Love

I sure do love these boys!  I really never thought I could love something as much as I do Crawford and didn't think I could love Kyle more than I did.  But seeing him with Crawford makes me love him even more.  I thank God each day for both of them - couldn't imagine my life without them!!



Eating some breakfast together!



My little monkey jumping on the bed!

Its Been A While

Well, it’s been a while!  I have not been motivated to keep up with blogging or even more terrible, taking pictures.  I guess we have been a little busy!!  We sold our house, moved into the new one and went to the beach for my convention all within a week!  The new house is getting closer to being complete.  Thank goodness for my wonderful mom who has pretty much unpacked EVERYTHING!!  I really don’t know how it would have gotten done without her!  I kind of think it just wouldn’t have, just the thought gives me anxiety!  The priority this weekend is to get everything in its right place, so we can really start to enjoy the place!

During all of this Crawford definitely hasn’t slowed down one bit!  He is taking 7, 8, 9 steps at a time; has one full tooth on the top and working on the 2^nd one!  In the middle of all the craziness a family trip was planned to St. Martin, so that meant I had to get a passport for Crawford in 3 ½ weeks, thankful to report that it came in last night!  Now I just have to remember where I put it.  When looking for Crawford’s birth certificate to get the passport I couldn’t find it (that would have been the 2^nd one I lost).  I still can’t find it, but in my search I did find his original one.  Thank you God for attaching my head to my body!

He is growing into such a big boy!  He is in Size 4 Diapers and wears 12 month clothes mostly.  There are still a few 9 month old things that fit.  He is learning new things everyday!  He now points to my nose when you ask him, “Where’s your nose”?  He plays peek a boo with his Aunt Tinney, but covers his ears instead of his eyes, silly goose!  He blows kisses all the time and makes the cutest MUAH noise.  Here’s a picture of him playing hide and seek with his mommy! 

Not the greatest pictures on the Iphone, but Hey...

And here he is at the beach last week, playing with his daddy.  He once again had a grand time swimming in the pool and playing in the sand and waves.  We did discover on this trip that he seems to have had an allergic reaction to eggs.  His upper lip turned red and swelled right after he ate them.  Then he got some sort of a rash around his eye a couple of days later.  We are headed to the allergist next week to see what it could be.  I pray that he is not allergic to anything, but especially eggs, they are in everything!!

In case I wasn’t sure that he was growing up, I got a call from his Mothers Day Out teacher and we have to go to orientation at the end of August.  ORIENTATION – he is not even a year old.  Kind of made me feel like we are taking him to Kindergarten, although I know it won’t be long.

Craziness!

Life has been crazy!!  We are in the middle of packing, getting the new house ready for us to move into, selling our current house, going to the beach and who knows what else.  Needless to say I have been terrible about keeping track of what all is going on with Crawford.

But, there is big news!!  He started taking his 1^st unassisted steps last Saturday, June 25^th (Kyle’s Birthday)!!  He is still only taking one or two steps before he falls, but Lord help us when he actually starts walking.  My dad suggested getting a lead vest for him, to keep him down a little longer, kind of sounds like a good idea.  He is already all over the place and into EVERYTHING!!   He opens cabinets (the liquor cabinet is his favorite), drawers, unrolls toilet paper, and who knows what else he gets into in the few seconds we turn our head!!

He is also starting to semi-blow kisses when you say bye-bye.  He puts his hand to his mouth and slowly moves it away.  What a sweetheart!

Those are the two big developments as of late.  He still loves his daddy and especially loves his daddy’s beer!!  AA here we come!

We are headed to the beach soon, so I can’t wait to see if he has as much fun in the sand and water as he did in May.  I sure hope so.

The movers are supposed to be coming next Saturday, praying that the new house is done enough for us to move in!  Why did we buy and new house again?!?!?

Happy Birthday Munchkin!

Crawford is 9 months old today and weighs 19 pounds 3 1/2 ounces.  Here are some of my favorite shots when he was 8 months old.  I apparently had a hard time choosing!!

Hanging with my Granny

Hanging with my Great Granny.  I loved playing with her hands!

More Firsts!

The last couple of weeks have been an exciting time of many new firsts for Crawford!  Last week he semi-started waving bye-bye when we leave in the morning.  Most times it looks more like a salute to Hitler, but it will come with time. 

He is definitely starting to babble - and mamamamama was his FIRST!!!  Actually the only right now, but I'm sure dada is coming soon.  He definitely loves his daddy and in fact really whines when he leaves the room!! 

He also starting eating meats last week.  I'm not sure how long this is going to last - he has tried turkey and lamb.  The picture below shows how much he loves turkey!  I think he is going to be one of those people that can't eat things because of thier texture!!  I may have to cheat and just buy the baby food meat, although that completely grosses me out, so we just have to forgo the meat until he has teeth and give him real meat.

