Christmas day

Christmas day was very relaxed around our house. We had our big to-do on Christmas Eve with our friends, and then Christmas day it was just us. I’m sure Christmas morning will be even more fun as Asher gets older, but it was still fun to give him a couple of toys and watch him play. Here’s one of his Christmas toys… he’s supposed to lay on his belly and spin around and play with this mat. I got it for him because he’s always on his belly but he can never quite handle the toys because he’s laying on his arms. I thought this would be a good solution, but as you can see… he’s HUGE! It looks like he’s going to outgrow it pretty soon.

He liked opening the presents, and loved the wrapping paper, and he thought the boxes were pretty fun!

Overall, we didn’t really get that much for Asher because we figured this is going to be the one Christmas where he doesn’t know the difference. Thinking about future Christmases makes us wonder how we’re going to handle the present situation… seeing as how Christmas isn’t about presents and all, we’re trying to think about creative family traditions that might take the emphasis off the presents, at least .

Candice and I exchanged gifts, and I got some pretty cool stuff. We both got each other several kitchen gadgets, including an awesome knife sharpener for me (I REALLY don’t like dull knives).

Of course, our best gift of the year was the little man himself, and that’s no joke… watching a new little life being formed and nurtured is a gift. The “givenness of life” has never been so apparent.

Christmas Eve

Yay! We love Christmas Eve around the Bullard house. This is Asher’s “I’m ready for Christmas” face :).

And here’s our little Christmas crew all decked out for Jesus’ birthday…

We had a full day of fun planned with a few friends. Everything was prepared for holiday merriment: we had Christmas music playing in the kitchen and back-to-back Christmas movies going in the living room. The stockings were hung from the chimney with care (a.k.a: radiator)…

And we had our presents placed ever-so-carefully (not really) around the tree…

 
We started the festivities early with some awesome cinnamon rolls in the morning. This was followed by some resting (in order to recover from the sugar coma induced by the cinnamon rolls). Then things got a little crazy when all the guys gathered ‘round the Christmas puzzle which occupied BOTH of our coffee tables.

Asher got a few presents in his stocking… of course, he was more interested in eating his presents than looking at them…

He was also more interested in eating the furniture…

And basically anything shiny….

We opened presents, watched movies, chewed on the furniture, and worked the puzzle all while preparing a delectable holiday feast :)! For starters, we had bacon-wrapped dates as a pre-dinner snack (= yum!). We boiled our ham in Dr. Pepper and then glazed it in brown sugar (=double yum!). And we rounded out the meal with cornbread dressing, sweet potato casserole, roasted vegetable medley, green bean casserole, and sweet tea (a special treat over here).

Candice had the table looking very festive… yes, that is a Christmas tree drawn on my cup and those are cranberries frozen into the ice cubes!

Here’s the girls about to dig in to some pumpkin pie :)

To finish off the day and before settling into a long winter’s nap, we gathered ‘round to hear the story of Christmas. I grew up hearing the Christmas story read from this book every year. It takes the text from the birth narratives of both Matthew and Luke, uses the lovely King James English (“For unto you is born this day in the city of David, a Savior, which is Christ the Lord” – that’s a great line if I ever heard one), and it has big, beautiful illustrations for the kids. I loved this book growing up and have looked for a copy many times before to no avail (it’s out of print). This Christmas my mom was able to find copies for both me and my brother so we could read the story on Christmas Eve with our families (way to go, mom!).

Asher was a precious angel the whole time and liked reading the story with mommy and daddy… here he is holding mommy’s hand and checking out the manger scene. #favoriteChristmasmemories

Christmas spirit

I don't know about y'all, but we are in the Christmas spirit here at the Bullard hacienda. We are looking forward to a quiet, stress-free holiday with just our little family of 3, along with a few dear friends who will be joining us for dinner and a simple celebration. We have been getting organized, wrapping a few gifts, and ordering food. (I love online grocery shopping and delivery, especially the week of Christmas when the grocery store is a mad house!) Menu planning is not my strong point, but I've been able to decide on a few meals for the week and even prep for some of them. Today we’re making up a big pot of beef/veggie stew to get us through the next few days. Luckily, for the big Christmas dinner, our friends are pitching in and bringing lots of yummy dishes and treats.

