VISTA stands for Very Irritating Severely Terrible Application

So I would like to start out by offering an invitation for anyone who wants to come give our computer a swift dropkick to the motherboard, please do. I will take multiple volunteers. It needs a good beatin'! We have been having trouble with it since just after Christmas. Then we got Vista because several message boards described the same problems and said Vista fixed it. HA! That is some undercover agent from Microsoft posting those messages. It is now worse! You know all those funny Apple commercials making fun of Vista? We have painfully experienced all of the downfalls Mac so rightly pointed out. All this to say I worked during all of my free time today on a video to update you since it has been a while. Vista has this new "Movie Maker" that I thought I would use because it looked quick and easy instead of taking forever on our good software because it gets downgraded so much when we upload it to youtube that there is no need to put forth that effort. (By the way - there must be a better way to publish to youtube because other videos look pretty good - any suggestions, please pass them on. We have tried everything it says in the help video - still looks not so great.) So, the program was quick and easy, like promised, but after I finish editing and watch it one final time, I hit "Publish Movie" and....NOTHING. So, now it is stuck on my computer in a format that I can not upload to Youtube. Nice. Love it. Then I tried installing our good software so I could make a video there - guess what - it is not compatible with VISTA! Surprise surprise. So, for now, you will only get some, ok, lots of pics. HOPEFULLY we will have this resolved SOON!

Maddox's first plane ride. He did so good!

He was asleep before we even leveled off. I luckily had an empty seat beside me. I just laid him down and he was out until the pilot felt the need to announce our cruising altitude (why do we need to know that anyway? Does anyone really care?). That startled him a bit and he was up for the rest of the flight. We had a good time.

A pic with Uncle Garrett in the monogrammed polo he gave Maddox. I think he looks so cute in it and that color green looks so good on him. Good job Garrett!

Two happy Grandparents with their two tired Grandkids.

I am so terrible about getting pics of my sister with Maddox. I was with her longer than any one else on this trip, and we didn't take pics until I was at the security line at the airport going home. I don't know if we are just too busy playing with and chasing around two kids or what. Sorry sister! You are the best Aunt! I will set a reminder alarm to take some pics of the two of you next time I am in Texas! Ha ha!

Presley was so cute with Maddox (or Mawix as she would say) all weekend. She helped us keep him entertained in the car, wanted to help feed him, change his diaper, put on his lotion after the bath, and everything she did, she wanted him to do too. This is P pushing Maddox in the swing at Grandma's and Mama C trying desperately to keep him in it while it is going back and forth. P loved this swing so she thought Maddox would like it too. When we got back to Kimberly's house, P wanted to take a walk in the wagon, and of course, Maddox needed to go too. He actually really liked it. I was afraid he wouldn't be able to sit up well enough to handle the turns, but once we had him strapped in he loved it. P really was excited about the wagon ride....

She just wanted to pull it instead of riding in it! Michael and I had to act like we weren't helping when she would turn around and look. She kept saying "I wanna do it."

This is why I love Charleston - FREE FESTIVALS! All the time. The weekend after I got back, Caisson, Maddox and I packed up and went downtown for the Southeastern Wildlife Expo. We had a great time walking around. We thought Maddox would enjoy seeing the animals because he loves watching our dogs, but he wasn't so interested. He still loved hanging out in the stroller. It was a great day. This is a jazz band that was playing on the corner. They were hilarious!

9 months old!!!

This is all he wants to do all day now. He loves to stand up. He will crawl up to me and pull on my pants until I give him my hand to pull up on. I have also learned not to leave the remote controls or my cell phone on the couch. I am not sure how well they would work after numerous times of being immersed in slobber!

My happy little boy! (Notice the drool down the front of his shirt. Still no teeth though.)

I just thought this was a sweet picture.

Ready or not....He loves pulling up on his walker. We took the wheels off for now until he is a little more sturdy. He is good at standing up though. I really can't believe he is already to this stage. I know it has been 9 months, but it sure doesn't feel like it.

Well, I have several more pics and some video I want to share, but I will save it for another post. Hope everyone is having a good week. Thanks for stopping by to check on us!

The 8 month catch up!

Maddox is 8 months old today! I can't believe it. He has started so many new things in the last month I can't hardly keep up! I had been working on this video of Christmas morning, but every day that passed, I had something new to add to it. It is now 6 minutes long - so that is your warning before you hit play. It is a lot of video of him trying to crawl, opening presents Christmas morning, and his visit with Carl, Landis and Lacey, with a few other random videos included along the way. I know most of you probably think this is overkill, but the Grandparents love it...so this is for them. It is so long that YouTube really had to compress it, so I am sorry about the quality. And yes, you will see him several times in a Halloween sleep sac, and I know October is long gone, but we put him in it for his naps anytime he only has a onesie on because we have figured out the window in his room has a draft and it can get quite cold in there. So, we have literally worn that sleep sac out.
Hope you enjoy the video. We will be taking 8 month pics tonight so look for those too.

