Our Christmas

Me with Turner and Mandi with Blake

He started on the mat....

John and Molly

John making fun of my reading time with Blake

Mama and her present

Aunt Barbara with her grandson

Mama and me

Aunt Barbara and her granddaughter

Ma, Aunt Barbara, and her granddaughter

Can you tell that Kelsey is winning? LOSERS!

Kyle

Dalton

Kelsey

The O'Connor's...next year we'll have Molly!

Helicopter in the gutter

Helicopter on the kitchen wall

Eating the Gator's shirt

Dad's cool new outfit

Mom made this stocking on her new sewing/embroidery machine

I'm finally getting a chance to update this blog since the baby is asleep and I can't really take the tree down by myself. I did get all of the ornaments off, though. It's weird how I have always loved Christmas and still do, but it was a new type of enjoyment this year. It wasn't all about presents or anything...it was more about God's presence. It was a neat thing to experience this year.

Blake is doing well. We're playing with all the new toys that he received and we're working on rolling over more consistently. He's still eating about 2 tablespoons of rice cereal, thickened with his Poly-vis-ol (which smells disgusting) and my milk. We're getting into the routine of naps, which is nice. We'll see how well I can adjust to when I go back to work next week and have to put him down at the church.

My family came to our house on Christmas. It's the last Christmas that we'll have with my brother before he marries Molly. It was a lot of fun for me to have them here. We watched Christmas Vacation on Christmas Eve and of course quoted all the lines from memory. I often wonder how many families watch that movie on Christmas Eve. We woke up on Christmas and ate some yummy cinnamon rolls that Jerri Lynn made for us. She makes the best cinnamon rolls! Anyway, after that was the reading of the Christmas story and present opening time. I mostly got clothes because I will never ever see the same pants size again thanks to my birthing hips expanding! No one warns you about how much your body will change after baby. Raun got lots of neat things, including a helicopter to terrorize the dogs with. Dad, John, and Raun enjoyed learning how to fly it and it ended up in lots of weird places...on top of our kitchen wall, in Mom's hair, and in the gutter.

We went to Raun's aunt's house for dinner with his whole family. We had lots of yummy food and lots of desserts. We even played some games and I must admit that I did quite well when it came to the Christmas song quizzes. Raun and his team cheated by using Raun's cell phone. But never fear...they never won:) And we told on them for cheating! After opening presents, we ended the night playing Disney Scene It. I was on Kelsey's team, which I was thankful for. I believe that Kelsey has seen every Disney movie and always wins these games. Which of course...she won again pretty much by herself. Me and Lea weren't too much help because we hadn't seen too many.

The next day we went to see Marley and Me. Good movie, but sad! We all were either crying or about to cry (although not all the boys would admit it). Raun and I could relate to so much in that movie, dogwise and personal. I recommend it, but bring tissues.
We headed to Mom and Dad's house on Saturday for our family Christmas dinner with my grandma and great-grandma. My great-aunt came and brought two of her grandchildren, which was a nice suprise. They were so nice. We enjoyed our dinner and Dad has vowed not to eat for the rest of the year. I don't believe it, though.

I'm working on a new quilt for Blake. It's a textured quilt and I'm really excited about it. I'll definitely post pictures of it when I get it finished. My mom is going to help me with it on Friday, so I'm excited! Time to get off here and get more things done while he's still sleeping. Happy New Year!

Video

This video was taken on Christmas Eve, but I never got the chance to post it to the website until now. It's amazing how much he has grown and all of his facial expressions that he makes. He is such an expressive child! And adorable, if I must say. And no, I'm not biased! He is 4 1/2 months old in this video.

More pictures...

Is it really Christmas?