A few days ago, we decided to make one of our holiday favorites, candied pecans and almonds. We were kicking ourselves for not picking up a huge bag of pecans while we were in Oklahoma… they are, as we soon discovered, something of a commodity here. They cost somewhere in the range of $15-$18 per pound. We would prefer to do all pecans; the extra surface area allows for more yumminess in every crevice. As it happens, we’re not rolling in the dough, so we had to supplement with almonds. Here’s Asher helping mama stir the pot:

Yesterday, we tackled Pioneer Woman’s cinnamon rolls. A few friends are coming over Christmas Eve to have Christmas dinner, but in order to sustain us while we cook and make merry, we will be starting out the day with plenty of cinnamon rolls soaked in icing. This is our second time to make PW’s famous treat. The first time we tried it we didn’t own a rolling pin, so it was very challenging and the rolls didn’t end up being very pretty. This time around was much easier, but it was a HUGE mess, which Asher enjoyed very much.

There are so many things wrong with the cinnamon rolls… they are not nutritious, not even just a little bit. They are full of butter and sugar and all the things that are right (and wrong?) with the world:

And they are oh-so-yummy.

Even Asher is in the Christmas spirit. We sat him down in front of the tree with the presents; this is him right in the middle of quoting the Christmas story from Luke 2. We were so proud.

Lots of change

Lots of things are happening at once these days… a lot of different Asher issues have converged this week and we’re doing our best to keep up with it all.

First of all, Asher has started rolling non-stop from his back to his front. He won’t lay on his back for any length of time; he only wants to be on his belly. Like this…

(Yes, that is a Christmas tree on his butt… so cute!)

Of course, he can’t crawl, or even really scoot, so he gets frustrated with being on his belly for too long… so we turn him to his back, then he rolls over… repeat :). This new trick he’s learned has been causing us grief not because we have to continually turn him over when he starts yelling, but because he is still sleeping in the swaddle and he has now started turning over in his crib while swaddled! That’s a bad thing.

So this week we’ve been talking about taking the swaddle away. We’ve tried this before and it ended badly… he won’t sleep without the swaddle because he keeps hitting himself in the face or rubbing his eyes or jerking in his sleep… and then when he wakes up he can’t go back to sleep on his own so he wants to be held and bounced…. all.night.long. Hence the reason that after 4 or 5 failed attempts to remove the swaddle, we’ve returned every time.

I think there are really two issues at work and we needed to tackle both simultaneously: 1) he can’t GET to sleep without being held and bounced; and 2) he can’t STAY asleep without the swaddle. Ergo, if we got him to go to sleep without the swaddle by bouncing him, then whenever he would wake himself up in the night he would need us to bounce him again to get back to sleep. If we could teach him to go to sleep on his own, then he could come out of the swaddle because even if his arms woke him up in the night, he could put himself back to sleep.

Well, at the same time as all this, we’ve had to deal with another very pressing issue… namely, this…

… whole hand, in the mouth, all the time. Yes, he’s teething, but he’s also hungry… all the time. He weighs 17 pounds now and the milk is just not doing it for him anymore… this boy needs some food! Of course, this means that our “teaching him to sleep” plan is complicated by this new hunger issue. Normally he would sleep until 4am until he woke up hungry, but now he’ll wake at around midnight starving.

So what are we doing? Well, we’re trying to tackle them all at once, which means yesterday was a very big day for Asher.

1. He ate his first solid food :)… a little bit of baby cereal (okay, so it’s not really solid). He didn’t really like it, or perhaps I should say that he didn’t get the concept… he doesn’t understand food coming from a spoon yet.

2. We started a new sleep routine that does NOT include feeding him to sleep with a bottle. He didn’t like that so much… but it had to end some time.

3. It was the first night we put him down for bed WITHOUT bouncing him to sleep. I did, however, bounce him to try to get him to stop screaming for us to let him have that bottle in order to go to sleep.

4. It was the first night we put him to bed WITHOUT the swaddle.

Overall, it was a pretty successful night. He finally went to sleep and I think he’s learning how to get to sleep and stay asleep with no swaddle or bouncing… he’s discovered sleeping on his side, which he apparently likes very much.

Oh, and one more thing, change number 5 happened today… he is now sleeping in his own room! He has slept by our bed every night since he was born. That ends tonight… or, at least, we hope it does :).

By the way, whoever came up with the phrase “sleeping like a baby” should be shot.

