Thursday, March 24, 2011

See ya later, alligator!

I have lots to blog about, but no time to blog! We load up the U-Haul in 16 days and I haven't even put a dent in packing! So I'll be signing off until around the beginning of May.

Tune in then for what could possibly be 10 blog posts in a week! Ummm, no promises though!

Saturday, March 19, 2011

11 months old!

Parker turned 11 months old last week! Which means birthday celebration plans are well under way! However, this was absolutely a busy month in the land of Parker!

The day after he turned 10 months old he celebrated his first Valentines Day! I celebrated by buying him a cute onesie.





That week he began waving! It's adorable! He also began giving high five's but he's very stingy with them and someone has to be really excited about the whole ordeal in order for him to give one.

We finally installed all new laminate wood flooring in our middle level. To celebrate I brought Parkers walker upstairs. Before he would just sit in it and play with the toys. But, within a few days he figured out how to walk in it! I won't lie; it's not his favorite thing to do. He is very independent and prefers to be let loose on the floor! His absolute favorite thing to do is to get into everything he's not supposed too! I finally gave in and gave him his own drawer in the kitchen filled with items he can play with. That doesn't stop him from getting into others as well, but it slows him down a little.

Parker went to Texas for the first time! (Driving through on the way to Oklahoma didn't count). He really broke in his new car seat during that trip.





I know I blogged about this, but I have to remind every one that he had his first hair cut this past month as well. That was pretty traumatic. For me. I'm finally starting to get used to how he looks, but that's probably because it's starting to grow out already and I can see a glimpse of his curls!




A few days later he began trying to stand alone! Five times in one day! Good thing diapers help to cushion falls! On the other hand, he has absolutely mastered the art of cruising (walking while holding on to objects).

He began saying his third word: uh-oh! Now it's almost a game to him. He will drop an object, and exclaim, "uh-oh!" Of course Greg and I encourage him and he eats it up!

The tenth month seemed to be a great one. Until he caught his first illness. It began as just a runny nose, then progressed to not wanting to eat, along with throwing up, then he became dehydrated, followed by diarrhea. Part of being a new mom meant he was dehydrated because of me. The doctor told me he seemed fine he just had a virus and it had to run its course but that I needed to keep up with his fluids. Any time I gave him water to drink he was vomiting within minutes. The day after his doctors appointment Lamar was hit with snow and Greg had a snow day. Parker was still not himself. He had no energy and just wanted to be held and cuddled which was not normal. Being the oblivious parents that we were, Greg and I thought, "cool, maybe we can watch a movie and he'll just snuggle with us".




After a few hours we realized something was just not right. He was completely limp and his lips were turning a slight purple. We decided it was time to go to the E.R. They said he was dehydrated and tried unsuccessfully to give him two different IV's. After drawing blood and running test the results were negative for strep, flu, and RSV. They resorted to giving us a bottle of Pedialyte and told me to use an adult straw, and to have just a little in the straw and give him very little every 5 minutes. An hour and a half later I had given him the whole bottle of Pedialyte and he hadn't thrown up! If I had known to do that the day before I think we could have avoided the whole situation. Let's just say it was a lesson learned the hard way. It took Parker several days to get back to his normal self. I can safely say his appetite is now back and he is as perky as ever!

He still takes a morning and afternoon nap, but I have a feeling I will be cutting out the morning nap pretty soon. I did begin to worry that he wasn't getting enough nutrients since I have been slowly weaning him so I began supplementing with formula this past month. He's not the biggest fan of it though. He will typically drink an ounce of it before each nap and I also use it to mix up his cereal in the mornings.

As far as sleeping through the night...well, that seems to have gone out the window. He wakes up several times during the night and I will either lay him down and pat him on the back and he falls asleep or we have a rocking session that can last up to an hour. He is waking up a little bit earlier which does not make me the most pleasant person to be around ;)

As far as his eating habits, he is still on stage 2 baby food. I began trying to feed him stage 3 but then he got sick and I resorted back to what he was used too. He did add mango's and blackberries to his menu. I'm sure there were some other things but they are slipping my mind. His absolute favorite food are cheerios! If he doesn't have a couple handfuls after each meal he throws a fit. I'm pretty sure he eats as much cheerios after each meal as an adult would have for their morning bowl of breakfast.