And, perfect timing because his first little tooth just started breaking the surface last night!  I have thought he was teething for about 6 months now, so I am so excited to actually see that one is on it's way up! 

To go along with his first tooth, he has also gotten his first cold!  I feel so bad for the baby, he is so snotty, but doesn't seem to be feeling bad.  I think (I know) we have been extremely lucky that this is his first time being sick.  Thank you God!

He is also bathing exclusively in the big boy tub, climbing stairs, and pushing around his red wagon!

In other news, we are still working on the "new" house and hope to be in by end of June.  We thought our house sold, but found out Monday night that they were backing out!  So we are back to being real estate agents.  I am really bummed, but am trying to take it in stride.  Kyle just sent me an email that says: "10% of life is made up of what happens to you and 90% of life is decided by how you react.  So, that is what I am  trying to remember!!

Happy Easter

We spent this Easter at the beach!  It was so nice to get away for a few days and Crawford seemed to really like the sand, pool and Easter Bunny!!  We went to see him on Saturday at The WaterColor Inn and he went straight to him.  There were several children, between 4 and 7 trying to warm up to the idea of sitting on the Easter Bunny's lap - not Crawford.  He had the best time.  We even brought him again at brunch on Sunday, and I thought for sure he would cry this time, but he didn't.  He didn't want to get off of his lap!!

I'm curious to see how much he loves him next year.



This is his new thing - makes a this face and says oooooohh!  Such a cutie!



Crazy Crawford

My little stinker standing under his exersaucer, peeking out of the leg hole!!

How can you not love this little face?!

Cowboy Crawford

7 Months Old!!!

• He is still army crawling all over the place and to be honest I'm not sure he is going to ever crawl "regularly".
• He is pulling up on anything and everything he can get his hands on and he seems to do it with such ease!
• He is about to start trying a new group of foods - carrots, blueberries, zucchini, peaches and plums
• Last Thursday, he started to clap and now he does it all of the time - so CUTE!!





Here he is in some new cowboy boots!



We are headed to the beach in the next couple of weeks and I can't wait to see how cute he is going to be in his swim trunks!

What a Week!!

Last week was pretty crazy – we closed on a new house, Kyle had his tonsils, uvula and part of his soft palate removed and his deviated septum fixed, which meant I was essentially a single mom!  I honestly don’t know how they do it!  Wednesday and Thursday were great – I was off of work, Mae was at the house with Crawford and I could do what I wanted (not really, because I was at the hospital), but it was kind of nice not working and having someone helping with Crawford – that would be the life!!  Oh well, back to reality!

Kyle’s surgery went well and he got to come home on Thursday, so then I had two babies to take care of.  Poor thing I know he was/is in pain – you can now see all of the scabs – yuck!!  As of yesterday he had eaten about 24 ounces of Ensure and 2 PowerAde slushes since last Tuesday.    The doctor said it would be about 2 weeks for recovery, but I don’t think either one of us really thought it would be that long and this bad!

Enough about that baby, more about the cute one!  Crawford is doing wonderfully!  He went to the doctor on Thursday and weighs 17.05 pounds and is 26 inches long.  Dr. Ronnie didn’t tell me the percentiles, but from what I can tell he is still in about the 50^th.  He is still scooting around like crazy, we moved the coffee table out of the living room and he is everywhere!  He gets up on all fours and makes an attempt to crawl, but falls down and just scoots.  He started sitting up on his own this weekend, so maybe that means the crawling will follow.  He is also now standing in his crib!  The little stinker – I already had to move his mattress down one level as a “single mom” and it appears it now needs to go to the lowest level.  I hope dad can do this one!!  The new foods he has eaten are apples, pears and bananas.  He likes them all, but I think apples are his least favorite of the three.  He still is not a fan of the green beans – neither is mom – they take forever to make!!  And lastly his new favorite toy is a Dasani water bottle.

As for the house – we bought a house in Woodgate and it is absolutely adorable!  We are going to be very sad to move from our precious “doll house” as my grandmother named it, but as the name suggests it just isn’t big enough for the growing family!  Although it would have been fine for another year or two, this house was just too cute to pass up!  Before we move in, we have a little work to do.  The carpet needs to come up in the bedrooms, the master bathroom counters need a new surface, the shower is going to change to all glass, we would like to add an ice maker and wine refrigerator to the bar area and a few other things.  Hopefully, we can fit it all in to our budget with enough left over for lots of new furniture!  I’ll post pictures once we are done – it will probably be a while.

Happy 1/2 Birthday, Crawford

I'm a day late, I know.

