Lil' Bro is 3 months old!

Wow! Ross and I told ourselves before Reid was born "If we can just get to 3 months, we'll be good," and we did! It's not like we had the choice, but we knew the first few months were going to be rough, but looking back, either Reid was an easier baby, or we were more relaxed and had a little more experience under our belt this time. Reid's first 3 months were tough at times, but not near as tough as I thought they would be. Truth be told, Big Bro was more work, Reid just required more time. So we made it to the big 3 and we can't imagine life now without two little boys. I have always wanted a little girl (we'll see on that one), but I have so loved becomming a mom of boys. It really is a special bond, and I love the dynamic it gives our family. We are full of ENERGY, silliness, lots of playing and tickles, but also lots of sweet hugs and kisses. Reid has gifted us sleeping through the night, and has gotten better on napping too. He usually gives me two longer naps and then a couple of catnaps during the day and then sleeps a good 12 hours at night. We are still dreamfeeding, but I'm sensing him trying to already move to a 4 hour schedule. We'll see what the next two weeks hold. He's rolling over from his tummy to his back, hence the lack of love for tummy time. He will sometimes hang out for a little bit, but usually it's just a game of me putting him back on his tummy, and then he rolls over again. :) He's got great head support and we've been practicing sitting in our bumbo. Oh good ole bumbo. He's solely on bottles now and I'm trying to keep up with his demand, but he's getting a formula bottle for his dream feed. Thankfully he takes well to it and doesn't seem to mind...probably since he's half asleep. We're getting lots of coos and spitting bubbles, and sweet smiles with that mile deep dimple. He still has lots rolls, especially on the thighs, and they are too cute. One day we hope he has a neck, but for now, it's all rolls too! We just love this little guy and the sweetness he brings to our family. Happy 3 months Reid, you're 1/4 of year old!
*PIC coming soon, I'm working on finding my battery for my camera. :(

Christmas Fun!

More fun things we did at Christmas!
1. Worked on Christmas projects, like this one talking about the animals that might have been in the stable when Jesus was born:
2. Wrapped presents! Also known as helped Mom by wrapping Taylor up...what a great gift!
3. Went to Santa's Village with BFF Avery...sadly it was too cold and they were too busy to get a cute shot of them together, but good times were had.

These are a few of my favorite things:

*Thanks MM for the good idea and for sharing your favorite things. Here are my current favorite things:

1. Love, LOVE that I can get my favorite Starbucks drink, Chai Tea Latte, in concentrate at Target. And it comes in decaf, which you may think I might need the caffeine, but I don't (can't go to sleep at night) and Reid sure don't. It's not quite the same as Starbucks, but I'd say it's 80% there. And it's only $3 at Target and I can easily make 4-5 cups of this yummy drink!

2. Nioxin Shampoo and Scalp Therapy for thinning hair. Weird you say? Well, with Luke I lost what felt like 50% of my hair, and 4 months in my hairdresser recommended this shampoo. It's pricey, but I immediately noticed my hair was coming out a normal rate. Before I had Reid, a sweet friend gave me two giant size bottles of this potion and I started using it as soon as I noticed the hair thinning. It's still coming out more than "normal" per say, but not enough to worry me...whew!

3. Speaking of new babies, we are such swaddling fans. Wouldn't have it any other way. With Luke we had "The Miracle Blanket" which works great, but this time around we found "The Woombie" and I have to say I love how easy it is to zip him up and he's yet to break out.

4. Every man and woman I have ever spoken to about this subject agrees that jeans are HARD to find, so once you find them, you buy at least two pairs of them, if not more. My old favs were David Kahn. Those were pre-pregnancy. :( My new must have jeans are Ann Taylor Loft Modern Boot Fit. I have 3 pair and so far so good. They give me a low-rise feel without the exposure of too low. And I like the variety of washes.

5. I am a Mary Kay fan! I love their skin care line because it has always proven to work better than anything else. This is a bit of a cheat because I love their Mineral Powder Foundation - so easy for fast make-up application, and good, clean coverage. And I love their Targeted Action Eye Revitalizer good for those dark circles due to lack of sleep and getting older.

6. My all time favorite Christmas CD is Point of Grace: Christmas Story. Ross got it for me our first Christmas dating, and I am always so excited to break it out mid-November to get into the season of Christmas. "O Holy Night" is my favorite song on there and we even had our friend Lindsay sing it at our wedding...beautiful!

7. My favorite book of all time, HANDS DOWN, is Redeeming Love by Francine Rivers. If you haven't read it, DO! Even if you are a guy you will still enjoy this novel that pulls from the story of Hosea and Gomer. It is a beautiful beautiful love story that you won't be able to put down.

