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!