We Are The Griswald's

I have been looking forward to doing the Christmas parade and lights with my family for several weeks now! I absolutely LOVE Christmas. I swear, it just makes me so happy. And I love having my sweet little baby around this year to experience it with. So much fun. In Marshall, which is not far from here, they had a big holiday celebration with an ice skating rink outside, Santa, carriage rides, etc. This sounded perfect for us. My mom came in from Dallas to go with us and we were ready. I even bought Davis this great outfit that kept him super warm. He looked like a little bear all bundled up! We got to Marshall and the town was all lit up with great lights everywhere. We went to this great antique/coffee shop/bistro for dinner before checking out the lights. After dinner, we really wanted to do a carriage ride that took you through neighborhoods of these GINORMOUS houses with beautiful lights. BUT, the carriage rides were sold out. Sold out?? What? Okay, fine. So we decided to go on a guided tour bus, thinking this would be better anyway and we would stay warm. Negatory! The bus broke down which was why all of the carriage rides were sold out. Go figure. Michael has never been ice skating before, so we of course had to give it a try. I swear, it was the funniest thing I have ever seen in my life! He looked like a toddler learning how to walk. Sad to say, he ate it and ate it hard. It was like slow motion in a movie. Legs kicking up in the air, arms flying everywhere, landing flat on his back. He laughed at the time, so I didn't think he hurt himself too bad. Wrong! He thinks he may have actually broken his ankle. Good Lord. What else!! We made our own tour and looked at lights on our own, which was very nice. By this point, we are on our way home. Marshall is a little over an hour from our house. Driving on the highway, we hear something and sure enough, we got a flat tire. All I could do at this point was laugh. We were on what seemed like the longest bridge in the world and had to make it to the other side to pull over. Serenity now!! Michael gets out, sprained ankle and all, and starts to change to tire. Nope. The rim has a lock on it and we don't have the key. You've got to be kidding me. Keeps getting better. We are on empty, so we decided we should turn the car off to save gas. Yeah, so the battery goes dead which of course causes the flashers to go out. We are now standing at this point on the side of the highway at midnight, waiting for anyone to come get us. Goodness! So the tow truck can only hold one person. I am speechless at this point. I seriously thought I was about to have a panic attack. Thank God for our good friend, Storm, that drove all the way out there to come get us. I don't know what we would do without Candice and Storm sometimes. Seriously! Somehow, Davis was perfect through the entire thing. He was so good and pretty much was passed out! We finally made it home around 1:30 am. What a night!! People say bad things happen in 3's...I think we are ahead of the game for next time. We can only look back and laugh now. We have to wait until Honda opens tomorrow to get a key made. It could have been a lot worse, so we were pretty lucky.

Here's my little Santa's helper! Every time he smiled, I missed it!!

HAPPY HOLIDAYS!

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You Know You Are A Parent When.....

This past weekend, Michael and I went to a shrimp boil at our good friend's house. I looooooooove me some shrimp and was so excited about it. Preparing for the time we were going to be there was a different story. I felt like we were moving in taking Davis over there. This was the first time we have been at someones house during his bedtime, so we wanted to be ready...crossing fingers, that is! We showed up with our hands full with baby in tow. We brought his pack and play and set it up in the bedroom for him to sleep in. I had to bring my breast pump to get his bottles ready for night time feedings. *I've been feeding him a bottle for his 7 and 10pm feedings and this has been doing great. I know he is getting the amount he needs and sleeps great. We brought the monitor since we knew that we would be outside hanging out with friends. Then the usual diaper bag with extra clothes, etc. A few minutes after showing up, I had enough time to say hi to everyone and sneak into the back and feed Davis at 4pm. Save shrimp for me, people! Of course Davis decided to eat like he hasn't eaten all day, so I was in there for what seemed like forever. After about an hour or so of being there, I had to pump to get his 10pm bottle ready. I'm all set up in the room and then realized that I forgot one of the parts to the pump. Go figure! Only me, I swear. So you know things have changed when you leave a shrimp boil to go get a part to your pump. Good times. The night went great and surprisingly enough, Davis slept so good over there. I said that I think we should bring him over there every night to put him down for bed. Our friend was joking around saying, ahh...you guys are such parents, pointing at the baby monitor clipped onto Michael's jeans. It was pretty cute, I have to admit. Baby monitor with beer in hand. I was just so glad that we were able to hang out with friends and Davis was so good. I don't think he cried once except for when he had a wet diaper. Not too bad. Can't complain! And the food was especially good! I'm ready for some more!

It's That Time Again...

Time for a growth spurt that is. My poor baby just seems so unhappy and I hate there is nothing I can do about it. This child is just plain wearing me out. He was sleeping so good, but when he hits growth spurt time, it's out the window. Last night, he actually woke up six times. Yes, six times. He didn't even do that when he first came home from the hospital. A few times he woke up just screaming, others he needed to be changed. Bless his heart, but please shhhh. Mama needs sleep too, kiddo! Yesterday was wonderful. Even though he's dealing with this, he had a great nap and I was able to get so much needed stuff done. Today is a different story. I am literally a walking zombie. I feel bad because I don't even have the energy to talk much to him. He just will not nap today. I'm crossing my fingers that that means he will possibly sleep better tonight, but I don't want to get my hopes up. We were able to do some tummy time this morning, but not too much. He is still fighting that everyday. He used to love being on his tummy but has decided to change his mind. He will roll from his tummy to his back in anger it seems like and then smile with this look of, 'I'm done. Right?!'

