A great weekend of visitors!

Hooray for the weekend's end! I had been absolutely dreading this weekend because Cody had to go to Houston to be in a good friend of our's wedding...and I hate staying alone in the house. In fact, I had only attempted it once and that was the worst night's sleep I had ever gotten, so I vowed never to do it again! However, now that I have River, it was just too much to take him and spend the night anywhere else, since everything of his is already here...so I decided I needed to toughen up and try it out again. And we survived!! It actually ended up being not a bad weekend...still would have been much better if Cody had been here, but the point is that I made it through! Friday night River and I just hung out at home, and my parents stopped by for a little bit. I treated myself to some chocolate chip cookies in the oven. :) I definitely had a restless night's sleep that night...it was so hard to go through all of the normal night-time routines that we do when putting River to sleep without Cody being here. Plus the fact that I am a little scaredy cat and even though I have Mattie, an alarm, and extra "defensive" protection, I still was scared witless the entire night. However, when the sun came up Saturday morning, we were alive and well so I was pretty proud of myself!

Saturday was a great day! After mine and River's morning nap, Michele came by to visit with us. Then my parents and grandparents came over and brought me lunch. The Azalea Trail is still going on, so although it was freezing outside most of Saturday, our neighbors still toughed the cold weather to have their homemade lemonade stand in their front yard, so my dad went over and bought some for us. Yummy! Then after everyone left River and I had some quiet time, and then my Aunt Nancy and Uncle Braxton and cousins Shelby and Austin stopped by, because they were in town from Dallas. So, more visitors, which was great! Then another bit of quiet time, and then my parents came back over and we all went to dinner at the Jalapeno Tree with my fam from Dallas and sis Heather, Keir and my nephew Ian. Ian is 2 1/2 and he loves his cousin River. He is constantly saying "Yuv you River" and "Hi River, howryou" (That's "Ian" for "How are you"). So cute!! River did pretty well at dinner. He got a little bit fussy but made it through when he finally quit fighting sleep and zonked out. He spent the weekend trying to find his thumb, so he has been sucking on his fist a lot! We are hopeful that he finds his thumb, b/c right now, he likes his pacifier, but it keeps falling out, of course. So if he finds his thumb, that is a way for him to soothe himself that WON'T fall off, hehe. : ) I know, I know- it makes it harder later to break him of it, but we can worry about that then. Anything now that helps him to not cry and does not require us to constantly hold him and walk him around the house...we are allllllll for!! : ) So after dinner last night, we came home and my best friend Cristie and her husband Chris came over to meet River for the very first time! They have lived in Amsterdam for the past 2 years and just moved back to Houston. River of course loves them already! Last night was hard again to spend the night by myself, but River made it much easier for me...he slept from 10:45 until 5:45 am!! 7 hours straight! And actually, I am pretty sure he would have slept for a bit longer, but I was in so much pain (from not having fed him for so long...the downside of nursing!) that as soon as he started grunting, I ran over to pick him up, thankful I was about to feel a bit lighter! hehe. I am not expecting him to do this on a nightly basis yet, but just knowing that he has done it now gives us much more hope that he will be sleeping through the night soon! And then today, my parents came over this morning and my mom (River's Granny) babysat him while my dad and I went to the grocery store, where I yet again filled up my cart for the second time ever! It is amazing what having a baby will do to a married couple....we never filled up our cart until River came around. In fact, we usually ate out almost every night of the week, either eating at a restaurant or bringing something home. But now we are desperately looking for easy recipes and frozen dinners that are good, that won't require us to leave the house for dinner. It is pretty fun to eat at home every night! We love eating on our backyard deck since the weather has been so nice.

Cody got up extra early this morning and got home around 12, so we ate lunch outside and then his parents (Nanny and Papa) came by to visit, so we hung out in the front yard w/ the babe and watched all the people walking by to look at the flowers. Phew! I think we are taking it easy tonight and getting in some good quality fam time....I'm just so happy the weekend is over and Cody is home! It was a great weekend!

River's evening out!