Okay, so I'll be the first to admit that I'm not really feeling all Christmas-like, yet. I'm not for sure if it's the warmer than usual weather, the fact that I'm still adjusting to the busyness of a newborn, or if I have outdone myself (which I don't think I have). We haven't been as busy as normal during this month, but I just never did quite get prepared for Christmas like I had wanted. My decorations were up, but I always forgot to turn on the lights until bedtime...which has come earlier than normal! Oh well. I did have some time to ponder yesterday as I was rocking Blake at night. I began to cry as I thought of how much I love Blake. It sounds odd, but I love him so much that it makes my heart ache to think of him leaving me or vice versa. Even growing up is kinda sad, but necessary. I can't imagine how much God's heart ached as He sent Jesus to us, knowing how we would treat Him...knowing how so many would reject His Son. Not only that, knowing that they would kill Him in the most cruel way. I could never give Blake up like that, I don't think. I can't imagine losing him. And then I began to think about how much God's heart hurts when I don't spend time with Him or study His Word. When I stray from Him and do my own thing, I'm hurting Him. Christmas has taken on a different meaning for me since I've had Blake. It's not as exciting to get presents (I still like them, don't get me wrong), but for the first time I can relate to Mary (as far as having a child). I can't imagine having Jesus, the perfect Son (although it's a nice thought!). However, I can relate to how much she loved Him, would have done anything for Him, and when He got sick how her heart ached for Him. When her and Joseph lost Him while He was teaching, I bet her heart ached then, too. And when He was put on the cross, I bet the pain was almost unbearable. So, yes, Christmas means so much more now that I am looking at it through the eyes of a mother. People were right....you'll never know what it's like to love someone as a mother loves her children.

Speaking of children, Blake has grown so much since Thanksgiving. He is sitting up more, especially with the help of the Bumbo. He is also rolling over (front to back and some back to front). He still hates his tummy time, but his neck is being strenghtened because of it. He got a bouncer for Christmas from Raun and I and he loves it. He can't sit in it for too long because he still doesn't have all the support, but he's working on it. It at least buys me some time. He is babbling a lot and loves to squeal and laugh and talk while I read books to him. I think I might talk to him a bit too much because he kind of likes to talk! Between me and Julie (his babysitter on Mondays), he's bound to talk a lot! Julie's son, Eli, is now beginning to crawl so we're interested to see if Blake learns things faster since he is with Eli every week. Not that I am wishing for the mobile stage. I'm quite content with him staying where I put him!

I'm working on being consistent with nap times. That is the place where I struggle the most, which sounds odd. I'm just not always home at the same time, so he doesn't always go down at set times. This week has been better (minus today) and he has been so pleasant. I'm afraid that he might be a nightmare at tonight's Christmas Eve service, but we'll see! Since I'm off next week, I'm hoping to be able to keep up the schedule as best as I can. He has increased his nighttime sleep from around 9:00 or 9:30 p.m. to 7:30 a.m. It's so much nicer because I can deal with him since he's sleeping so well. He's always been a good sleeper, but I require so much sleep to function, so 7 hours never seemed like a lot to me! Julie and I always feel bad talking about how much our boys sleep because it is so much longer than those babies that aren't on a schedule, but it is so nice to hit the 10 hour mark or longer! I could never function if he woke me up every night for a year or more. My tummy would be hating me!

We have started Blake on rice cereal, but only at night. I'm going to keep him on this until he's 6 months old, and then I'll bring in the baby foods (which I plan to make). It was so funny to watch him eat his cereal the first time. It was everywhere and he just wanted to suck it off the spoon since he didn't know how to make the chewing motion. However, he is learning quickly. He still loves nursing afterwards. He gets so excited to nurse after eating...I think it's because he knows what he is doing there! Nursing is going good. I'm still making lots of milk and pumping to add the milk into his cereal. I don't want him to have anything but breast milk if I can help it. So I am stocking up on milk supply.

I think that's about all that has happened so far. My brain feels like it has been in a foggy haze, so I'm not so sure of what all has happened this month! I am taking tennis lessons from missionaries to Brazil. A friend of mine in our Sunday School class and me are taking them together. It's so much fun. Blake comes and sits in his stroller and I am learning so much. I've always wanted to learn tennis, so it doesn't feel like exercise to me.

That's it for now. I'll post more after Christmas! Merry Christmas everyone!

