Looking Back

Seeing Nancy's pictures of her baby Jack and reading her blog about nursing, sleep deprivation, etc. has made me think about when I went through all that with Wesley. I am a person who loves to sleep, and the sleep deprivation I had the first year was enough to bring me to tears many, many times. Nursing had its ups and downs. Like Nancy said, you have to be very careful what you eat because whatever you eat goes right to the baby. I nursed because aside from the incredible health benefits it gives your baby, think of the time and money you save not having to buy formula and make bottles! Nursing also helped me shed the baby weight in about two weeks. I only gained 25 pounds during my pregnancy, though. You think that you are never going to forget things about the time when you have a newborn/infant. Well, you do. It's hard for me to remember a whole lot when Wesley was a baby, probably because I was so dang tired all the time. It just goes by so fast. I can't believe he is almost 4 already.

Christmas, And The End of 2008

Christmas 2008 was a wonderful time for my family. My parents came up on Christmas Eve to be with us. Sometimes I wonder if I got really special, meaningful gifts for my family, but this year I felt great about what everyone received. I gave Arturo his own engraved Bible. He got teary-eyed when he opened it. My mom is lighthouse-crazy, and since she already has everything else lighthouse-themed imaginable, I got her lighthouse shower curtain rings and a lighthouse handtowel for the bathroom. She loved them. I got my dad a Cracker Barrel gift card and a Devil Rays t-shirt, which both went over very well. Wesley's main gift was a bicycle. Anytime anyone asked him what he wanted for Christmas, he said "A bicycle," so Arturo and I knew we had a winner with that. I got some soft, comfy PJs from my parents (which I stayed in all day Christmas Day), some earrings and a "I Love Lucy" snow globe. Arturo gave me a beautiful cross for my necklace and some earrings. We had thought about giving each other a Wii, but decided against it this year. We did go to Wal-Mart last night and bought a PacMan game console that has a bunch of different 80s arcade games on it. Maybe we're stuck in the past a bit, but the three of us have had fun with it so far!

Now I'm trying to think of ways to keep Wesley busy until he goes back to school next week. I took him to Michael's today and bought him an activity board where he can trace numbers and letters as well as practice writing them by himself. He loves to do things like that, so hopefully that will occupy some time. I'm really looking forward to the new year...

Wesley's Christmas Show

Wesley had his Christmas show for his preschool last night. We were pretty nervous as his last public performance (a choir Christmas program at our church) was pretty much a disaster, with him not singing at all, crawling around on the stage and being terrible for the rest of the performance even when he was sitting with us. Anyway, this performance last night was a 10 on a scale of 1-10. He did great! On his first song, he sang every word and played a kazoo. On the second song, a Hannukah song, he had his hands in his mouth the whole time. I don't know what that was about. On the last song, he was a Christmas tree. He spotted Arturo, who was recording him, about halfway through the last song and started waving to him. We were so proud of him, so afterwards we went and got some ice cream. It was a wonderful night, and I'm so glad that Arturo could take off of work and be with me to see it. These are such special moments, and I don't want either of us to miss anything.

Photo Challenge

Challenge = fourth picture in your fourth folder with description.

This is my fourth picture in my third folder (I added some to the Challenge!) Wesley was about 10 months old here, and we were in Mexico for his christening (Note the white outfit). He was running a fever as you can tell by the red cheeks.

This is the fourth picture in my fourth folder. I'm guessing it was taken 9-10 months ago. Wesley wanted to climb the fence and came up with the idea to go get the stool (which he was using for the bathroom at the time) to make him higher.

Thanksgiving 2008

We had a great Thanksgiving this year. We drove up to Birmingham with my parents to spend it with my brother and his family. It was very noisy and chaotic at times, which is to be expected with a 4-year-old and two 3-year-olds, but it was great spending time with them since we only get to see them about once a year. We went to a very nice park on Thursday before our meal, and then later Thursday night we played our favorite game, Apples To Apples (highly recommended if you've never played it). We were exhausted when we got home Friday night, but the time spent with my family was well worth the trip. The picture is of my parents with their four grandchildren: From bottom: Alex, Davis, Sara Grace and Wesley.

Breaking Tradition

It used to be my rule to never buy a Christmas tree or decorate for Christmas before Thanksgiving. We always decorated the weekend after Thanksgiving. Well, I broke that rule this year. We went to look at real Christmas trees at Lowe's yesterday and just had to get one. They were so full and beautiful and smelled so good. So, last night, after dinner at Carrabba's, we decorated for Christmas. Not that we're the only ones that have done so, you know. A lot of people decorated right after Halloween. Now THAT'S just ridiculous, I think.

The Bible Is Awesome

Psalms 37:1-13. Arturo and I read these verses together last night at the urging of a pastor friend of ours. All I can say is, in what we are going through right now, these verses gave us a peace that is unexplainable. I was feeling such anger, and when I read these out loud, it was just an amazing experience.

In other news, we are so excited to be going to Birmingham on Wednesday with my parents to spend Thanksgiving with my brother and his family. It will be good to be in Bama again. We are hoping to see some beautiful leaf colors and feel some cool weather, although we've been having that here a lot lately.