we loved the pared-down production that allowed for the creativity of the performers to shine through. For the second one, all four of us headed to Ruth Eckerd Hall in Clearwater to see The Octonauts Live on Stage. This propelled my street cred to a new level in the Hen’s eyes since he has seen every single episode of the show. He seemed concerned at first, but later got into the clapping and screaming with all of the other kids. Keith and I toasted our awesome parenting afterwards because we survived.
Our church (Lutheran Church of the Good Shepherd in Seminole, Florida) had its annual Christmas pageant, and since we had an infant we (Keith, me, and Elliot) were the de facto choice to play the Holy Family. Elliot crushed his role by being his happy, chill self. Keith’s Joseph calmly took Jesus’ birth in stride. This left me to struggle with my head covering throughout the production, while keeping an eye out for our little shepherd, Henry. One of the other toddler moms dutifully corralled Henry and the two other shepherds with graham crackers for most of the reading, until the shepherd wanted his parents. All in all, it went well, there were fun animals (llamas!!) to see, and cookies to eat afterwards.
Finally, since the weather remained incredibly hot in December, we had lots of outside adventures to parks, in our backyard, and to ice cream shops. You know, all the normal things to do in Florida during winter. I love that we get to do these things year-round, and try to make the most of our lovely “winter” season.
Elliot’s Baptism
Since Keith is a pastor, he chose All Saints Day (11/6) as the day to baptize Elliot, who was almost 6 months old at the time of his baptism. Our campus ministry pastor, Rev. Dr. Michael Collins, did the baptizing. I’m sure he was happy doing an infant baptism rather than the toddler one he performed on Henry at age 1 1/2.
We loved seeing both sides of the family come together to celebrate Elliot being officially named as a child of God. Elliot’s Godparents – Aunt Amanda and Uncle Brent – promised to communicate their faith and values to him, and they have definitely been a special presence in his life so far. And I can’t wait to see their relationships deepen further with our littlest.
An Incredible Halloween
I can’t believe the last thing I really documented (besides Elliot updates) was our family vacation to Milwaukee. So I’m throwing it back in time to Halloween where I had the brilliant plan to have a group costume last year. Mostly because I don’t think Henry will let me make the costume decisions much longer, and we had a cute baby who demanded an even cuter costume.
I made the executive decision to dress us up as The Incredibles! If you don’t know about this family, go to your local library and check out a copy of this movie; it’s amazing. Basically, The Incredibles are a family of superheroes who have had to hide the superpowers due to the government banning use of powers. Naturally, issues arise where they have to embrace their powers and save the day, working together as a family.
Five people comprise this fictional family, but this fact did not deter us from an awesome costume. We simply made Violet, the Invisible Girl, invisibly present. Keith was Mr. Incredible, I was Elastigirl, Henry was their son, Dash (since Henry’s superpower in real life is his speed), and Elliot was Jack-Jack, the baby. I searched Pinterest and googled people’s blogs to figure out how to do the costumes without sewing, because that’s not one of my gifts, and ended up with an awesome result.
Henry threw a wrench into my plans by declaring he would be a jellyfish for Halloween and NOTHING ELSE. This happened a couple days before Halloween night, so I definitely wasn’t going to make that happen. Luckily, once he saw the costumes he only wanted to be Dash. We trick-or-treated together in our neighborhood, and even teenagers told us how cool our costumes were. Even Keith had fun being dressed up, and Henry wants to go as the same thing this year.
I’m sure he will change his mind about 57 times before then.
Elliot is 11 Months Old
My littlest is now 11 months old! He seems too big these days, even though he’s still in the bottom half of the growth charts. His strength allows him to endure Henry’s endless tackle hugs, wrestling, and crushing sitting attacks with minimal fuss. He loudly cries out when it gets to be too much for him, but I tend to freak out before that happens. He crawls with lightning speed, forcing me to close off rooms of the house so he won’t explore without supervision. If he can find a toy with wheels (walker or large car or truck) or even one without (blue IKEA stools), he walks around pushing away. He cruises the furniture and people present in the room, and stands without holding on to anything for several seconds at a time.
He is ready to walk. But I’m not ready. The world as I know it as a mom of two will change in the instant that happens. And I’ll be running down two little boys headed in opposite directions instead of a toddler and baby. I’m excited to see him motor on his own, but sad at the same time since he’s my last little.
Motherhood is strange that way. The baby stage exhausts and frustrates me at some point each day (often more than once), but my heart seems to be breaking to see it go. Elliot is my snuggler; he’s always loved being close to wherever I am and maybe he won’t play and then come over for a hug and return to playing anymore. His favorite way to sleep continues to be on top of me (or Keith). While exhausting and not feasible for normal sleep, I can’t help but feel overwhelmingly suffocating love for him when he is sleeping in my arms after (while) nursing. But I’m so ready to sleep for more than four hours in a row sometime soon.
