Pancake Syrup

Somehow in the midst of all the busyness of having two young children and a newborn, we ended up agreeing to watch a neighbor's cat. Amusingly the cat's name is Pancake Syrup (can you tell that a toddler came up with the name?). The kids are head over heels in love and are having a great time with it. PS has been a fun addition to the family so far, but I think Nik and I are happy this is not a permanent situation (and Skinnay the chinchilla would agree). Both of the kids, but Kai in particular, can be overeager with showing their affection, i.e., chasing the PS around and aggressively pursuing play when he's clearly not interested, but I think it's gotten better as the novelty of having a cat in the house has worn off.

Sleep is still a challenge. Sora has been getting better.. she doesn't leave her room as much as she used to and she seems to be falling asleep more quickly. However, Jad has been waking up, bright eyed and bushy tailed, in the middle of night and refusing to sleep. It's pretty horrible when it happens at 5 am and even worse when it's 2 am. Nik tells me to not worry too much since Jad's only a month old, but I am already dreading Nik's return to work in January and anticipating being horribly sleep deprived while having to care for Kai and Sora. Perhaps the only saving grace is that the kids' preschool is all day, Monday through Friday.

Jad loves staring at the lamp on my nightstand at night

Since we didn't have a good picture of the five of us (the only one that I had had before was a silly selfie), we had Matt take a family picture for us. As usual, it was impossible to get a decent shot and this is the picture we ended up using on the Christmas card:

Trying to get a good family picture.. the struggle is real

Nik purchased a gingerbread house kit that the kids assembled last night. They promptly started eating it once the were done. The kids have been having so much fun with Nik while he's on paternity leave that they will undoubtedly miss him when he returns to work.

Way more fun than Mama

Since Jad is now a little over a month old, we're gradually emerging from our sequestration (although Nik still wary of having the baby out too much until he's at least six weeks old). Since Nik has been paternity leave, he's used some of the extra time to start going back to the gym (and patch the holes in our walls). I haven't been as good at keeping up with my fitness, but I've started taking Jad out on walks and Nik and I recently went on a lunch date.

Woo hoo! Lunch date with the baby!

We still go to my parents' house every week. For the past few weeks Matt has been at home and the kids have loved spending time with him. He had to return to San Diego to complete a bit of coursework, but he'll be back again soon!

"See you soon, Uncle Matt-Matt!"