8. Something that I've become slightly addicted to this year and have all over my house, well at least in 4 rooms (3 baths, 1 kitchen) is Bath and Body Works Antibacterial Soaps. I love picking out scents for whatever season we're in, and I love that my hands are clean, smell good, and don't get dried out from my 1,000 times a day hand washing. My favorite holiday scent this year was Yuletide Pear Vanilla.

9. For some crazy reason I've decided to grow my hair long. Yes, it's in my way. Yes, it was like blanket smothering me this hot summer as I was 6,7 and 8 months pregnant. BUT, Ross likes it longer, and I can always put in a ponytail. Plus me and short hair and chubby cheeks don't work. It's alittle cabbage patch. Anyways, I've been using Anti-Snap by Redkin to help it from breaking during everyday wear and tear. So far it seems to be working and it keeps my hair a little softer since I have such coarse hair. We'll see how long I keep growing, but for now we're still keepin' the scissors away!

10. Last, but not least is my new (to me new) way to shop! I heart Amazon. I was able to get so much Christmas shopping done, stress free this year. It is quite the task shopping with a two year old and newborn, and Amazon allowed me to get 75% of my shopping done (plus some extra specialty things for me) online with free shipping. It truly helped me enjoy the season more knowing I didn't have that many more errands to run. As much as I love shopping, I love it stress free - KID free, and when it's readily available in my warm home!

Now to all of you, please share your favorite things...at least one! It's so great hearing them, and getting ideas and recommendations.
Merry Christmas!

"He sleeps."

It happened really out of nowhere. Reid was doing okay, not fantastic in the sleep department, when all of sudden, last Monday (Sunday night/Monday Morning) he slept until 7am. We typically put him down around 7:30pm, dream feed at 11:00pm and then cross our fingers. He was going until 4 or 5 am routinely, but I noticed he wasn't super hungry when he ate then. I guess his little body finally got the message because he's been sleeping through the night pretty consistently. A couple of nights he's woken up randomly, but nothing a paci, or a few minutes of tears doesn't cure to get him right back to sleep. The trick in my mind seems to be not feeding him too late so that at his dream feed he really stocks up. So, all that being said, mommy is sooo much happier to have a good block of sleep under her belt.
Now, if we could just figure out naps (still wants to wake up 30-45 minutes into them), we'll be golden. If I have to choose I most definitely will pick better night sleep. Stay tuned!

Oh the Woombie!

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

We have been celebrating Christmas in full swing around the Moshell household. After Thanksgiving we (meaning Dad) got all the decorations out of the attic and we set about decorating our Christmas tree. Luke was especially helpful this year in bringing mom and dad non-breakable ornaments to hang - we couldn't even keep up! Reid enjoyed the more laid back approach of watching the lights on the tree and enjoying the tunes. Luke also helped Dad put the lights out front (we LOVE whoever invented the net lights - easy peasy!).

Also, if you look very closely, you will see our friend "Buddy" the Christmas Elf sitting on the shelf. We started this tradition and so far Luke has really enjoyed finding him each morning, but he's not too worried about what Buddy thinks about his actions or words. Maybe next year.
Starting December 1 we have a little special activity or thought to help celebrate Christmas. At MOPs they had the BEST craft with a calendar and something to do each day to do with your little ones. The first one so appropriately was reading the Christmas story from the Bible and we helped to tell the story with the boys nativity set. Luke warms my heart when he talks of Baby Jesus being born on Christmas, and what do you know, he also informed us that the Grinch was born on Christmas Eve. Who knew their birthdays were so close? :)


*Sidenote: Sorry for the giant Elf foot in the photo - poor kid just has Sasquatch feet.

Today we headed to the mall to talk to our jolly friend Santa Clause. We had already met him once a couple of weeks ago at Collin Creek mall and to my surprise Luke really liked him. He is a great Santa, very patient, good conversation with the little ones and so far I've not seen a line there. So we were meeting friends there today and I thought we'd try to get a good picture this time, hence came out the Christmas wear and we made our merry way up there. Luke was so excited to show Santa his camel (see above nativity set) and chat it up with him. I'm just glad he's not frightened by him anymore and so excited to get a sweet picture with the boys and Santa. You can tell by the picture, he's just a nice Santa, I highly recommend him.

Lastly, a sweet gift from our Father above - SNOW! It came on my brother's birthday, so to me that's special and Luke was so excited. I can't think of a better way to start the Christmas season. Hope everyone else has a wonderful month leading up to this most special holiday!