John's First Christmas and New Year

John in Big Bear with Dad, Grandpa Doug, and Great-Grandpa Don...4 generations
Kershaw Christmas Celebration! John with Mom, Grandma Joan, and Great-Grandma Pat...4 generations on many sides of the family

John tearing into his very first Christmas present at Great Grandma and Grandpa Plourde's

in Chino on Christmas Eve day.

Christmas Eve at Grandma and Grandpa Bremer's. Dinner, presents, Thoroughbread lights, and dessert...a great tradition in it's first year.

We had a very happy and very busy first Christmas. John of course got lots of wonderful presents from family and friends and spent time in a lot of different places in a short period of time. We visited Chino Christmas Eve day to see GG Plourdes (Steve's mom's parents) then Christmas Eve at Steve's parents here in Alta Loma. Christmas morning we had our own small gift exchange then headed to my Dad's house here in Alta Loma later that morning then to my Mom's house in Alta Loma as well in the afternoon for the rest of the day. The next morning was the Kershaw Christmas brunch at my Mom's sister's house in Upland then we headed straight up to Big Bear for the Bremer Christmas celebration (Steve's dad's family). John enjoyed all the attention and playtime with aunts, uncles, grandparents and cousins. There were lots of presents to open but he preferred to grab the bows off the boxes and chew on them! It was tiring for the 3 of us. John was sick by the time we got to Big Bear so we couldn't stay long. I think he had a touch of the flu but no fever which is a relief for Steve and I. He is still getting over the end of the sniffles. We will have to condense next year because 6 gatherings in 3 days is just too much.

I wouldn't say we celebrated John's first New Year because he was in bed at 8 and we rang in the New Year with New York and went to bed but it was his first transition to a new year :) Last month we also celebrated my last day of teaching as I begin my job as full-time mom. Today is the second day back to work for the teachers in our area and it hasn't quite hit me that I am not part of that group anymore but I am sure it will soon. I am really enjoying my time with John. He is growing so fast and learning so much everyday. He is a speedy crawler but so eager to walk. He pulls himself to standing on everything he can (even if it's not stable). He will take a few steps if I hold his hands and can balance standing himself for a couple seconds on occasion. His falls are usually not hard but a few have been :( He cries for about a minute then gets right back to pulling himself up on whatever he just toppled off of. John is such a happy baby and I am so lucky that he likes being around other people. He has yet to cry when I hand him off and he plays great with any visitor even if I am not in the room.

John is still nursing and eating solids throughout the day and is starting to slim out a bit from all of his activity. He is mostly sleeping through the nights again but his first morning feeding is now at 5:30 in stead of 7 after which he falls back to sleep (and so do I) for over an hour. Every time I think his schedule is set it changes! Naptime is a tad difficult these days as I am trying to get him back to self-soothing. He is just too big for me to hold and bounce-rock for 15 minutes or more each time he goes down for a nap. It takes some time but he eventually stops crying and falls asleep. It is really hard to not go to him and pick him up but I know he has to learn to do this himself for both our benefit. Such a long post! Thank you to those who follow and read up on our baby John and for all the Christmas cards and gifts. I of course have tons and tons of Christmas pictures and am working on setting up a Picasa album. I will provide the link once I get it figured out. All the pictures are on my facebook account though.

This is a favorite video but there are just too many to share!