4 month doctor's appointment

I have been meaning to update this all week, but just never got a chance to sit down and do it. I was going to post pictures along with this post, but that will come sometime this week when I find some time! Blake is keeping us busy now that he is beginning to teeth. He's been fussier than usual and wants to be with us constantly. He got his 4-month shots on Thursday and all was well. The doctor was very pleased with his growth and weight and said he was perfect. He is now 24 1/2 inches long and weighs 14 pounds 6 ounces. I couldn't believe he weighed that much! The first time we were there he was 5 pounds and now he's 14...no wonder he feels so much heavier! I will admit that my arms are becoming quite defined, though:)

Our choir and orchestra performed our Christmas cantata last night and we do one more performance at a different church tonight. It was really, really good. I love playing my bassoon for it, but I do wish that I had some more time to play more often and for more groups. It's just so relaxing! Blake is definitely the musical baby. Any type of music soothes him, especially his mommy's voice. He LOVES "Wheels on the Bus" complete with the actions. He just grins and laughs! I love watching his little face break out into the most beautiful grin. He is quite adorable, if I must say so myself. Not that I'm partial or anything.

I've been struggling with trying to get things done. However, I'm learning that it's okay that nothing gets done at the moment. It's just really hard for me to accept because I'm so used to having time to clean the house, read, work, etc. Now I do good to get a shower and wash my hair and exercise! You can pray that I will have patience and won't get frustrated when I don't complete my to-do list.

I'll post some pictures sometime this week. I just ran out of time at the moment!

Thanksgiving 2008

Make a Smilebox slideshow

So for our Thanksgiving, we traveled to Florida to be with my grandparents. And by "we," I mean our ENTIRE family traveled and all arrived at different times throughout Tuesday and Wednesday. I had a wonderful time seeing everyone and introducing them to Blake. It was the first time that many of them had gotten to meet him. As well as cooking and planning for Thanksgiving, we had to plan and decorate for a 50th anniversary party for my grandparents that was on Friday night. So we were kept pretty busy.



We had Thanksgiving at the church since it was big enough to house our entire family and so we could begin decorating right afterwards. Ashley, Amber, and I decided that we enjoyed the HUGE kitchen (since it was a school kitchen) and should have one of those every year. We cooked with the largest pots that we've ever cooked with on Thanksgiving. And I can't even begin to describe how big the potato masher was! It was HUGE! Ashley and I were in charge of cooking desserts. I made an apple pie and a timarsu bowl and Ashley made pumpkin pie with homemade whip cream. It was incredible. While we were all cooking, the guys were entertaining themselves with the Wii. And I'll just say that the kids had a blast because they got to play with it showing on the projector...every kid's dream!



The party was great on Friday night and the decorations were beautiful, thanks largely to Aunt Janet and her decorating skills. I made a slide show that followed along the same lines as the scrapbook I had made documenting the growing family from their marriage to Ashley's baby. It was pretty neat to see how it all progressed through the years. Two sad parts...Shannon wasn't here and I know it seemed like yesterday when they were first married. Time goes by too fast.



We all left to head home on Saturday, knowing that we'll be seeing each other again in March for my brother's wedding. And there will be another little one for us to meet!

A Day in Dollywood

Since we've done so much over the past two weeks, I decided that I would break up the posts to go along with the pictures so as to not cause any confusion. We went to Dollywood the last weekend the third weekend in November with some friends of ours, Mike and Lori Weathers and their baby boy E.B. Since we both live so far in opposite directions, we often tend to meet last minute as they go through on vacation or up in Knoxville, but this time it was in Dollywood. For about a year, they have been trying to convince us to get season passes so we could go to Festival of the Nations and see the Christmas lights with them. So this year, we did. I'm so glad because Blake LOVED the Christmas lights. Nothing can describe what the park looked like at night. I've never seen so many lights on buildings! It was beautiful and the shows were incredible. We saw the Babes in Toyland show, as well as some musical ones. Blake sat quietly through all of them and would often watch them until he got tired and fell asleep. And let me just say that they have the nicest nursing station that I have ever seen. It was soooo cold outside that day and I felt kind of guilty for going in to a heated room to rock and nurse Blake:) But not bad enough that I didn't do it! Blake rode the carousal with us. He looked around a lot and smiled. We had such a great time with Mike, Lori, and E.B. I'm glad that our boys will get to be with each other, even if it's only at Dollywood!