Merry Christmas 2013!

Merry Christmas to you and yours, from the Seeley family!

Here is our update for the year. :)

We did manage to get a visit in with Santa again this year at the mall. The boys were definitely very into that this year and eager to ask him for what they wanted! Haha!

When did they get so big?!?

The boys had their Christmas program at preschool last week. Too stinkin' sweet. Ethan was a donkey in the nativity scene. He may have looked more like a dog, but that's ok. ;)

Ethan, the donkey :)

The first day, Ethan hid in the back, so we didn't get the best pics of him. And though Noah did manage to stand up there in front of everyone (without hugging tightly to his teacher's leg! LOL!), he kept turned to the side the entire time, so this was the best shot we got of him, before he turned. Haha!

With all of their buddies at the preschool program!

They thoroughly enjoyed the Christmas cookies after the program, which made it all worth it for them! Haha!

Ethan participated in both days of the program, since he goes to school every day, so the next day, he did a better job staying closer to the front so that we could see him. We watched as he sang all of the words and did all of the hand motions, too! :) What a difference a year makes!! I love the last pic, where they are singing, "Let's all do a little jumping, let's all do a little jumping, let's all do a little jumping, and spread Christmas cheer!"

He had no problems performing on stage this year! :)

I decided to make Christmas gifts for their preschool friends again this year. I was inspired by this pin to create my own little tags to add to the treat bags, stuffed with Hershey's kisses and a tube of Lipsmacker.

Christmas treat bag tags

The treat bags were a pretty quick, easy thing to make, which is good, since I had 32 of them to do!! Yikes! I love plays on words, so this one definitely appealed to me. :)

I wanted to make something cute for their teachers, too, but ran out of time trying to find the supplies that I needed. So, I settled with Target gift cards. When I saw the red envelopes they gave me to put them in, I was inspired to create little Santa belts out of them. This was super easy, but made for a super cute gift! I completed them with little chalkboard tags that I found in the dollar section at Target. Unfortunately, chalk didn't work well on them (go figure), but I had a silver metallic Permanent marker that worked perfectly! I love the result!

Santa belt gift cards with tags

I think that starting a bit earlier than the day before handing them out might be a good idea next year! Haha!

We had lots of fun again this year with Rusty, our elf. You can check out all of his antics on this page, if you'd like! He left good reports for the boys, and they were placed on the "nice" list. :)

They made the nice list for good behavior, but he gave them some things to work on, too. ;)

Santa brought them the toys they haven't stopped talking about this past month...a "double helicopter" for Ethan, and a firetruck for Noah! Amos couldn't ask for a Johnny jump-up, but he loves trying to jump while standing on us, so I figured it'd be a hit. ;) Daisy has enjoyed her Cincinnati football rope toy, so I think we did ok with that one, too.

Christmas morning, 2013

I hope that you have had a wonderful holiday season and are enjoying it with your loved ones today. We had a fantastic month and can't wait for what the New Year brings!

the seeley family, christmas 2013

All I Want for Christmas is Diapers! {Pampers giveaway}

Christmas snuck up on me rather quickly this year. I guess that can happen when you have a baby just a few short months before the big day! So yeah, I'm going to go ahead and blame it on the fact that I now have three little ones competing for my time and attention. Between keeping up with our elf, Rusty's antics each night, designing and printing Christmas cards and gifts, Christmas shopping, etc, etc, etc, I've been spread a bit thin this month! Consequently, I seem to be a tad more forgetful than usual lately. Is that even possible?!? Often, I forget little things that aren't a big deal, but lately, I've been forgetting more important things, like putting diapers in the diaper bag for Amos. Houston, we have a problem. Please tell me I'm not the only one who has discovered that they are completely out of diapers when they go to change a well-soiled diaper while out running errands! Ouch.

Fortunately, it's easy for me to swing by my local CVS, grab the diapers I need, and be on my way! I love how clean and organized the store always is, no matter which one I frequent. I also love that I don't have to trek hundreds of yards through the store to get what I need while dragging along my tiny one! Quick and easy.

