Irelyn's First Christmas!

Wow, what an amazing day! As everyone says, Christmas is so much fun when you have a kid! We didn't get done with our Christmas Eve festivities until 2 in the morning so the first thing our Christmas consisted of was sleeping in! Then the fun began!

Irelyn was happy to see that Santa had found her! I have to toot my own horn for a second about her stocking...Growing up at my house we always just got to pick out stockings from the store whenever we outgrew our stocking, so I wanted to just buy her one. However, Billy had one that he has had since he was little, so he thought I should make her one. So, I decided to attempt to make her one. Using his as a template, I made Irelyn a stocking! I have to say, I love how it turned out! It is so much cuter than I expected it to be, and I am so glad that Billy talked me into making it!

Irelyn & her Toby dog

She wasn't too happy when I told her she was on her last present!

That is until she found the ribbon, and of course it went straight in her mouth!

Can we say spoiled!?!

Exhausted after a long day, had to sleep with her dolly AND her bunny!


All dressed up in her Christmas dress ready for church! 

That afternoon, I was lucky and was asked to speak at church. (If you can call that lucky :) I was a ball of nerves all morning!!) I had to introduce one of the Christmas hymns we sang. I got to chose the song, so I chose O Come All Ye Faithful because after reading through all the hymns it was the one that truly brought me the Christmas spirit this year. I want to share a little excerpt from my talk so I can remember it!

"This song tells the faithful follows to come to Christ and adore him. I never fully understood what it meant to adore until Irelyn was born. To see someone who so recently was in the presence of our Lord, brought entirely new meaning to the word adore. To adore was not only to ohh and ahh over my beautiful daughter, but it was a love and adoration so deep that it brought undeniable joy, and a feeling of such peace knowing I had been given such a special gift from our Lord. I think this must have been how those faithful followers felt when they came unto Christ in the manger, knowing that they were in the presence of the greatest gift from our Lord, our Saviour, Jesus Christ."

We had such an amazing Christmas, and I feel so blessed to finally have Irelyn in my life! I know the fun is just beginning with her, and I can't wait! I hope everyone else had an amazing day too!

Irelyn's First Christmas Eve

Irelyn was pretty spoiled for her first Christmas! She's so lucky to have so many people who love her and love to spoil her!

We started our Christmas Eve at my mom's house. There we were lucky to have a visit from Santa himself! The kids were so surprised that he would take time out of his night to come visit! Irelyn was really good the previous two time she sat on his lap, but she wasn't having it that night! She was so sleepy and only wanted her mommy!

She didn't quite get the concept of opening present yet, but she wanted to put them all in her mouth!

After all the excitement at my mom's house we went out to Painter's house for midnight brunch, and of course she got spoiled out there too! She is the only grandkid on that side so all eyes were on her all night!

Loves her Aunt Whitney

One of her favorite parts of opening presents!

Not quite sure what to think of her new animal train!

We are so blessed to have the families we do, and that they are both so close to us so we can see both of them on Christmas! Christmas Eve is always such an amazing night with delicious food, fun family traditions and as you can tell, getting spoiled! It was so much fun this year sharing it with my daughter!

5 Months

Time sure is flying! I can't believe my little Goober is 5 months (almost 6!!) 5 Months has brought some fun things! She is still working on rolling over, she almost never does it, but she can sit up like a champ! Billy is pretty sure she will never roll over to crawl, she'll just take off from seated position!

She has started eating pureed foods. She never did get into the cereal thing so we switched over to the real thing, and she LOVES it! She will lunge for food if she sees it, and devours everything from butternut, sweet potatoes, green peas and beans, and all the fruits!

She also loves books! Our secret santa brought us 12 books for the 12 days of Christmas, and she has devoured everyone...both by reading them and literally eating them :) The first thing she does is puts it in her mouth, then she thumbs through it! The funniest thing is that her favorite book is a hymn book! Whenever we pull it out to sing at Church she starts grabbing for it!

 She has become quite the talker and every now and then we hear ma or da :) Billy thinks her first words will be Goober because that is what we call her all the time! Some of her favorite things right now are looking at herself in the mirror, sitting in her bumbo, being goofy with her daddy, being a mamma's girl, and loving on her bunny! She gets really cuddly when she's tired, which everyone around her loves! She will go to anyone and be happy. She only ever cries when she is hungry! We are so excited for Christmas, that post will be next!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Meeting Santa

Irelyn had the chance to sit on Santa's lap at our annual Daley Family Christmas Party. I was certain that she wouldn't cry because she is always so good to go to whoever wants to hold her! Sure enough, I was right! She was so enamored by him and his beard! 

Our little Family

Irelyn loves her little cousins, and they LOVE her!!

Just hanging out with Great Grandpa Daley

Anatomy of Eating Rice Cereal

In an effort to help our pretty girl learn to sleep more than 2-3 hours at night we decided we should see if she would start eating rice cereal. It was quite comical watching her reaction to the different texture of the cereal. She wasn't quite sure of it! So here it goes...the anatomy of eating rice cereal:

Ok Mom, I'm all ready! Such a big girl in my Bumbo!