Dinner time for Michael and I is still something I have yet to figure out. Davis is still on a every 3 to 3 1/2 hour feeding schedule. This puts his afternoon feeding at 4 and then again at 7. It's hard to figure out because this is pretty much his cry time for the day due to his lovely bout of colic. I feed him at 4 and attempt to get dinner started before Michael gets home. If we don't eat before I feed him at 7, that puts him and I eating at 8 or later. How to eat around his crying? When to eat? Eat during his crying is never relaxing but sometimes we have to do it anyway. Does anyone else deal with this? Yes, suggestions would be great. I've thought of making him a bottle for his 7pm feeding so it wouldn't take too long. Who knows! My excessive tiredness is causing me to ramble today I'm afraid. I do think that if Michael had a normal job with regular hours, things wouldn't be so stressful. Here lately, he has had to be out of town a lot. It totally stresses me out. I just don't do well sometimes having to deal with the screaming all day by myself. I have those moments thinking I will never have more children. But then Davis will start giggling or smiling and of course he melts my heart. Don't get me wrong, I love every minute of being a mom and wouldn't trade it for the world. I think I just still need to work on my patience! :)Maybe 'Mommy and Baby Yoga' will calm both of us down!

My Crafty Side

On Mama's Losin It, this week one of her prompts was "Show Us Something You Did Yourself." So, since I can't take full credit for Davis all myself, here is a little of my crafty side. Some of you have already seen these, but that's okay. For a while, I was making some jewelry and frames for people. My favorite, that I don't think I have a picture of, was a nautical themed frame for a friend of mine that matches her sons room.





ahref="www.jessibellasplace.etsy.com">JessibellasPlace for sold items and what I still have available.

My Baby Can Read...

Okay, not really. But if you've heard of "My Baby Can Read," then you know what I'm talking about. I've read and heard several different success stories, so Michael and I figured we would give it a try. I never have the tv on during the day, so for Davis to be allowed to watch any tv (I know, he's only 2 1/2 months!) is big..haha. He's really interested in it and I am really interested to see how it works. You start the videos and flash cards around 2 1/2 months and the kit ends at 5 years of age. I'm hoping this will give him a good head start for preschool/kindergarten. Maybe he can teach Michael and I Spanish :)

Since Davis was born, we have been doing Baby Wise and following the book. The whole saying,"I wish my baby was born with a manual," well, that's pretty much it. If you haven't heard of it, it's supposed to be the "gift of sleep." The basic concept of it is to get your baby to start sleeping through the night at an earlier age and allow more time together as a couple. Of course Davis still has his days and I do realize he is just a babies, but I also know that babies and children strive on schedules. He does such a great job with it. Not everyday is great, especially since he has colic, but it allows Michael and I to have dinner together most nights and watch a movie/have us time. Davis is also sleeping through the night now with the occasional diaper change anywhere from 3 to 5am. Not too bad. He doesn't have his first feeding of the day until around 7:30 when he wakes up. Ahhh...sleep. Oddly enough though, he's sleeping great and I'm not some nights. I don't get it! It's so frustrating, but I'm hoping it will pass.

I love watching his progression and see him notice and discover new things. He is still fighting tummy time a lot, but seems to like it in the morning more. He's rolling over which is so cute. He starts laughing when he rolls on his back. Which by the way, I heard him actually laughing for the first time about a week ago. It totally melted my heart.
His first laugh :)


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10 Reasons Why I Can't Sleep

I love checking out other people's blogs and on , her latest blog prompt I chose was 10 Reasons Why I Can't Sleep. I'm sure I could come up with about 20...but here are the ones off the top of my head

1)the most obvious...I have a newborn. While he is starting to sleep better at night, the child is like a baby Superman and breaks out of his swaddle every night! Yes, it even has Velcro and he still breaks out of it. When this happens, he screams.

2) My child pees every 10 minutes. When this happens, he screams. This is more waking up.

3) My mind just does not stop. I mean does not stop. I lay in bed no matter how tired I am and think of things I need to do, want to do, should have done, why won't the baby stop crying for goodness sake?!

4) My husband is a snoring banshee. When he is exhausted from work, my Lord, I might as well sleep in the other room! Puh-leease man!

5) My husband thinks my pillows are his even though he has two underneath his head. Please don't touch me or lay on me. I have a baby laying on me all day. Thank you.

6) Is that a dog barking? Is that my dog barking? My dog howls so loud when he hears sirens and it doesn't matter what time of day/night it is. He's a special one. He's the same kind of dog as Old Yeller, but we all know how that movie ended.

7) I forgot to turn the air purifier on. I need some kind of white noise. I hate it being too quiet but can't sleep with actual noise. Yes, I'm a nut case.

8) I hate that my husband falls asleep at the drop of a dime and I'm laying there forever. Then that just upsets me.

9) Did I just hear the baby move?

10)Bottom line...yup. I'm pretty much just an insomniac.