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| Merry Christmas! Puryear Family 2011 |
Madelyn's first Christmas was a memorable one for sure, but leading up to the actual Christmas celebration was a little...insane! She is quite the happy four and a half month old baby now, but it was a rough go of it during December. Olivia continues to thrive as well, talking up a storm and making us laugh on a daily basis! Before I get ahead of myself, lets recap Thanksgiving!
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| Breakfast time with the girls |
The Wittman Family, Jill, Steve, Emma, and Ava, were visiting the Beach for Thanksgiving this year, and we of course had to make the trip to celebrate with them and the other Puryears! Besides leaving something at home and having to head back, causing Madelyn to scream the last 25 minutes of the trip because she was starving, the ride down was quite pleasant. We had a great time catching up with the family, eating lots of yummy food, and even got to spend time outside. The Wambolt family, Scott, Carol, Brayden, and Blake, also came down on Friday and all six grandchildren played together. Olivia had so much fun with the cousins, and it was great to watch them all playing together. We have great memories of that weekend, and I just love when all the cousins get together. Thank goodness my in-laws built a big enough house to hold us all!
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| We tried to get all the cousins in one place at one time! |
The Thanksgiving break was enjoyable, but it was time to really get into a groove! I was finished with Maternity Leave right before Thanksgiving, and only worked two, three day weeks. However, it was time to work full five days weeks and get Miss Madelyn and Olivia adjusted to daycare full time. Olivia loves Miss Sharon, our daycare woman, so she was not really my worry. Madelyn seems to be very alert and aware of where she is and therefore, usually has a rough time sleeping in new places. I was worried she would not sleep at Miss Sharon's and we would be dealing with an over tired, cranky baby. However, she slept! Even on her second day at daycare, she gave Miss Sharon BIG smiles. I feel confident both girls are in the right place, and we feel blessed to have Miss Sharon in our lives. The transition back was pretty smooth for everyone, but just after our the first full week back, the tides turned and the waters became pretty rough!
Olivia had a runny nose and a little cough after Thanksgiving, but we did not think too much about it. She seemed to have recovered by the middle of the week and when we received a call about being the Holy Family in our churches theatrical performance of Walk to Bethlehem, the first weekend in December, we thought it would be an experience for Madelyn to play Baby Jesus and Olivia was a sheep. The night was pretty chilly and we bundled up for our performance! My mom, Julie, was the narrator of our scene and Tyler was a Shepard. Olivia just loved preforming for the groups of people! She would say, "hello people" and then she would tell them which way they were to go after my mom was done narrating the scene. Madelyn on the other hand was a warm and cozy Baby Jesus and slept in my arms for most of the time! We arrived home late that evening and both girls were exhausted! I nursed Madelyn and was hoping she would sleep through the night because she ate two hours later than usual. However, I was severely wrong! She usually wakes up once in the night to nurse and then goes right back to sleep. However, she decided to wake up at midnight, then two o'clock, and then four o'clock, and finally six o'clock! It was pretty crazy and uncharacteristic of her. Dan and I attributed to the fact she was overtired and went to bed late. Then Sunday night the same type of situation. She was awake about the same amount of times on Sunday night, and she was starting to cough. We figured since she was outside on Saturday night, she probably had Olivia's cold...great! The other thing that changed on Sunday was she would only nurse on one side. Monday night brought the same result and she even refused to nurse. I figured she was exhausted and she had enough to eat, but I was wrong. Around 10:00 pm she started crying and it lasted for more than five minutes, so we went in and realized she was all stuffed up. I immediately took her into the shower to break up some of her congestion and then at 11:00 I nursed her again, and figured we would be good for the night. Not so, at 3:30 am she was awake again and Dan went in to calm her down. Then she was awake again at 6:00. With only five hours of sleep, we decide something was wrong, and we needed to call the doctor! On Tuesday we had our first visit to Dr. Lancaster and she diagnosed Madelyn with a type of respiratory virus and the start of an ear infection, which explains why she was awake each night and would not nurse! Dr. Lancaster instructed us to start a nebulizer treatment with her twice a day and she was on antibiotics too.