The end result:

(A note for my photophile friends: 8 sec., f/3.5, ISO 800. It was nearly pitch black in the room, hence the 8 second exposure. Shooting wide open at f/1.4 would have helped, but it was hard to manual focus in the dark and f/3.5 is more forgiving.)

Land of the red man (or woman)

Oklahoma welcomed Candice, Asher and me back with open arms. We flew from LA to Oklahoma City without incident; however, we were on a much smaller plane this time, so the rocking and shaking of the plane was much worse than the transatlantic jumbos we’re used to. I have a habit of feeling very ill on planes during the last 30 minutes or so (though I’ve never actually thrown up), and I had always wondered how the motion sickness would figure into the whole “I-have-to-take-care-of-a-kid” kick that we’re on right now. The answer: better than I expected. In fact, being forced to focus on something else besides getting sick actually might have helped… even though I did have to put my head in my hands for a minute to try to stabilize my aura (polite way of saying, “trying not to puke”).

The first thing I noticed when we got to Oklahoma, besides the accents, was the faint but very real smell of Mexican food on the Oklahoma breeze. You don’t realize when you live there all the time, because you’re used to it, but when you’re gone for a while and come back the whole state smells like Mexican food.

When we got to Oklahoma, Asher got to see his Lala (Candice’s mom) and Aunt Baylee, which he loved very much:

Asher warned me not to take any pictures of him right after a long flight, he wanted to look his best. But I couldn’t resist, and I think I offended him a little bit.

After that, we went to see Asher’s Grandie (my mom), and we played a little bit of dress up with some of my old baby clothes. Check it out…

Basically the whole time we were in Ardmore Asher was being doted on, exhibit A…

Asher also got to hang out with his Grandpa Mike and seemed pretty darn happy about it…

That weekend we went to have Thanksgiving at Nana’s house. We showed Asher the horses… but it was a bit windy outside… this is the face Asher makes when the wind blows in his face. Every.Time.

Asher also got to meet his cousin Gracie… she was very loving and helpful with ‘baby Asher’.

Our next stop took us to Chickasha to see Candice’s dad, sister & crew. Papa was very proud to have all three of his grandsons together.

That’s just the tip of the iceberg of everyone we got to see. It was beyond life-giving to see family, it was such a special time to get to introduce Asher to his family.

Very First Snow!

Today was the first snow of the season, and it was Asher’s VERY FIRST SNOW! Yay for snow! We set him up on the kitchen counter to watch it and he was enthralled :)

It wasn’t quite cold enough to stick, but before it stopped and all melted, we got a good ‘father and son’ shot in the snow. I like this one:

Cambridge is really beautiful in the snow (see last years’ pictures), but the snow today was just a tiny taste. Hopefully we get a really nice snowfall before Christmas, or at least by New Years so that people visiting Cambridge around that time might see it at its best :). I will say, in general, these few short weeks in December are some of my favorite in Cambridge: the students are gone and there are no tourists, so you pretty much get the town all to yourself.
On a side note, I’m not sure what the deal is with this, but apparently Asher’s new trick this week is sticking out his tongue ALL THE TIME! “Catch a snowflake, son!”

Piehl wedding

We were so excited to be in LA to celebrate with Curby and Tiffani and be a part of their wedding. I found myself weepy several times and although I would like to blame it all on sleep deprivation, I have to say much of it was because I was so elated for Tiffani and just thrilled to watch her live in the happiness that Curby has brought her way. Those hours together seemed short and busy (they usually do during a wedding week), but I will always treasure those times with my dear friend. Here are a few highlights of our time in LA:

*Being a part of several wedding events such as Tiffani's bridal luncheon and bachelorette party- All the ladies were able to celebrate and honor Tiffani and it was such a sweet time together.

*Spending a few brief hours with Tiffani doing things like buying flowers for the bouquets and getting our nails done- After a hectic few months for both of us (with her planning a wedding and me having a baby and all), it was a sweet blessing to get to be together, chat and catch up.

*Talking with Curby on our way to and from the flower market- I loved being able to get to know him a bit more and could really see how well he and Tiffani fit together.

*Meeting Tiffani's friends from across the country- I had heard of Jessica, Laura, Barb and Karen for so long and in such detail I felt like I knew them already, but I'm so glad to finally know them in real life. Can we all be friends? :)

*Spending time with our friends Matt and Whitney, who also came for the wedding- What can I say? These two are just a good time! And they didn't hate us for asking them to help us with baby Asher over and over again. (At least they didn't show it!) SO glad we got to see these friends. 