We hope you had a Merry Christmas!

Well, we just had our first official "family" Christmas and it was great! This was the first time we were not able to be with either of our families on Christmas day. We were sad about it, but tried to make the best of it. We figured since it was our first Christmas with Maddox, it was only fitting. Well, he made it so much fun that the day flew by before we had a chance to get too sad about being away. We really had a great day even though he had no clue what was going on.

Maddox meets Santa for the first time. They had a good talk.

Waiting for Santa on Christmas Eve.

Is it time to open presents yet?

Maddox opens his first Christmas present

Playing with his new building blocks

He is facinated by his new dragon!

This ball has some really crazy bright lights and music. He was enthralled!

Our best Christmas present. He had a lot of fun sitting in the box and tearing off the paper.

He has also reached or is about to reach several milestones. His teeth are going to break through any day now, he can now sit up on his own (for short periods) and he gets up on all fours and rocks back and forth, so crawling is just around the corner. Which also means I have been working on baby proofing the house!! He is actually pretty good at getting around by rolling or pushing himself backwards. When he starts rocking he doesn't know to move his arms so he ends up just pushing himself back. He knows how to put his pacifier in his mouth all by himself....Ok, I know this isn't technically a "milestone", but I think most parents would agree is needs to be added to the list. It has greatly cut down on the number of times he wakes up during the night. In fact - last night my total number of trips to Maddox's crib......DRUMROLL Please.......ZERO! Can you tell I am excited about that? He also taught himself how to spin the rainbow wheel on the jumparoo the other day. I know it doesn't sound like much, but he has always been interested in it and I would always spin it for him, then he would reach for it and it would stop. It was amazing to watch him as he figured out how to spin it himself and let go so it would keep spinning. I wasn't even helping him, he just all the sudden figured out what to do. It was really awesome to be able to watch that. Here are some more pictures:

His first meal in the high chair

Rolling around and slobbering on his feet

Helping put up the Christmas lights (providing comic relief at least!)

Sitting up all by himself!! We still have to sit close and watch out for the occasional face plant!

Maddox also got to meet our friends Ben and Crystal for the first time. He LOVED Crystal and wanted to talk to her all weekend. He is a flirt already. We are SO excited that Ben and Crystal will be moving back to Charleston in April!!!! We had so much fun visiting with them...now it is time to get busy house hunting for them!

Well, I was also wanting to post some videos with the other presents he opened, but it is getting late, so that will have to be the next post. We tried to get pics with everyone's presents, but we ended up with video of most of them. So I will put that together and get it up in the next few days. Thanks for checking in with us. We hope you all had a wonderful Christmas.

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!

My Pouty Pumpkin

Our adventure for Monday was to go take some pictures at the pumpkin patch. My neighbor and her 3 kids went too - looked to be a fun time. Well, Maddox didn't agree. He decided his "trick" for this Halloween was to make everyone at the pumpkin patch think I was the worst Mom ever. He screamed from the time we got out of the car. I promise I had fed him, changed him and he had slept right before we left. Maybe my kid is afraid of pumpkins. I don't know. At least we got the trick over and now I can wait for the treat! Mindi got some good pictures of her kids and they each got to pick out a pumpkin so that was fun. We got some pictures of Maddox - not really what we were going for, but they are funny anyway.

Notice the grumpy pumpkin behind him...they could be good friends!

My poor little man looks so sad. "Why do you do this to me Mom?"

This is my neighbor Nathan with the pumpkins they bought that day. He was so proud of his jack-o-lanterns.

Maddox has decided that everything tastes better when eaten sideways. I tried everything to get him to sit up straight, I thought I had him in the Bumbo lopsided, but he just kept leaning over, so we just went with it. He ate the whole bowl of cereal in this position.

This is his cute little outfit Mama C smocked for him. The blocks have his initials in them. He wore it to church this past Sunday and everyone thought he looked so cute!

We have started "sleep training" this week. He got to the point where he was only taking 30 minute naps during the day and was so unpredictable about when he would nap. He was also fussy a lot of the time and I knew he was tired, but couldn't get him to sleep. He was waking up about every hour or so during the night. Well, I can't keep up with that, so I plopped myself down in the floor of Barnes and Noble and picked out a book. I am only about half way through, but I have put into practice what I have read so far, and it is already working! We have only been in our sleep "boot camp" as I like to call it for 3 days but he is already doing so much better. So, if any of you are having the same troubles, I would like to recommend to you "Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child." It is so great, and he acknowledges the real life factor of all of this as well, which most of the books don't. It also goes up through age 3 I think. So future help as well. I told my Mom I feel kind of dumb now after reading it, like I should have realized this on my own, but maybe I get a free pass since he is my first. Poor first kid has to suffer through his Mom's stupidity. Hopefully he will survive without too much damage!