Cole's 1st Christmas

Cole's first Christmas was a success! He was quite the grouchy-pants all day, but was finally in a good mood when it was time to open presents. Because John had to work until 7pm, we didn't open presents until after dinner. Cole got tons of presents from family members and Santa. I didn't realize how many presents a not quite 3 month old could get! My mother got him a mirror to look at and when I put it in front of him, he started smiling at himself! Because he was grouchy all day, he didn't nap much and then was up every 2 hours that night. The next day, he napped much better as you can see! That must have been his Christmas recovery pose!

Someone is ready for Christmas!

As you can see by the pictures, Cole is very excited for his first Christmas! There are already a number of presents under the tree for him and Santa hasn't even been here yet. Cole was a very good sport about getting suited up in the reindeer outfit. As soon as I saw that outfit in Kohl's, I couldn't resist. Plus it was 50% off! I figure in a few years, he'll be too embarrassed to let me put him in something like that, so I better seize the moment!

Bigger by the minute

It's amazing how quickly babies change. Cole is growing bigger every day. Last week, he went to his 2 month check-up and was just shy of 14 lbs at 13 lbs 15 ozs. He has also grown 2 1/2 inches to 24 inches; John and I laugh that he is 2 ft tall! He likes when when we hold him up in a sitting position. He has pretty good neck/head control, but we are still working at getting it to 100%. He loves tummy time, holding up his head and looking around.

Ho Ho Ho!

Even though I think that visiting Santa is a little lame and a lot cheesy, John and I took Cole to see the big man himself today. We got him all dressed up in a sweater vest and even put shoes on him for the first time. He was stylin' in those Vans that he got as an early Christmas present from his great aunt and uncle and cousins! He looked so handsome, even though he seemed to hate his outfit and screamed bloody murder for about 20 minutes after I dressed him this afternoon. When we actually got to the mall, instead of freaking out like I thought he would, he actually was asleep for his little visit, so unfortunately, he didn't get to tell Santa what he wanted for Christmas. It was super cheesy, but he looked so cute! Also, getting to see Santa is quite the rip-off nowadays. We bought the cheapest thing we could, which was one 4x6 picture for $15!! We figured we could scan it at home and reproduce it ourselves. The poor kid behind us was in a great mood before pictures and proceeded to freak out as soon as he sat on Santa's lap. Our little man decided to wait until after meeting Santa to begin his meltdown in the middle of the mall. For obvious reasons, we chose to leave at that time. Maybe next year, he'll actually be awake to meet Santa, although he will probably be at just the right age to be scared to death of him like the kid behind us.

Waiting for Santa...

Cole's first trip to Chicago

Passed out on cousin Rob's bar

Here is Cole with Uncle Bill and Aunt Nikki (if you look carefully, you can see the bump of Cole's future little buddy!)

Cole with Great-Grandma

Cole had so much fun with Great-Aunt Cindy,

he passed out before Mommy and Daddy got home!

First plane ride!

Last week, we took Cole back to Chicago for the first time. He had a great time meeting all his new family members. It was quite a busy trip trying to fit in everyone and we still didn't get to see everyone that we wanted to. The first two nights we spent in Naperville with my family and a few of my friends. On Saturday, we went up to John's aunt and uncle's house for the night, where Cole got to meet his only great-grandma! A few of John's friends met up with us that night to meet our little guy. On Sunday, we went to Grandma Laura's house for the next two nights until we left on Tuesday.

While we were in town, of course we had to indulge in some authentic Chicago food. We had deep dish pizza from Gino's and we even went to Portillo's, not once, but twice! It was so good; I miss that place...