Congratulations, Curby and Tiffani! Wishing you many, many happy years, lots of babies, and plenty of family vacations with the Bullards! ;)

A week in LA (with a baby)

After arriving in LA, we went to pick up the rental car. We were worried that all our stuff wouldn’t fit in a car, especially since we were supposed to be sharing the car with our friends Matt and Whitney. We totally lucked out; they didn't have any full-size cars available, so they upgraded us to the SUV for free! Fo’ free, y’all! So we were driving around LA in a brand new Jeep, telling America how much we love her. We honestly needed the extra space... all our crap barely fit in the SUV, despite our very best efforts to pack light.

It was hard being in a hotel with an infant. There were so many things that we had never thought about before. When we used to travel to a new city, we’d drop our bags at the hotel and then go out to explore, find a nice place to eat, do some shopping, see the sites, and the hotel would just be for sleeping (lots of sleeping). Let’s be honest, who wants to see the inside of a hotel anyway! Well, needless to say, all that has changed. The first night we put Asher down for bed at 6:30, then we sat out in the hall staring at each other with the “what-do-we-do-now” look. I got us a burger and club sandwich from the bar downstairs and we ate in the hall. Where are you supposed to go when you put your kid down to sleep in a hotel room? I considered putting him down in the bathroom, which I’ve heard of some people doing… but that leads to my next question: where would you go to the bathroom?

Overall, the week in LA went really well. We were there for basically one reason: to be at Tiffani and Curby’s wedding, and as long as we got to do that, the trip was a success. Stay tuned for a recap of wedding festivities! But as a side note, I heard the names Tiffani and Curby spoken together so many times that week that I started combining them a la movie star couples: who else is thinking Curffani sounds pretty great? I also like Tiffacurb. In any case, both are better than Tiffurby.

Transition

We’ve been settling back into life in Cambridge the past couple of days. It’s pretty cold, and it’s dark by 4:30pm, so it requires a bit of transition time to get used to it after being in Oklahoma, where the sun is still reasonably warm during the day even when it is colder outside. Not only that, but seeing our families was so nice, and it was hard to leave… I think our families had a hard time watching us Asher go. So, this week will be a ‘transition week,’ which might involve some general complaint sessions about England… in fact, most of the Americans we know have a period of hating on England when they return from trips to the states… luckily, another friend of ours just returned as well, so we can commiserate with one another, which helps. Christmas is a really lovely time to be in Cambridge, so that is some consolation for being away from family. We’re also happy to have some time to relax after what was a really busy trip… although, Asher still isn’t over the jet lag yet, so we haven’t really slept that much.

In other news, Asher is five months old today :). Yay! I’ve been noticing his eyes changing color since he was born, and they’ve gone through many stages… at first they were a very dark blue, then they lightened up and became a nice baby blue. Then after a few months I started noticing some little flecks of amber in the blue, which made me really excited because Candice has really pretty green eyes with flecks of amber, and I was totally hoping he would get her eyes! Today I got a great picture of his eye, and I’m happy to report…

… he’s totally a green-eyed boy :). I hope it lasts. I know they can still change color some more, but it’s totally fun to watch. Here’s a close-up…

And on that lovely note… it’s time for bed. Everyone say a prayer that Asher sleeps really good tonight :).

The First Flight

Here’s an account of Asher’s first flight: London to LA! What a flight to begin with! But Asher doesn’t like to do anything halfway, so when we asked if he was up for flying, he said, “Go big or go home, guys.” This was written the day after we arrived in the states:

“Wow! Yesterday was Asher's first trans-Atlantic flight (and first flight ever!). Candice and I spent the whole of Monday getting everything packed and preparing the house to be lived in by some of our friends while we’re away. Candice gave me a haircut, we did a lot of laundry, and we made three trips to different stores to buy formula, 7 boxes in total. They don't sell Asher's formula in the States and we didn't want to switch formulas. So we packed nearly an entire suitcase worth of formula (we sound like crazy parents, or ‘hoarders’, and there was a time when I totally would have judged us for it… but I’m so tired I don’t have the energy it takes to be judgmental of myself)! I guess it will work out well though, because we'll have a lot of extra space to bring stuff back with us.

