Birthday Dinner

We decided to be brave and take Stian out for his first restaurant experience to celebrate Kris's birthday. We went to the Mexcian place because it has yummy food, and is pretty casual, so we figured people wouldn't care too much if Stian started sqwaking. But Stian seemed generally unimpressed by the restaurant as he slept the whole time.

More visitors

Kris's sister Karin, her husband Brad and their son Klebo have come for a visit to meet Stian, celebrate Kris's birthday and New Years.

One Month Old!

Well, technically yesterday was Stian's one month birthday, but Stian decided to celebrate the day by crying and fussing all day. So I didn't take any pictures of that, nor did I have any spare time to post anything. But he's off to a much better start today. (although he's beginning to fuss a little - I guess he's had enough of the activity gym!)

Much Better

Kris decided Stian had had enough of the silly Christmas outfits, so he changed him into something still Chistmasy, but not so humiliating. Thanks to Laura, John, Anna Sofia and Sunniva for the much more sophisticated Christmas outfit (and thanks to Wayne, Kelly and Nathaniel for the wrist rattle).

The humiliation continues

Ah, more embarrassing Christmas outfits...





(Stian would like to take a moment to remind us that he will be picking our nursing home someday - so we should just yuk it up now while we can.)

Sock Monkey!

Meet Edmund the Sock Monkey! (thanks Clea! He's adorable!)

Christmas Eve

My parents are here to celebrate Christmas with us - here are few pictures, there will undoubtedly by plenty more from today and tomorrow to post later.





Kris's co-worker, Jen, has a son who is almost exactly one year older than Stian. She loaned us a whole bunch of his clothes. In the batch of clothes are several Christmas outfits. They are a tad big for Stian, but they are still awfully cute. Here's one of them.

Cutie Booties

My mom made these adorable little booties. Unfortunately they are a tad small already (Stian appears to have big feet) - so he's not going to get too much use out of them. But they sure are cute!

Introducing a bottle

I've been a little nervous about introducing a bottle because I don't want to confuse Stian and make breastfeeding more difficult. But everything I've read says you really need to do it between two to four weeks for success. If you wait much longer the baby might refuse the bottle altogether. So we finally tried it yesterday. He took it like a champ (although looked a little confused as to why Daddy was feeding him), and hasn't had any problems breastfeeding since then. So hopefully won't have any problems. He had no problems with the bottle again this morning either.

Strolling

We've been taking Stian out for walks when the weather has been permitting (it's 50 here today and so all the snow in the picture below is pretty much gone). We've been using the stroller, but thought we'd give the Snugli a try. It's a little hard to get a newborn into it, but works great once he's in. Thanks to Laura and John for the hand-me-down Snugli and the hand-me-down snowsuit (there really is a baby in there).

So tired

It's apparently hard work cluster feeding and trying to drive your poor mother insane. Poor Stian was just far too tired for tummy time on Saturday.

First Bath

Stian finally had his first bath today. We've been meaning to do it for awhile - but he's been crazy cluster feeding lately - nursing about 45 minutes out of every hour, which is exhausting and leaves little time for anything else. The feeding slowed down today, so I'm hoping it was just a growth spurt and he'll now go back to a more humane schedule. So anyway, we finally got him into the bath.

Snow Day!

Kris has been digging us out all day long - we got 14" of snow last night. Last February when we got a record 18" we contemplated buying a snowblower, but we figured we would never get that much snow again. Well, 14" isn't quite that much, but it's still an awful lot of snow to dig out by hand when you have as long of a driveway as we do.



And of course now the wind is howling and blowing it all back across the driveway again...

The Happy Family

This picture was taken after a particularly rough night, and I have "nap hair" - but it's a family picture nonetheless. And our look of exhaustion captures the feeling of the moment!

Super Baby!

Stian has been getting in his tummy time - and he has to work so hard to lift his enormous head. It requires he counterbalance by also lifting up his legs. He's super baby!

I give up!

This was how Stian was napping before dinner tonight. We figured he was either surrendering or pretending he was a moose.

Grandma to the rescue!

My mom has been here for the last week, and it has been so great to have her here! She's been keeping me sane and helping with cooking and cleaning - and of course she's been helping with cuddling Stian! She leaves in the morning though (well, it's morning now as Stian isn't really sleeping at the moment so I'm posting one handed as he stares around wide-eyed) and then we'll be on our own for awhile, at least until she comes back in a little over a week with my dad for Christmas.

Two Three Four

Christian II, Kristian III, Kristian IV

Farfar and Bestemor

Kris's parents just left this morning. They were here for a very quick trip - got here on Monday evening and left again today. They just wanted to pop down and meet their little grandson and help us out while my mom was too sick to come. It was great to have them here. They seemed to like their little grandson quite a bit too. Bestemor didn't want to put him down at all - so he got lots of extra cuddles.




My mom gets here this evening, so I'm sure the little guy will continue to get extra cuddles this week with his other grandma!

Polka dots

All is going well here. So far Stian is a pretty content little baby - at least during the day. He's a little more needy at night. But even then he's not too bad. He just wants to be held. So Kris and I have to take turns with him so the other can sleep. And Stian will sleep for short stretches on his own in the bassinet, just not for long stretches.

Here he is in the adorable polka dot outfit he got from Karin and Brad and the hat my mom made.

visitors

We've been busy with the little one, as I'm sure you can imagine. But I thought I ought to post at least one picture. We have Kris's parents here with us today and tomorrow and then my mom arrives on Wednesday for a week. My poor mom was supposed to come on Sunday but has been suffering from a terrible cold and is finally getting over it. So Stian is getting to meet some of his family.

While we were in the hospital he got to meet two of our friends who dropped by for an hour one evening. We don't have a picture of Kevin, but here is Dawn holding Stian.



More pics and updates to come as we find time.