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| Neb Treatments :( |
The next two weeks were rough. Madelyn refused to nurse, and the nebulizer treatments were agonizing! I started pumping full time and she would only take a bottle. This was emotionally rough on me, but we pushed forward. On Monday, less than a week after we had been to the doctors, Madelyn's entire body broke out in a rash and she hardly slept that night, again! Tuesday December 13th, Olivia had a dentist appointment and we decided to keep Madelyn home too, hoping for a doctor's appointment. Two bits of news happened on this day. First Olivia's upper right tooth needed to be pulled in order to preserve her adult tooth, and Madelyn had an allergic reaction to the amoxicillin. It seemed that a fall that Olivia took in the Spring, which chipped her left front tooth, had an impact on the right tooth too! We also discovered that Madelyn's ear infection was healed, but she had a reaction to the medicine. Whether she is allergic is still to be determined, but for now she will no longer receive amoxicillen medicine! At this point, ten days before Christmas we started to heal, and boy was it a LONG few weeks! However, the joy that Olivia had on Christmas morning melted our hearts and made the rough seas of December worth all of the struggles!
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| Christmas Morning, chillin in bed! |
Christmas was an amazing event this year! We were finally all healthy and happy! On Christmas Eve, the girls and I spent the day at my parent's house because Dan went with Laura to the Ravens game. We did our traditional appetizers and were able to make it to two different church services, the children's service and the 7 pm service. By 7:00, both girls were exhausted, but we pushed our luck and it worked out fine. Olivia spent the sermon playing with my iPhone and Madelyn slept the whole time. After the services we had several people compliment us on the girls behavior, but my favorite was, "wow she is two and knows how to use an iPhone!? My mom can't even turn it on!" Aw the joys of technology!
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| The Puryear Christmas 2011 |
Christmas morning was equally as memorable! Olivia and Madelyn awoke to a new play kitchen, the best present ever, in front of the tree! Madelyn had fun playing with her new Pooh toy and Olivia hardly noticed there were other presents under the tree! It was so enjoyable, and Olivia kept saying, "Santa brought me kitchen! Thanks Santa!" It melted our hearts and it was so much fun that she understood Santa! So our morning was relaxing and it was wonderful being a family of four! Then after nap we went to my parents for more family time. We had quite an extended family event with greatest and one of her friends from Heartlands, and of course the newlyweds, and Kym had a friend celebrating too. It was quite a bit of people and made the day jolly!
After Christmas we headed to Ocean City to continue our Christmas celebrations at the Puryear's! The first night, we decided to try to do an all you can eat crab leg dinner with both girls, Laura, and Jean and Lee. I am happy to report it was a success! Olivia had fun eating the crabs for quite a while and even the dinner we ordered her. Madelyn was a bit cranky and finally fell asleep in my arms. This worked to my benefit because the whole table was offering pieces of crab meat and I did not have to work as hard for my meal :) Thanks Madelyn. We were there for about 2 hours and when we left all of our bellies were full and we did not cause a scene in the restaurant! The next few days were relaxing. We celebrated Christmas, ate lots of great food, and played lots of games. It was just what our family needed after our crazy December sickness. This week we also had very successful nights of sleep with Madelyn and she started sleeping through the night! However, this did not last...more to come on that issue!
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| Addie, Olivia, and Madelyn, ringing in the New Year |
Finally we headed home and we celebrated New Years Eve with our traditional group of friends, Monica and Rob, and Courtney, Kris, and Addie. We had a great night with appetizers and old time games. The girls all headed to bed and the fun began! Our lives have changed so drastically in the past two years, but we still know how to celebrate and have fun...even though we are just in the comfort of our house!
December was definitely a month of struggles, chaos, and lack of sleep, but the look on Olivia's face Christmas morning and the smiles from Madelyn made everything worth it! We are quickly learning that no matter how rough it can get with two young kids, the smiles and happiness outweigh it all!
So here is to 2012...bring it on! We have many, many more pictures in the online albums. Check them out here if you want <
https://picasaweb.google.com/116339140741596376327>
Happy New Year!
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