He’s been sleeping much better at night and is only waking up 2 to 3 times versus the 7+ it had been from months 6 to 10. He still takes two naps, a short 30-minute morning one (probably due to being out and about with his bro) and a longer 2-3 hour one in the afternoons (usually split by a mid-nap nursing session). He sleeps best in our bed, but I don’t so he spends his nights and some naps in his crib in the project room. We’re waiting until he is big and strong enough to share with Henry, who still isn’t the best sleeper and tries his best to sleep in our bed each night.
Elliot’s smile and laughter are ever-present. Everything brings him joy! He especially likes pointing out all the birds in the sky, making fart noises with his mouth, getting dirty while trying to eat leaves, taking things out of things and putting them in other things, and dancing. The world is his dance party and anything can spark him moving his body to the beat.
He just cut his 6th tooth and enjoys feeding himself finger foods. We still give him purees, too, but we mostly have to trick him into eating them. His favorite foods at the moment are eggs, black beans and rice, pears, and yogurt. Luckily, he doesn’t seem to have any food allergies (we’ve still been holding off on giving him oats since he had a sensitivity a few months ago).
He’s had a virus or ear infection or cough pretty much every month of his life, but that comes with the territory of having a big brother who wants to share everything with him. It looks like he inherited my immune system, but at least he remains mostly happy when he’s ill.
Finally, his favorite words are mama and dada. He also says words that could be construed as milk, head, hat, and brother, but aren’t quite there yet. He points as his main basis for communication and shakes his head no repeatedly when he doesn’t like or want something. His voice is beginning to sound like Henry’s, so it can be difficult to tell who is crying or yelling. Poor kid, he gets called HenryElliot all the time already, and we aren’t even old yet! At least he doesn’t mind right now.
Elliot is 9 Months Old!
Elliot is becoming a little boy day by day. At his 9-month checkup today, he weighed in at 18 lbs, 7 oz (25th percentile) and measured 28 and 3/4 inches long (50th percentile). He’s on track for everything for his age, and his second ear infection has cleared up. It looks like two more teeth are cutting through, which will bring his teeth total up to 6.
He loves trying to eat anything and everything, except for actual food, which he only eats in the evening. This makes for adventures in picking up tiny items from the floor, trying to keep up with the vacuuming, and encouraging Henry to clean up his toys – all before Elliot quickly puts them into his mouth.
He crawls remarkably fast, especially because he only started doing it at 8 months while we were on vacation with the Bad Kids. He giggles with glee as he chases after Henry from one side of the house to the other. Being a mom to two boys is loud and raucous already!
He started cutting his two bottom center teeth just before Christmas, and gave up on nighttime sleep around that time. He grew his two top center teeth while on vacation in January, and we didn’t even notice until the pearly whites poked through. That’s what sleep deprivation will do for you – he was awake every one to two hours and needed to nurse each time! That means he gained about two pounds during that period, but I feel like no amount of sleep will allow me to catch up.
We just moved his crib out of our room this past week, and he seems to sleep more soundly. He has had a couple nights of good sleep, followed by a night of terrible rest. I hope it continues to involve less wake ups and more consecutive hours of sleep for everyone.
He suffered two ear infections in the past two months, necessitating antibiotics that he doesn’t like. They only seemed to bother him at night; he remained his smiley self during the day. He is social and loves for people to smile and play with him. He claps his hands and dances to music, stretches his hands above his head to tell us how big he is, and pats his head when we ask him to locate it. In other words, he’s a wonderful, typical baby!
Milwaukee Vacation, Part 2
We headed north to Milwaukee in the fall to attend Keith’s cousin Katie’s wedding to her love, Matt. We woke up Henry from his afternoon nap to rush over to the ceremony at the Three Holy Women Catholic Parish. We walked in with a crying and cranky Hen and sleeping Elliot just as the mother of the bride was being escorted down the aisle. Keith walked around the back of the church to calm Henry, and then Elliot awoke, wanting to nurse. So I headed to the back of the building, too. Needless to say, we were distracted during the ceremony, but the parts we saw were beautiful. Everyone in the place was so happy for the couple, and it showed.
We piled in our cars to head for the reception at the Best Place at the Historic Pabst Brewery, chosen in part because Katie and Matt are big beer drinkers and Matt works at the the Lakefront Brewery. It was a cool building with stained glass windows and cells in the basement. The cells made for a quiet place to nurse away from the party. Henry danced up a storm at the reception with everyone – he definitely has some signature moves! Keith and I alternately wore Elliot so he could sleep while we ate, drank, and danced. It was one of our favorite wedding receptions ever, but the best part was hanging out with extended family who rarely have the opportunity to all get together in one place (because there’s so many of them)! Milwaukee and the Meister-Krajnaks, we love you!