The past few months I have kind of been guessing at his weight. I don't have a baby scale so what I have done is weigh myself, then weigh myself holding Parker and I subtract the difference. I've always come up with him being about 19 pounds. When we took him to the ER he weighed in at 17 lbs. 5 oz. My jaw about hit the floor. Granted he hadn't been eating but it did kind of concern me. Well, when I did my version of his weigh in last Sunday I came up with about 19 pounds again. As far as how long he is, I didn't even bother. That little guy is a squirmer!

I am 11 months old today!!!!

Wednesday, March 9, 2011

What I'm Loving Wednesday


I'm linking up again with Jamie for her Wednesday blog party!

I'm loving that after several days of being horribly sick, my little baby finally seems to be on the road to recovery and is finally acting like himself again!

I'm loving that I'm hostessing a Celebrating Home party tonight!

I'm loving that tomorrow our friends Randy and Shannon, along with their little boy, Braxton, are arriving at our house and staying through the weekend!

I'm loving that I have about 18 episodes of Sex In The City on my DVR!

I'm loving that one of my best friends from college, Angela, is engaged! Better yet, I'm loving that her and her fiancee, Vaughn, are entered in the Crate and Barrel The Ultimate Wedding Contest! Please click here to vote for them! I would love to hear that they won this contest; they totally deserve it!

I'm loving that out of nowhere the other day my husband told me how much he loves how I look in my new skinny jeans and he thinks we should buy a few more pairs! (I wasn't even wearing them when he said that!)

I'm loving that the ad about our house for sale began running in the newspaper today!

I'm loving that we are having an Open House this Sunday!

I'm loving that I will be able to enjoy our remodeled house for about a week before I have to start packing for our move to Texas!

Happy Wednesday, ya'll!

Thursday, March 3, 2011

A Few Minor Changes

You know the saying,"When it rains, it pours?" Well, that seems to be the case around here. We spent this last weekend in Graham, TX because my husband asked his manager if there would be any way he could transfer there. Of course, the manager of the site wanted us to come to the city so he could meet Greg and so we could make sure we liked the town enough to transfer. We were pretty confident that Greg would be transferred successfully, but there was always the chance it wouldn't work out. Luckily, everything worked out and Greg was informed on Monday that he has to start work at the new job site on April 18th.

We love the town of Graham! It's bigger than Lamar, where we currently live. There are a few department stores, a lot of cute boutique stores, several parks, a community theatre (I told Greg I was dying to be on stage again!), a movie theatre, a drive-in movie theatre (!), bowling ally, lots of mom and pop restaurants as well as the usual fast food joints, a few shoe stores, and even a ranch resort with an awesome steak house with stellar views (We actually stayed there this weekend...blog post soon to come!) Graham also happens to be an hour and a half away from Fort Worth, which makes this city girl very happy! I have cousins who live in Ft. Worth, and I'm excited about being close to museums, a zoo, and of course lots of cultural events to expose Parker too! Even better is that we will be two hours away from a property we recently inherited, and we will be three and a half hours away from most of our Oklahoma family.

As if that isn't change enough...there is more to come. We didn't waste any time in scooping out the local real estate. In fact, we spent a couple weeks prior to our trip to Graham scouring the internet and talking to a local Realtor. Our last four houses have been foreclosed properties that required a lot of remodeling. In fact, we are only 95% finished with the house we live in now, but are quickly working to finish it. My husband is getting a little tired of working on houses, and kept saying that he hoped our next house would not require any work. Apparently he was telling the truth, because this is a picture of our new (and I mean NEW) house!



It's not completely finished. In fact the elevation is still missing the shutters, and then all of the cedar wood will be stained a really dark mocha color. We were able to pick out the carpet and I even made changes to the bathroom mirrors (the builder was going to install those plain mirrors but I was determined to have decorative framed mirrors). I'll post more pics when we move in next month.

The changes don't stop there! Yesterday Parker had his first hair cut. Here is a picture of my sweet baby before:



And here is a picture of my young man after:



I'm actually having a harder time adjusting to Parkers hair cut more than anything else. Greg assures me it will grow out a little and he'll have some curls before he blows out his candle on his first birthday.

So like I said, just a few minor changes....