Thankful for laughter

My Mom, Dad and brother drove all the way to South Carolina to visit us for Thanksgiving. We had such a great time, but it went by way too quickly! I can't wait until we live closer. While they were here, we drove to Savannah, ate at The Lady and Sons, found a great candy kitchen that I spent way too much time in, had a great Thanksgiving feast, Dad and I went Black Friday shopping and did a Civil War walk downtown. Somewhere inbetween all of that, we also played a lot of games and laughed a lot! I absolutely love my family! On the way back from Savannah, Maddox was getting a little restless, so Mom decided she would entertain him. It was obviously the best comedy show he has ever seen. I have 6 minutes of video of him laughing, but I pulled out just a bit of it so you could share in the laughter...

Waiting to be called in for lunch at The Lady and Sons

Ringing the dinner bell as we all got called in for our lunch

Maddox chillin' in his stroller as we tour Savannah. As you can tell he was thoroughly impressed!

Maddox wearing short sleeves on his first Thanksgiving.

This was our first allergic reaction episode. Now if you know Caisson or me, you know we fully expect Maddox to have more of these, poor kid. He unfortunately has inherited our "sensitive to everything" genes. We found out he is allergic to Pampers diapers. Long story, but once we figured it out, we gave him a bath and this this is my attempt at turning a burp cloth into a diaper while we waited for Caisson to return from the store with our ever faithful Huggies. All I have to say here is THANK GOODNESS for disposable diapers. I got to expeirence all the joys that come with a dirty cloth diaper. YUCK!

I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving and enjoyed your family and friends!

Can he really be 6 months old?

I can't believe it -Maddox is 6 months old today. I remember in those first few days thinking this was so far away, yet it feels like I have blinked and here it is. He has changed so much in a short 6 months. Sometimes I miss my little 5 lb bag of sugar, but he is so much fun now I wouldn't go back for the world. I bought him some new pj's the other day and I went ahead and washed them for whenever I would need them. I remember looking at them and thinking they looked so big, there was no way they would fit right now. Well, I am a little behind on laundry because I have become obsessed with cleaning out closets, so I pulled them out tonight. When I zipped him up I realized that they actually fit him pretty well. I couldn't believe it. I have to say it made me a little sad. It is crazy to see the difference from the preemie clothes he started out in to what he wears today.

I thought I would share his six month pics with you. But first, here is a newborn pic just for reference: (that is a preemie outfit he has on that is swallowing him, and don't ask about the one mitten...I don't know what happened to the other one or why we didn't remove this one before we took the picture. Maybe a Michael Jackson reference for his Rock N' Roll room!)

Here he is at 6 months

My cute little bucket of fun

Then I decided since he was wearing his cowboy shirt, I would put Bevo in the picture with him. Seemed fitting. As soon as I set it down he got this concerned look on his face.

So I thought I would make it moo and maybe he would think that was funny. I was wrong.

This is when it hit me that my son really isn't a true Texan. He is scared of the sound of a cow.....

We will have to work on that!

Happy 6 months Maddox!

Say Thank You!

I am always thankful for the men and women who have devoted thier lives to keeping me safe, but it especially hits me during the holidays. I can't imagine spending Thanksgiving or Christmas in a sandy tent surrounded by guns and armor rather than presents and lights. Trying to make the best of a meal made for hundreds rather than the homemade feast I enjoy with my family. And certainly missing this time with thier kids. I just saw on Fox news that you can send text messages to the troops to send your thanks. So, I have already sent a few. I am glad to know I was able to tell at least a couple of soldiers how much I appreciate their service. I am passing along the website so you can do the same. It only takes a few seconds and it means so much. Click on the link below for more info, or you can just text your thanks to 89279 (You can remember the number for later by "TeXt America Supports You" - TXASY.)
http://www.americasupportsyou.mil/americasupportsyou/index.aspx

That kid in the mirror is HILARIOUS!

This is my favorite part of the day. Getting Maddox ready for bed consists of a bottle, the solid food of the day, a bath and a quick game of "Who's that Baby" before we go rock him off to la la land. Tonight he thought our game was especially fun. We laughed so hard, so I thought I would share it with you. He is so much fun right now. I love it!!

Just a bunch of monkey business...

I am so glad we have finally gotten a cold spell here. Glad because I finally get to put on the monkey hat and gloves that Kimberly sent Maddox before he was even born. He has worn it out a few times now and we get rave reviews. It is really funny, and he also looks sooooo cute!!!

The back even has a curly tail.

I know this is the second picture you have seen like this, and I was hesitant to put it on here because you might think I don't pay attention to him, but it is so funny I have to post it. He really doesn't like laying down anymore, but he can't sit up on his own yet. So we usually prop him up in the corner of the couch if we have to put him down for a few seconds. This time I was trying to get his bottle ready, so I propped him up while I assembled it and within the 30 seconds it took to screw the cap on, he had tipped over. What I love about this is the arm straight up in the air. A last ditch effort to stay vertical. Sorry Maddox, it was a good try!

I just thought these next 2 pics were cute. Here he is successfully propped in the corner of the couch.


And in his favorite spot - the jumparoo. He can't get enough of this thing. I hear the elephant in my sleep now!

Last night Maddox officially had his first non-family babysitter. Our church has started a new ministry for "Parents night out". Once a month, a group of "seasoned parents" as they call themselves, meet at the church and host a night for the kids so the younger parents can have a date night. It was so nice because I felt so comfortable leaving him with our church friends, and it is FREE which really helps! Maddox did pretty well. (And I have to say I did pretty well too! It helped a lot when I saw who was keeping the kids in the nursery.) They said he cried for a while, but they think he was just tired and there were so many kids that there was just too much comotion for him to go to sleep. Once he gave up on the idea of sleep, he just hung out in the bouncy chair and in the arms of 3 loving ladies. Caisson and I had a peaceful dinner (being able to use both arms to eat and eating while your dinner is hot can be a wonderful thing!), and went to see The Kingdom. It was a great movie! The food was good, but we had the second worst service ever. (1st place goes to our 3 hour visit to IHOP. Yeah, you read that right, 3 hours at IHOP - for coffee, hot chocolate and ONE omelet. Sadly enough, we had been to early service at church and thought we could quickly go to IHOP then get home for Caisson to work. We were wrong.) Last night we watched THREE tables get seated, (after we had already been seated and placed our order for drinks and an appetizer) get their salads, thier meal, and yes, their bill, all before our Texas Tonion arrived. Then we thought for sure our meals would come out quickly. We were oh so wrong. Caisson had to ask the girl if she had remembered to put our order in. So we ended up 30 minutes late to the movie, but we sent Garrett a text message and he updated us on what was going on. We did have a great and much needed date night. It is really nice to sit down with your spouse and use sentences that don't include the words poop or spit-up, and talk in a normal tone of voice rather than two octaves above. Caisson is an awesome Dad, but he is also a fantastic husband and it was nice to have him all to myself, even if only for a few hours.

Maddox got to watch his first episode of "The Great Pumpkin" the other night. He loved it! I couldn't get him to pay enough attention to me to eat his cereal...and he usually loves his oatmeal. While we were getting ready for trick-or-treaters, we propped him up on the couch so we could carry the chairs outside. When we came back in, he had toppled over...it was pretty funny. He didn't seem to mind much though.
He wasn't really sure about the pumpkin at first. He wouldn't take his eyes off of it.
Our little purple monster.
Maddox with our neighbors, Allison, Cole and Nathan. We had a great time with them.

Hope you had a great Halloween!