Tuesday was a great and perfect day! River slept through all of his naps, not waking up even once! (He sometimes wakes up and fusses then goes back to sleep). Then, about 5:45 pm, we took River on a little outing. We don't go out much for a few reasons: one, it is still flu season and we are being the overly protective and cautious first-time parents :) and two, he has a great schedule right now and it is still fairly new, so we are working hard to keep it implemented, for his benefit and ours...so we try not to do things that will deviate from it. Anyhow, we took him out during his wake and nap time and it worked great! First, River went to meet Cody's grandfather (River will call him Big Daddy). He is at a great retirement home called Park Place that has an atrium, sky lights and a big fish tank. River loved being held by Big Daddy and he got to watch the fish and birds with his Papa (Cody's dad). Afterwards, Cody and I went out to eat out for our first family dinner, just the three of us. We were super anxious probably the entire time because this was only River's second time out to eat at a public place and we just didn't know what to expect. But, thank God, it went great! We went to Jucy's and River sat in his car seat next to me the entire time, just looking around while we enjoyed super yummy burgers and extra greasy onion rings. : ) Success!! I think we will probably try that again soon (the going out to eat at dinner time again, not burgers and onion rings). Then, we had about 30 minutes left before I had to be home to feed him, so we decided to make a surprise visit at my parents house, who live not too far from Jucy's. River had never been over there before. So, we surprised my parents and River got to hang out with Granny and G-Pa for a bit...and then we went home, fed him, had a little bit of wake time and put him down for his last evening nap. It was a great day and night!

I really can't remember much of what went on yesterday...haha. Usually my days are pretty uneventful right now- just River and I hanging out around the house, going from one nap time to the next and waiting for Daddy to come home! :) I don't mind it at all because I know it won't be like this forever. Oh, I do remember River was extra smiley yesterday. He woke up yesterday morning smiling away after his first feeding of the day and kept on smiling all the way til Daddy came home. So that was fun. I got my first picture of one of his smiles I am going to post on here...he had already almost finished smiling but I caught the end of it. He was lying on his changing table, kicking and cooing and having a great time.

Today Cody came home from lunch so I put some pizza in the oven for us to eat. I was rushing to get it out and was distracted by something, and so when I pulled the cooking stone out of the oven, I forget to put on an ovenmit. Yep. I burned three of the fingers on my right hand, on the tips. It hurt pretty bad for a while, and I have kept the fingers in a glass of ice water for the past few hours. They are just now starting to feel better. Stupid me!!! The rest of the day will hopefully go smoother. We are doing cheese dogs and brawts (spelling?) on the grill for dinner and watching Lost on dvr. Thank goodnes for dvd these days!!

Okey dokey- time for me to jump in the shower before the rug rat wakes up. : )

Rainy days are great!

River turns 8 weeks old on Thursday! Wow! This week for the first time he has started scratching his face a bit. I guess it is time to start thinking about...clipping his nails- yikes!! It is not something I am looking forward to. I have tried biting them off a few times when I am feeding him and he is calm, but they are not quite long enough to tear easily. Just long enough to leave pretty little scratces on his cute face. :( That will be something I will try to tackle when daddy is home and can help, too! : ) It has been raining all day which has been nice because I have had our front screen door open and the sounds and smells it brings in the house are so calming.

So Sunday night we ate...well, I ate the vegetable cheese casserole- my first cooking attempt at a casserole. And, it turned out sooooo yummy!! Cody politely tried some but of course didn't like it. He isn't a big casserole guy, and I didn't expect him to love it. However, it only meant more for me! I ate it with my lunch and dinner yesterday and lunch today! I am posting the website I found it on in case anyone wants to try it...believe me- if I can make it, you definitely can! The only thing I did differently was add 1 cup of grated cheese instead of a half of a cup, and then I also added a can of peas to the recipe (drained) b/c I love peas! http://southernfood.about.com/od/sidedishcasseroles/r/bln290.htm

Today we have just chilled at the house. Cody's mom (Nanny) came by for a visit so I took the opportunity to run a quick errand while she was here. Then my friend Ashley came by with her son Caleb for a minute...River is already wearing size 2 diapers and we had a ton of size 1 leftover, so we were able to give her the size one's b/c her son, Truett, who is just 2 weeks younger than River, can wear them. And then just before I put him down for his nap we played dress up for a minute...a few weeks ago my mom found my old packer shirts I wore when I was a baby, and gave them to me. So I put River in the smallest one and it fits him great as a nightgown! He seemed pretty comfy in it so I let him wear it for his nap. This afternoon after Cody gets off work we are going to take River to meet his great grandfather, Cody's Papa. Then, I think we are going to attempt to take River out to eat afterwards. That time is his fussy time but we have seen River do well when he is in a crowd of people at that time, so this will be more of an expirement. We'll see how it goes!

Nice day for a stroll

So today for the first time ever, Cody and I spent 45 minutes at the grocery store filling up our cart with groceries for the week! River's Granny (my mom) came over and hung out with him while we went on a grocery shopping date, hehe. We had a great time! We did not get take out once last week for dinner and are hoping to do that again this week. Now, that's not to say we are "cooking" per say...but we are getting there! :-) After that we came home and ate lunch on the back porch w/ my parents while we waited for River to wake up from his nap. Then we put him in his stroller and walked around the neighborhood with my parents and walked down to the arts and craft fair at the park. Granny and G-Pa pushed River around proudly : ) and Mattie came, too. River had a great time being bumped around the park, and we even got to enjoy homemade lemonade and a funnel cake! Yummmmm!