“We didn't sleep super well the night before our trip; we were both excited/anxious about the flight the next day. We had been anticipating this trip for a while, and we just weren't sure if Asher would handle the 12-hour flight well or not... I had definitely had some visions of us standing in the back of the plane with Asher screaming his head off while everyone on the plane shoots us disapproving glances over their shoulders.

“We were also nervous just about getting to the airport in the morning; we were driving ourselves, but there were a lot of things to do in the morning and we wanted to be gone by 7:30, which is only 30 minutes after Asher wakes up. So we made a list, got up at 5:50, showered, got everything ready, fed Asher, turned the heat off, took out the trash, emptied the fridge... and we were out by 7:45! Not too shabby.

“Traffic was horrible on the way to the airport, and we went a route I'd never taken before, because Kate (our temperamental GPS) was taking us to an off-site parking place... it took FOREVER! But we finally made it and kept joking about how we have an inability to make it to the airport two hours before the flight, which is always our goal. We didn't do too bad, it was 10:30 when we pulled into the terminal, and our flight left at noon.

“Since it was our first time traveling as a family of 3, there were a lot of unknowns... should we check the stroller or take it to the gate? Will it get roughed up too much? Can we get Asher his own seat, in which case we would carry on the car seat and strap it in? The guy at the counter worked his magic and gave us three seats at the front of the bulkhead... perfect!

“We checked two bags and the stroller, and carried the car seat, Asher, and two backpacks through the airport... we had a lot of crap, but we managed very well. We were even delighted to see that they had a "family" line through security that meant that we didn't have to wait long and they were totally prepared for all the formula stuff we had. It was like magic :). And, as a side note, when we passed all the others waiting in line, I was like “suckahs,” which is, I was sure, a sentiment they would be repeating to us later while they’re fast asleep on the plane and we’re messing with a four month old… oh well, I guess it all evens out in the end.

“Finally on the plane, we got settled into our three seats, with the car seat strapped in between us. I wanted to apologize to the people sitting next to us as soon as we got on the plane, since I’m sure they were sending awful thoughts our way, but I resisted... I was trying to have faith in our little guy that he would handle it all well. We were on the plane for about an hour before it took off, and we worked a while trying to get Asher to sleep... finally he went down and was in his car seat, passed out, when, sure enough, they come on the flippin' PA with about a thousand announcements and it was so loud that the little guy just couldn’t sleep through it... so, there goes nap #1. Oh well, we just shrugged it off, and Asher seemed to be happy even though he only slept a few minutes, so we left him alone. (Parenting Rule #1: if he’s happy… leave.him.alone.)

“He was very interested in everything that was going on, so he just sat in Candice's lap and in his car seat for a while looking around, smiling, talking... being very very sweet. He smiled at people and of course they thought he was the cutest thing ever. Candice got him back to sleep and he slept for a while on her chest while she watched "The Help". He got fussy around his bedtime, but we were ready and immediately sprung into action. We went about the bedtime routine with a flurry of activity that probably looked funny from the outside looking in, not least because both of us were engaged in trying to soothe our baby with the same seriousness one might have when defusing a bomb… change the diaper, get bottle, formula, mix, shake, find blankets, swaddle baby… boom, situation handled. We managed to get him swaddled and in his seat and he slept for a full 4 hours!

“All in all, he did amazing on the flight. Beyond our expectations I'd say. We got through customs in LAX in a flash and as we were waiting for our bags more than one person commented to us about how sweet he was on the flight... one lady even asked us what the heck was wrong with the other kid that was screaming for an hour. She was totally judging those parents for not bringing enough toys for their toddler to play with. I kept thinking that it's probably dumb luck whether your kid starts screaming and won’t stop… but, in any case, it’s a little easier with a younger baby because you can just bounce him around to distract and entertain him. But anyways, I was happy that the general perception on the plane was that we were awesome parents :).”

Blog neglect

Obviously, we haven’t blogged in a while. I usually don’t like posts that begin with “it’s been a while,” but let me explain. We use this blog primarily as a means to keep in touch with family while we are away in the UK.  Therefore, since we’ve been gone to the States for a while and have been visiting family, the necessity of blogging was temporarily removed.

Nonetheless, we realize we have other blurkers who might like to know some of the things we were up to. Now that we’re back from the craziness of traveling, we’ll try to resume our normal posting about what’s going on. We also use this blog as our own little memory bank; a record of our lives just for our own benefit, so perhaps we’ll throw a few retrospective posts in the mix as well.