It’s hard to believe 6 months have come and gone!!  Everyone really is right, the time does fly by and you don’t remember what it was like before the little one.

There isn’t a whole lot new to report – he is still scooting around, trying like crazy to crawl.  He can sit up for a few seconds unassisted, but hasn’t mastered it completely.  Today will be the last of the new vegetables.  Sweet Potato is by far his favorite!  Then squash, peas, green beans and lastly avocados – see picture below.  It’s kind of weird that is the exact order we introduced the veggies to him – he started out loving it, but each one he likes a little less.  I have made apples and pears and bananas to start with the group of fruits.  I think we will try apples first and change it up with oatmeal instead of rice cereal in the morning, oh how exciting!  He is also getting rice cereal and veggies at night now too.  He’s going to be 30 pounds in no time, with all of this food.  He goes to the doctor next week, so I will be interested to see where he falls on the charts.  I think he will weigh between 16 – 17 pounds and still be in the 50^th percentile or so, but we’ll see.

I think that about sums up what’s been going on lately. 

Overall, he is such a happy baby and we are so truly blessed!

Crawford's First Scoots

Another Eventful Week

Crawford has been a busy little bee the last week and a half, experiencing so many things for the first time!!  Saturday, February 5^th he started eating veggies!!  Kyle and I had the camera ready, but he enjoyed the sweet potatoes and had no funny faces for the camera.  He also got to play in his excersaucer this weekend for the first time!  We put him in it several weeks before and he was inches from touching the bottom, so we just put it up.  I thought this time we could put a pillow underneath, but he touched – I can’t believe how fast he is growing – make it stop!  He also got to socialize at the Super Bowl party.  It is so neat that so many of our friends have little ones or are expecting little ones shortly.  It will be interesting to see how their friendships develop over the years. 

The next vegetable Crawford got to try with Mae was squash, not as good as sweet potatoes, but as we learned this Sunday, much better than peas.  He is so cute; he will just barely open his mouth and put a little bit of the peas on his tongue, make a face and then swallow.  He has been a big boy and eaten them, but you can definitely tell they are not his favorite.  I think his daddy might kill me if he ends up with a palette like mine – more carbs, please!   Later this week we will start with green beans!!  We have been making all of his food, so far.  It’s been super easy in his baby food maker and all it is, is the veggie or fruit, no additives or preservatives!  Hopefully we can continue.

This weekend proved to be another busy weekend, as we spent most of it driving around looking at houses – poor baby was dragged in and out of houses all weekend, but he was a trooper!  We found one that we (I) really like from pictures, but we don’t go see it until next weekend.  I am trying not to get too excited, but it sure does look cute.  We aren’t in any major hurry to get in a new house, but…

And for the big news of the weekend – Crawford is scooting!!  He just did it a couple of times, but I think he will be on the move in the very near future – video coming soon.

Happy 5 Months

Happy Birthday Sweet Baby Boy!!  Unbelievably Crawford is 5 months old today!  I have no idea how that happened, but it did.  Although I have loved every stage he has gone through, and I really do like this one – he is just so happy, always smiling and laughing, I must say I do miss his newborn days!  Although I was scared to death, didn’t sleep a whole lot, had no idea what his cries meant, I think I can really say I loved every bit of it.  Time really does fly!  So, since he had his 4 month (as you can see we are a little behind) photo shoot on Friday I decided to look back to those newborn days.  Here are some of the pictures from his newborn shoot, when he was only 7 days old.  What a handsome little man.  It really is hard for me to remember him when he was so little!!  I think I might need another one to remember!!

He's now the size of that bear!!

Date Night

Kyle and I had our first date since Crawford was born!!  Yay!!  As everyone knows I am super anal and a huge nervous nelly, so leaving him is not something I am real comfortable doing!  Although I do it during the day, every day, all day, try to make sense of that.  I don’t know what it is about the night, but for some reason it just makes me extra nervous leaving him!  We have left him a couple of times at night, but two were for work events and one was a Christmas party, so this was the first time just me and Kyle!  And I definitely think it was much needed – although it was just two hours, there were no distractions.  No laundry, no bottles, no dishes or TV - just us!!

Next step is letting him spend the night out – not sure if I will ever get there!!

Here are some pictures of his Aunt Tinsley feeding him right before we left and one of us, just for grins!  She, of course, did a great job and even texted me at 7:10 PM, about 45 minutes after we left, “full belly, squeaky clean and sound asleep”.  That text made the evening even more enjoyable – no worries!!



He loves his cereal




I think he is telling me, "I love you"




I think he is telling his daddy to behave!  No drinking and driving!




Hair done, make-up on, and I even accesorized!!