So Much to Say, So Much to Say

We have been so busy this weekend!  It IS the Holiday season, though!  I baked on Wednesday for a family with a precious new baby girl.  I made chicken pot pie and I hope it turned out well.  Thursday I baked cookies for Bunco and Friday I made Alabama trash candy and homemade cheesecake covered with caramel, chocolate, and pecans for our Sunday School class party.  Whew!  Thursday night we had Bunco and I was so excited to finally get to go, as I missed October and November.  Lady Luck was with me and I won a prize for most wins!!  This wreath perfectly finishes up my Christmas decorations for my fireplace:

Jessica and I won pretty wreaths!

The theme for Bunco this month was cookie swap.  Everybody brought different cookies and they were so good! I made chewy chocolate peanut butter cookies.  They were SO easy to make and they were pretty good, too.  Julie made enchillada soup and a super yummy chocolate-coffee punch.  It tasted kind of like a frosty from Wendy's.  I cannot keep eating like this or I will not be very happy in January.

"C" is for cookie!

Pretty wreath on the candelabra

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Friday night was our Sunday School class party.  We had a really good time getting to visit with everyone and all of the food was yum-O.  There were so many desserts there, too!  We had a great time playing a get to know ya game and playing dirty santa ornament exchange.  I picked a beautiful glass snowflake.  It looks wonderful on the tree!  It was parent's night out at church, also, so we left JM at church so that we could go to the party.  We left him for the longest we've ever left him.  We were gone about 3 hours and he was not crying when we arrived to pick him up....he was asleep!!  Needless to say, the last few nights have not been wonderful.  He has been waking up pretty often again.  Who knows when this baby will get himself straightened out with sleep.  He slept about an hour and a half this morning and he's taking a nap now.  He varies so much everyday!

Waiting to eat!

Date night!

And just for fun, check out our little jumperoo:

JUUUUUMP!

Little Boy Blue

I decided to put up a teeny Christmas tree in John Michael's room.  I hung ornaments that were shades of blue, baby's first Christmas, Alabama-themed, and special items from the past few months.  It ends up we have tons of "first" Christmas ornaments and I made an ornament out of his picture with his first visit to santa!

Now, I'm not saying this is the prettiest tree, but it has a lot of memories hung on it.  It kind of looks all jumbled.  The tree is topped with the little blue cap that the nurses put on JM when they brought him back to me after his newborn assessment in the nursery.  I also hung his little white shoes that he wore home from the hospital.  The yellow ribbon at the top of the tree is his measuring tape that the nurses measured him with afer he was born.  I figure each year we could hang special things from throughout the year on his very own tree!

JM likes his tree!

I was going to buy some cute blue fabric to make a little tree skirt out of, but I ended up using a blue receving blanket instead.  I put the only 3 blue stuffed animals that we own under the tree to fill up the space!

Verse O' the Day:

“Because he loves me,” says the LORD, “I will rescue him; I will protect him, for he acknowledges my name. He will call upon me, and I will answer him; I will be with him in trouble, I will deliver him and honor him.”

Psalm 91:14-15

7 Months of Learning Experiences

John Michael turned 7 months old yesterday!!  He was a total sweetie and was so happy!  He napped wonderfully and ate some yummy sweet potatoes for lunch!  I still can't believe that he's getting older so quickly.  I've said it about 10 times on here, but time is passing too quickly.  John Michael is sitting perfectly by himself and he is eating a number of foods.  He is seeing things that he wants and he is reaching out to get them.  He is starting to get mad if we take something away from him.  I don't think his object permanence has really set in yet.  He loves his jumperoo and he is literally jumping like a manaic as I type!  Thanks, Aunt Joan for the jumperoo!  He has also mastered his smiles and using his tongue.  He now smiles at things instead of us having to get him to smile, he's starting to just randomly smile at a toy!  How fun.  He also learned to stick his tongue out and he does so quite frequently!

I'm 7 months old!!

During lunch John Michael became so interested in my wedding rings!  He played with them and felt all over my hands!  How cute!

Yum!

 

Later in the day we headed to the promenade and did some shopping at Sephora.  Unfortunately, none of it was for me, it was all gifts!  I do so love Sephora!  JM did so well.  He was the best little baby there.  Lots of people commented on how good he was and the salesladies pinched his cheeks and played with him. I was thinking, if only you had seen this child 5 months ago!  It was an enjoyable afternoon of shopping with my little guy!