Tonight for dinner we are having a vegetable casserole that my mom helped me make...we are eating it with some baked chicken we are going to grab and bring home from Luby's. I am hoping to start cooking more now that River is on a schedule and I can plan cooking/preparing meals around that. We will see! : ) It has been another great and beautiful day!!

It's a beautiful day!

It is a gorgeous day outside! The next few weeks are the Azalea Trail, and we love this time of year because we are right smack dab in the middle of it. We awoke this morning to cars lining the street outside our house and people walking by in the masses to view all of the pretty flowers. The weather is perfect for being outside, and luckily we have gotten to be out some! At first this morning, I thought we were going to have to stay in all day.

River woke up this morning to eat at 4:30 and had the toughest time. He was crying and breathing hard off and on while he was trying to eat. He sounded congested but no fever. So we made it through his feeding and I put him back to sleep at 5, praying he would feel better when we got him up at 7:30. At 7:30, he woke up and ate better this time but was still a little fussy. After I changed his diaper I attacked him with the booger sucker (they give you one in the hospital usually, so we have two now). However, there weren't very many nasty green guys to rescue from his nose, and he was fussing the entire time I was doing it. (Usually he enjoys the booger sucker!) Fortunately, he started laughing and smiling and sounded better by the time he went back to sleep at 8:30, and when he got up at 10:30, he was back to normal and eating well again! Whew! I thought we were about to experience our first "call the doc w/ a baby emergency" feeling...As it was, I hated the thought of my little guy being in the least bit uncomfortable! :(

River got to meet his Great Aunt Diann and cousin Elana today for the first time...we sat outside on the front porch and enjoyed the nice weather. He loves having visitors! Then when he woke up from his early afternoon nap Cody and I gave him his bath and then we swung some more before he fell asleep again. Right now he is taking is late afternoon nap while Cody is at Home Depot exchanging the mail box we bought last week to put on our house...there were screws missing. We are going to make steaks on the back porch tonight for dinner- we have grilled 5 times now this week! The weather has been so perfect for it and we know we need to take advantage of eating outside before it gets too hot! : ) That's all I have for now...hopefully we will get to take River on a walk around the neighborhood tomorrow and maybe go down to the arts and craft fair at the park. : )

My first post!

The beginning of my first blog ever! : ) Hooray!!

It might just be the most boring blog ever to read, at least for now, since my days are not the most exciting thing ever lately...but still, read away if you are bored enough. I can promise you, if nothing else, there will hopefully be at least one smiley face in each entry for your viewing pleasure.

River is already 7 weeks old. I can't say the time has flown by, because it has been a hard seven weeks, but it has been interesting and wonderful, too. I have been looking at pictures from when he was a brand new little boy and then comparing them to his most recent ones, and man has he grown!! It is hard for Cody and I to tell since we see him 24/7 unless we look at his old pics! You can see the difference in the pics above: the one on the top was when he was 6 wks 6 days old and the one below is when he was 2 days old, the day he came home from the hospital! What a little chunk! : ) My current favorite thing is when people look at him and politely (tactfully) comment on how "healthy" he looks...it's okay- you can say fat!! I know he is and he doesn't know it yet, and by the time he does, hopefully he will have outgrown his rolls! ;) For now they are cute, hehe.

My favorite thing he does right now is...sleep..lol! Other than that, it is smile. He started smiling purposfully a few weeks ago. He LOVES to smile anytime you lie him on his changing table. It is his favorite game, to just lie there and look out the window and coo. Melts our hearts every time! Other fun activities we do during his wake time include the Ceiling Fan Game- he could stare at all of them in our house for...minutes upon minutes (which is a long time w/ the attention span of an infant!). He has made friends with all of them in the house and his best-ceiling-fan-friend right now is the one in mom and dad's room. He also likes to be outside and swing w/ us on our front porch swing. Anytime he is outside he has started sticking his tongue out like crazy, I guess to taste the wind?! He also loves his horse mobile. And as of now he has rolled over 6 or 7 times...from his tummy to his back. He rolled over for the first time when he was 3 wks 6 days old...and he his currently working on sleeping longer at night. (Yay Riv!!!!) Last night he slept from 11pm til 4:40 am! I am super happy right now w/ anything that means just one feeding (aka one-getting-up-time) a night.

He really is a bundle of...well, right now, a bundle of fatty cuteness! Life is good and boring, and that is just fine for now. I am sure once he learns how to crawl it will get MUCH more exciting!!

I will try to get on and update this frequenlty for anyone who is bored enough to read it : ) Other than that it will at least serve for me as a way of keeping up with this time in his life.

Happy first day of Spring!! : )