Christmastime

Christmas Eve dinner

 We had a great Christmas Eve!  We stayed in town to attend Christmas Eve service at our church.  We had a nice dinner out, and look forward to celebrating Santa's visit in the morning before we fly to Albuquerque for the weekend!

The tree has been up all month, but she just noticed to tree and presents yesterday!

Family

I was lazy and didn’t include a Christmas letter in my Christmas cards this year.  I immediately regretted it.  So if a letter was to be written this is what it would have said:

Dear Family and Friends,

We hope the year 2014 has be joyous!  Our year was once again life changing as we became a family of 3!

The Sweat’s have had an extremely blessed year! 

The biggest blessing occurred on May 10^th when Helena Grace was born!  She came into the world at 7 pounds 15 ounces and 20 inches long!  She’s a super happy baby and is currently crawling all over the place.  We had a great summer!  April took an extended maternity leave and didn’t go back to work until after Labor Day.  The summer was spent with trips to the pool, baby and me yoga, and story time, along with lots of family visitors. 

Chris has been busy with work at Hospital Housekeeping Services and as of December works 1^st shift, which he loves!  He enjoys being home in the evenings and quality family time.  He has also started to manage his own Transport department again, and is happy about the new challenge.  Chris had a week long hospital visit in October in hopes to trace his seizure activity.  We pray daily that he’ll go back to being seizure free.  Chris is an amazing and very hands on dad!  He changed all of Helena’s diapers for the first couple of weeks and loves playing with his daughter! 

April enjoyed having the whole summer off to be mom to Helena.  In October she celebrated 11 years at CenturyLink and still supports the Channel Alliance sales group.  She’s amazed at how quickly Helena is growing and loves to make her daughter laugh.  She continues to blog at www.bluesoulam.blogspot.com and loves to go back and read about Helena and life pre-baby!  In addition to everything else, April also started her own business with Younique!  A direct sales make-up company.  She enjoys the flexibility and the additional income is has created for her family.

Helena is pure joy and she is loved so much!  Each month seems to surpass the next with new milestones and adventures!  Right now she is full of giggles and talking!  We think she has “da da” and “ma ma” achieved!  She enjoys bath time and is a great sleeper!  We are so thankful for our beautiful little daughter! 

In January we joined a small group with our Broomfield United Methodist church family, called “First Fridays”.  It’s full of young families and we’ve created some wonderful friendships. 

We had a blessed Thanksgiving with Chris’ family in Kearney, NE and will be celebrating Christmas with April’s family in Albuquerque, NM.   

Our year has been huge and we look forward to what 2015 will bring!

We wish all of our family and friends many blessings and cheers this glorious season!

All our Best,

Chris, April, and Helena

Santa Meeting

Of course she's on the Nice list!!!

 We went to Flatirons Mall the first weekend of the month to go meet Santa.  I thankfully made an online reservation, and got a great deal on some prints.  However, Helena wasn't impressed.  She stayed "serious baby" the whole time.  No interaction, nothing.  She wasn't sad or cranky, she just wasn't happy.  But we had a good time, and enjoyed the experience as Helena met St. Nick for the first time.

Hi I'm Helena and this is my serious face.

 Then last weekend my gym had Santa AND two reindeer!  Helena was much more aware this go 'round and actually noticed the man in the big red suit!  They shared a moment and bonded, and even better smiled!

I think they like each other

Lifelong friends

7 months

Baby girl had a super eventful month.  But first things first.  We went to the doctor today to get another vaccine, since she had her flu shot last month, and had her weighted: 15 pounds 7 ounces!  Almost a full pound heavier than last month! She's a growing baby girl.