We had women's Bible Study this morning at church followed by the end of the year luncheon.  I had a great time and learned a few more names and faces.  It's really hard to do when you're new somewhere.  I definitely have to get out of my comfort zone sometimes!  We spent a wonderful morning in prayer and then had visitation for the home-bound.  JM did perfect in nursery.  He ate breakfast and lunch there and was a happy camper everytime I checked on him.  I hardly ever leave him, so it's hard for me to be without him!  I am glad to have nursery workers who are so sweet to John Michael.  After church we came home because the weather is N-A-S-T-Y!  Cold, wet, dark, falling temps=yuck!  We have stayed inside today and I like it that way!

Verse O' the Day:

I rise before dawn and cry for help; I hope in your words.

Psalm 119:147

Fun Weekend

I hate to jinx myself, but it seems like we may have a baby who has decided to sleep through the night.  I can hardly believe it!  After we let him cry it out on Thursday night he slept until almost 5 on Fri night, then 5:40 Sat night, then 6 this morning!!!  I can't believe it.  I'm not sure what has changed, but I am just hoping that it's something that will stick!  It feels so weird for me to be able to sleep.  My body just feels odd getting so much sleep for the first time in so many months.  What an answered prayer!

We did not do too much this weekend.  Bama lost to Florida (boo) and John Michael did not know what to think of his parents jumping up and yelling!  He had the most confused look on his face and he looked a little scared.  We had to reassure him after we yelled at the TV!  Saturday we went to the big open-air mall and  went to Gymboree to get socks for JM's stocking.  They are the only place that has socks that will fit his chunky legs!

Eating pears at the mall.

We now have a lovely exersaucer thanks to the Thurmans!  They are letting us use Braxton's and JM really likes it!  He loves all the little animals and things around it!  Notice his tongue sticking out in the picture.  He does that all the time now!

Exersaucer is fun!

Earlier in the week we had playgroup and we had a wonderful time.  Sarah Kate is sitting up pretty well now, so she and JM can actually play together instead of just laying and looking at each other!

Deep in thought!

[caption id="attachment_232" align="alignnone" width="225" caption="I'm in love with this cute snowman outfit...oh yeah, and the baby in it!"][/caption]

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that Sunday morning was hanging of the green at church!  We were late, as usual, and there were NO parking spots!  We had no idea what was going on.  That place was packed out, I mean standing room only.  We finally squeezed in the balcony and I'm glad we were up there.  We could see the whole church draped in lights, gold ribbon, garland, beautiful fruity ornaments, and tons of wonderfully lit Christmas trees in the choir loft.  I wish I could describe it, but it was beautiful and the music was just fantastic.  The little kids cracked me up and I also teared up a bit thinking about JM in just 2 or so short years singing up there.  It was a wonderful service and the choir and orchestra outdid themselves.  What a wonderful way to end a weekend!

Verse O' the Day:

Do not be grieved, for the joy of the LORD is your strength.

Nehemiah 8:10

Family Ties

A few weeks ago we took our very first family pictures!  I am so trilled at how they turned out!  I want to post them all, but I am going to wait until we send out our Christmas pictures.  I want it to be a surpirse to our family.  I love surprises.  I will post one super-cute picture though. 

What a cutie pie!

Tomorrow is the big Alabama/Florida game.  It should be a good nail-biter.  I know that we will be watching.  We have the flag flying out front and we put the AL flag on our car!  Roll Tide!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Also, I took some great advice from my other long-suffering, sleep deprived mom, Laurie.  She finally got her baby girl to sleep well during the night by using some tough love.......lots of crying.  I started on Thursday afternoon with naptime and he slept over 2 hours.  Last night JM woke up at 1:00a and I let him cry for a whole hour.  Don't worry now, I comforted him and patted him and I was in there, but I never actually picked him up.  I hated it but he eventually went back to sleep and slept until 6, then Jordan put him in bed with me and he slept until 8:45.  He took an almost 2 hour nap this afternoon and he has been so happy and playful and sweet today.  We're going to try again tonight and see how it goes.  Someway, somehow, I've just got to be able to sleep more than 2-3 hours at a time.  It's killing me.  I look awful a lot of the time and I just need some sleep!  Let's cross our fingers and hope it works!

*"Who, me...I would never wake my mom up 3 or 4 times a night!"*