What is that strange stuff you're mixing up?

Okay, let's give this a try...

Ugh, I'm not sure about this mom!

I think I'd rather just eat my hand! I can probably get the whole thing in there if I try!

Oh, maybe I can just have both my fingers and cereal!!

Ok, let's try this one more time...

Ugh REALLY MOM?!? This stuff is terrible!

Needless to say, it didn't go too well! She didn't like the texture at all. I ended up making it so runny that it was almost just all milk, but she just kept spitting it out!!

This past week I ended up mixing it with a little milk, and applesauce. She seemed to like it a little better. It still got EVERYWHERE, but at least most of it made it in her tummy. I don't know if the cereal has anything to do with it, but she FINALLY slept thru the night for the very first time the night before Thanksgiving!! 9 whole hours! I just wish that Mommy would have slept the whole 9 hours instead of laying in bed fretting about why her baby girl hadn't woke up, and checking on her 3 or 4 times :) Hopefully I can get over that, and she will start sleeping longer!

She did get a taste of sweet potatoes at Thanksgiving, but she did not like that either!! I'm thinking we will be holding off for at least a few weeks before we try with veggies again!

This is one of the only pictures I took of Thanksgiving, but it is adorable! Irelyn with her little cousins!

4 Months

This is obviously a few weeks late, as Irelyn is actually 4 1/2 months now, but I didn't want to miss one!

Four months has brought some pretty fun things! She talks like crazy, and often wakes me up in the mornings because she is laying there talking to herself! At 3 1/2 months she surprised me with her very first belly laugh! She was fighting sleep and making some of the funniest noises, so I was laughing at her, and she started busting a gut! A full 2 minutes of belly laughter! I was the only one around to hear it, and she would never do it again. However, last night Billy and I got her going pretty good! She finally showed her daddy her belly laughs!

She's starting to not hate tummy time, and loves sitting in her bumbo chair.  She has rolled over, but has no desire to do it often! She loves to chew her hands, and is getting so close to getting her toes in there too.

 Her parents have finally decided she needed to go to church, so we've gone a few weeks now with her. She always looks so dang cute in her little Sunday dresses!

 She had her 4 month check up and appears to be growing growing growing! She was 14lbs even (54%), 25 inches long (75%). We got the go ahead to start cereal, but I'm not sure when we will start it! She still seems to thrust everything out of her mouth!

I'm loving every stage with this little sweetheart! I don't know what I would do if I didn't get to wake up every morning to her gummy little smile!

Fall Festivities

This year was fun having my own little one to drag around to all of the fall festivities! Irelyn loves hanging out with her cousins, and the Country Farm Fest was no exception!

Irelyn spent most the time asleep but did wake up in time to take some pictures!

Look closely to see how Irelyn felt about taking these pics :)

For Halloween our sweet little Irelyn was an adorable Mermaid, with her little side kick, Toby the Lobster. She wasn't quite sure what to think of him!! 

It certainly is a lot funner to dress up your own little one for Halloween! I had such a fun time making her costume! She, on the other hand, did not really love wearing it!

 She had to dress up two days in  row because she has this super cute witch headband!

Our fall was such a blast, it made me so excited for Irelyn's first Christmas!!

Blessing Our Princess

Saturday, October 8, 2011, was Irelyn's Blessing Day! What an amazing day! Of course our princess looked beautiful, and everything turned out so perfect!

Billy really wanted his Grandpa Painter to bless Irelyn because he blessed him too. So, we arranged to have the blessing at home so it was easier for Grandpa (who is 91 years old!) Grandpa did an amazing job, and gave Irelyn the sweetest blessing.

Irelyn with Great Grandpa and Great Grandma Painter

Irelyn was so lucky to be surrounded by her wonderful family! I'm pretty sure she only got put down once while she was asleep, and even then it was only for about one minute!

Irelyn and Great Grandpa Daley

Irelyn and Great Grandma Thomas

 

Irelyn with Grandma and Grandpa Daley

Irelyn with Great Grandma Mortensen

Irelyn with Grandma Painter

Three Generations
Irelyn, Mommy & Grandma Carol

 Irelyn was able to wear my blessing dress, which was so special to me! I am so happy that my mom saved it this long, and was able to get it all ready for Irelyn to wear too! I wanted her to have something new and flashy, so Grandma Monica was able to make a headband more beautiful than I could have ever imagined! It will be a wonderful thing she can wear for her baptism, have for her wedding too (if she wants), and pass down to her daughter one day! 

 We feel so blessed to have this little sweetheart in our lives! It is so funny how she hasn't been with us long, but we can't imagine our lives without her! She has just brought so much light and joy into our lives, and has her daddy completely wrapped around her finger! Pretty sure Mom is always going to be the bad guy, because I don't know if Dad will be able to tell her no! Haha!