Pampers has always been my go-to brand of diapers since I started buying them nearly 5 years ago! All 3 of my boys have used them now, and I couldn't be happier with how well they work. They do a fantastic job keeping them dry all night long. When I feed Amos in the middle of the night, I wouldn't want to wake him even more by changing his diaper! Fortunately, that's not an issue with Pampers, as I don't have to worry about him leaking before morning. I also love the fact that when Noah wakes up in the morning, despite the huge amounts of water he drinks before bedtime, his pajamas and sheets are nice and dry. No leaks here! All of my boys have had sensitive skin (inherited from me, I'm sure), but had no troubles at all with either the Sensitive Swaddlers, or later with the Cruisers. I also use their sensitive wipes, which do an even better job now, at 20% thicker, especially with super sticky situations! I have enough things to worry about most days, so I'm glad diapers isn't one of them.

In addition to how soft they are and how dry they keep my kiddos, they also look cute! Pampers recently updated the look of both their diapers and their packaging, so they look great, too. Noah is a huge fan of Elmo and all of his Sesame Street buddies, so he loves seeing their adorable faces on his diapers. I love that they are soft and stretchy and move easily with my little man on the move! I also love their three layers of absorbency that pull wetness away from their bottoms, decreasing the likelihood for any diaper rash, or discomfort.

I love that Pampers rewards you for buying their products. You get a certain number of points for each product you buy, just by entering the 15-digit code found on the sticker on the package. Let's just say I've accumulated a lot of points in nearly 5 years. So many, that we even managed to get a free Kiddi-O Trike for Noah last year! I have a lot of points built up again, so I'll have to start browsing the catalog again soon. ;) What's better than getting free stuff just for buying necessities??

As we get ready to travel again this holiday season, I'm relieved to know that even though we'll be visiting our families in a couple fairly remote locations in Ohio, there are CVS stores nearby, in case we run out of diapers while we are there! With two little ones in diapers this year, all I want for Christmas is Pampers!!

Now for the fun stuff! It's your chance to enjoy some Pampers of your own! I'm giving away coupons for one free pack of Pampers diapers (up to $13.99) and wipes (up to $3.99)! To enter, use the Rafflecopter widget below for your chance to win. The winner will be randomly selected after the contest closes on Tuesday, December 31st at 12:00 am, so be sure to leave your comment before then. Only one entry per person/email address, please. Additional entries will not be eligible to win. To qualify to win, you must be at least 18 years old and live in the United States. The winner will be notified by email. If they don't respond within 24 hours, a new winner will be selected. Good luck!!

All entries will be validated and removed if they do not fulfill the requirements. Please be sure you leave a comment below if you want your entry to count! ;)

a Rafflecopter giveaway

I was selected for this opportunity as a member of Clever Girls Collective and the content and opinions expressed here are all my own.

The Wednesday One: Week 50

The Wednesday One: Week 49

Amos is Three Months Old!

Amos is three months old now! First up, his stats. In the past month, he gained 2 pounds, 1 ounce, to measure up at 12 lbs 9 oz (up to the 33rd percentile), and grew 1.5 inches, to measure up at 24 inches (up to the 52nd percentile). So, he had a better month for growing. Perhaps that had something to do with being able to keep all his food down again! :)

Below is a pic of Amos at three months, wearing a 12-month onesie. I will be taking a pic each month in this onesie to show how much he grows each month, just as I did for both Ethan and Noah. His eyes still appear to be blueish-gray, and the little bit of hair that he has is still the darkest of the three boys. His coloring seems to more closely resemble Noah's, not as pale as Ethan's skin. ;)

Such a happy boy!