We had such a great month!  With her first road trip, and first Thanksgiving, we also celebrated her crawling!  She's been on the move since Tuesday December 2nd!  People warned us "It's over once they are mobile."  Man oh man, they weren't kidding!  She's all over the place, and she is fast!  We thankfully (thanks to my husband!) have a baby gate up, and plugs in all the outlets.  Next will be the kitchen.  And what are we suppose to do with the cat food?, ...yup she's found that!  She has fun "cat hunting".  Denali knows to get out of the way, Otis however just stays there and Helena will grab his tail.  It's pretty funny.  In addition to the crawling last week she sprouted her first tooth.  I thought I saw something coming, but couldn't yet feel it.  Chris thought I was crazy, and then the next day, what do you know?  I felt a tooth!  Right now it's her bottom left.  I don't see the other bottom tooth, yet.  She is such a good eater!  She eats really well, and just chews her food and swallows right up.  There's always an adjustment when we introduce a new flavor, but after a few bites she's all over it!  Most days she's gets two helpings of solids, some days it is three.  Just depends.  Oh and she met Santa last weekend too.  We went to the mall, put her in her Christmas dress, and she was just serious baby with Santa.  No smiles, nothing.  Just serious baby face.  We're going to my gym tomorrow where we'll meet Santa again, along with a couple of reindeer, and hopefully get a smile.  She plays really good.  If I lay out a bunch of toys she'll just play and entertain herself.  It's really nice.  Overall, just a super happy baby.  Our Christmas tree is up, and she loves the lights, and I like to think she's is anticipating the presents on Christmas morning.  Another big first that happened at the beginning of December, is she's now going to an in home day care on Monday's and Tuesday's.  The first day was super difficult on me.  She usually sleeps until 8/8:30am, and on those two days I have to get her up a little before 7am.  Thankfully did does really good, and she just falls asleep at the day care around 9am.  I'm taking a super long Christmas break and my last day working for the year is Tuesday 12/16, and we have lots of fun things planned! 
It's been a super fun month, and I'm looking forward to what's next!

First Thanksgiving

Ugh!  I'm so far behind.  Time to play catch up.  

We had a great Thanksgiving. Helena did great for her first road trip.  Chris had a follow up doctor's appointment with his neurologist on Wednesday afternoon (more on that later), so we got a late start on the road.  We filled up the gas tank and headed out around 5pm.  Helena hadn't taken an afternoon nap so she feel asleep right away.  She slept until about 7:30pm while we were coming upon the Colorado/Nebraska boarder.  There was some snowing, a car accident, and ice trucks that all slowed us down.  For whatever reason the two vehicles ahead of us wouldn't pass the de-icing trucks.  Eventually a ambulance came along so we got behind it and were able to pass the truck.  Chris crawled to the back sit and fed Helena, and she thankfully feel back asleep.  

Once we arrived in Kearney (a little before midnight {keep in mind they are central time}) Helena was awoken by the dogs and a different atmosphere.  I was really worried about the car ride effecting her schedule, what I hadn't thought of was how the different environment would effect her.  We set up her pack 'n play and tried to get her to bed.  She wanted nothing of it.  The first couple nights were rough.  She was up a lot, and really didn't like sleeping in the pack 'n play.  She's used to being able to move around and her pack 'n play is smaller than her crib.  Thankfully the last two nights were much easier.  

We had a delicious Thanksgiving dinner and just enjoyed hanging out with family.  I know I say this each time we go to Kearney, but it's so nice just visiting.  We didn't watch any TV, we just visited.  Played games.  Enjoyed each others company.  

Great-Grandma had so much fun with Helena.  She got to feed her a couple of times which she was so thankful for, as Helena is the first great grand baby she's been able to feed!  My in-laws got her a high chair, which was so nice!  So Helena had a place at the table.  

Chris and Alice put up Christmas lights on the house.  We went for a walk (their cat Simba walks with them, this cat is amazing!).  We visited with friends.  We took family photos.  

I always enjoy my time in Kearney because it is so easy.  I can truly relax.  Good home cooked food!  It's just a good time.  

Grandma and granddaughter

Great grandma and Helena

Grandpa and Helena

Hanging Christmas decorations

just a beautiful picture of my beautiful daughter

Taking the dogs and cat out for a walk

Auntie Alice

Great grandma feeding Helena (isn't grandma so beautiful!)

such a model!