And here is a comparison of all three at three months, just for fun. Ethan and Noah were still significantly bigger at this point (Ethan was 25 inches long and weighed 13 lbs 6 oz and Noah was 24 inches long and weighed a whopping 14 lbs 10 oz), but it's kind of nice keeping this one tiny for longer. :)

Ethan, Noah, and Amos (each at 3 months)

Accomplishments this month:

• Sleeping through the night
• Rolling from back to side

We made it over the hump. The third month was so much better than the first two! A big part of that has to do with the developments in the sleep department. I didn't want to jinx it by saying that he was sleeping through the night, but I think it's safe to say now, as he has been doing it for 4 weeks now! Yay!!! His record right now is a little over 10 hours, but would actually probably be longer if I didn't have to wake him up in the morning to get ready! This past month, he is still averaging about 14 hours of sleep a day, with approximately 9.5 of those hours being at night! After discussing it with his doctor at his 2-month appointment, he advised me that as long as he was fed and changed, I should put him down awake at night and let him get himself to sleep, even if that meant crying. To avoid bad habits from happening, I needed to let him learn to do this now. So, we tried it on that Friday night. I hated listening to those tears for the 15 minutes that it lasted, but it worked. He went to sleep. And he stayed asleep all night. For real? That's all I needed to do?!? Relief.

It may have also helped him to sleep more comfortably now that we have his projectile spit-up/GERD under control. I don't know if it was the Nexium prescription, or the adjustments my chiropractor is doing on him, but something is working!! Yay! It is so much nicer being able to cuddle the little guy and not having to worry about changing my clothes every time I do it! I actually think it may be the adjustments that are helping more than the medicine, because when we skipped a week of getting adjusted, he started to get worse, but after being adjusted again this week, he is doing better again now. I can get one more refill of his Nexium right before the end of the year, so I'll probably go ahead and do that, but then I may discontinue it after that. At the steep cost of $350/month once our insurance deductible resets in January, I would have to know that the medicine is really working to pay that kind of money for it. So, we may have to see how the adjustments alone do instead. His doctor said that we should hopefully be able to discontinue the medicine anyway once he starts to eat food around 5-6 months, so we'll be there soon!

Not long after he started sleeping through the night, we discontinued the bottles of formula before bed. That was actually more a result of Josh going out of town, which would require me to give him a bottle. I was not a fan of, nor very good at, trying to feed him a bottle, so I skipped it the 2nd night. And he was fine. So, we just stopped the bottles after that. He's still nursing every 2-3 hours during the day for 10-20 minutes at each feeding, but can go from 9 or 10 pm until at least 7 or 8 am without eating now. Occasionally he'll wake up in the 5 o'clock hour to eat, but it's rare.

I still don't really have him on a schedule yet. This is probably due to the fact that we're not home nearly as much as we were with the other two. With the older boys in preschool, we're in the van at least twice a day every day, and sometimes more, if I run errands. So, he does more napping in the van than in his crib. He usually naps a little bit in the morning and then takes a longer 2-4 hour nap in the afternoon. It's normally at the same time as the older two, so that works out great!! Then most evening he takes a very short nap (30 minutes or less) around 6:30 or 7. He's good with sleeping in his carseat if the van is moving, but once we are stopped somewhere, he normally wakes up now. So, dinners out have become a bit more interesting, and no more trying to get my nails done while he happily sleeps in his seat. :( Haha, oh well!

The boy loves getting naked, just as big brother Noah did at this age. He can't stop smiling once you start taking his clothes off to change his diaper, or into his jammies! He also loves chewing on his hands. You would think he's starving the way he gnaws away at them all the time! He can almost roll from his back to his belly now. He gets to his side, then stays there, instead of rolling all the way over.

Amos was a rockstar traveler on our recent trip to Ohio for Thanksgiving. He slept the entire almost 4-hour trip up to Grandpa & Grandma Seeley's house, then also the entire trip up to Grandpa & Grandma Frank's house from there the next day! The longer trip back wasn't quite as perfect, but he still did a really great job, sleeping most of the way! It's nice to see him following in big brother Ethan's steps in the sleeping department, instead of Noah's! Haha!

We can't wait to see what this little guy has in store for us next!

The Wednesday One: Week 48