Ok- maybe a month and a half is a long time not to post

... But in all fairness, we haven't really been home!  I'm working up a monster post and a major picture post- I'll let y'all know when it gets done!

Now the time has come to say goodbye...

Well, sort of. We're planning The Big Move.  Hayden is four months old and knocking on wood he's sleeping very well through the night, so we're planning to move him into his own room soon.  In fact, the plan is to move him in permanently when we get home from our trip.  I spent the majority of tonight re-organizing the nursery (such as it is) and making his bed.

My folks were very kind to purchase the adorable Eli's Elephants nursery set from Pottery Barn Kids.  When I saw it online, I fell in love.  I didn't realize that they were apparently discontinuing the theme so I couldn't get the mobile, window treatments and all the other cute stuff that would have made Hayden's room a nursery.  I'm disappointed, to say the least, but it doesn't matter.  I've never been one for the match-y match-y stuff, so I can just put something else together on my own.  Tonight, I put the crib skirt down (as much as I could in the Ikea crib we got), put the waterproof pad on our new mattress and put the cute PBK fitted sheet on it.  I had to untie and re-tie the crib bumper to accommodate the mattress, but all told, it looks cute and should be comfortable for Hayden.

But when I walk past his room, which is a lot, I feel like it's empty.  There is nothing on his walls.  To be fair, there's really not much on the walls in our house.  I don't feel like this house is my home, honestly, and I never have.  Over the past seven years we've done little things here and there to personalize an otherwise bland house.  Our walls are mainly still the inoffensive beige that most new construction has, with the kitchen and the guest bathroom being the exceptions.  The kitchen is a bright, lemony yellow that we accented with dark red valences with oranges, lemons and blueberries (I think) decorating them.  It took us about 2 years to get the valences up.  The guest bathroom was a project from a couple of years ago:  sage green with aqua, brown and green accessories.  We hung a drape, just one panel for the one window, in the living room and we have sheer panels in our bedroom.  That's it.  One picture in the living room, a plaque from Margaritaville in the kitchen, an elephant photo series in the hall near a hand-crocheted wall hanging and a golf swing print in the office.

I have a bunch of artwork that I'd love to hang, but it all requires framing, which will be expensive.  Add to that the fact that we're going to be putting the house on the market before too long, so what do I do?  Do I spend a lot of time, effort and money to really decorate the house?  Or do I just wait till we move?  I mean, it's not like Hayden will notice that there isn't anything fun on his walls.  And we don't have enough guests to see that I'm apparently a lazy decorator, so should I really expend the energy?

Well, that's about all I can process for now- it's been a long few days.

Four months already?

Where has the time gone?  My sweet little man is changing so fast! He gets the giggles now...  Mama and Daddy are his favorite comedians, some days.  He's starting to teethe, too, which makes me very nervous.  He's been such a well-mannered little guy, I don't want him to be fussy :(  But he's handling it pretty well.  We go in for his four month checkup next week, I'm pretty sure he's up around 16 lbs and he's probably grown another inch.

He's outgrown his bassinet so we've had to move some furniture around to make room for his pack-n-play in our room.  I'm still not ready for him to sleep in his own room yet.  That, and we don't have his mattress for his crib!  Ooops.  We're planning to make that big move in July when we come home from our extended trip to Kentucky.  Plans are in full-swing for his christening in early July.  He'll be christened at the church where my sister, two cousins, Maggie and I were christened, Daniel was baptized there, I was married there...  It's very special because we grew up in that church.  It was right next door to my mom's parents' house (which is now part of the church as a counseling and meeting area).  The day we're having Hayden christened, church is scheduled to be outside under a big tent down by Owl Creek- which holds fond memories for many of my cousins and me.  We played down by that creek so many springs and summers...  It's a very special thing for us to be able to do this.  It's important to me that Hayden be officially welcomed into God's family.

Little dude is trying really hard to sit up by himself and it takes a LOT of entertaining for him to want to stay on his back anymore.  He seems to want to skip rolling over in favor of just walking.  He loves standing up- with our help, of course.  Nap-time is actually a fairly regular occurrence in our house now, and he's still sleeping like a champ through the night.  I'm so lucky!

Nibbling on Capt. Calamari

Hayden will typically wake up between 5 and 6:00am and want a diaper change and a bottle.  With me, he usually just conks out in my arms while I'm burping him.  With Mike, he'll want to stay up and play...  But he'll usually play himself back to sleep within an hour or so.  He'll typically sleep till about 10:30 or 11 (which is LOVELY for me!) and then we're up for the day.  He's taking naps around 1:00, 5:00 and 8:00 and will generally sleep an hour or two.  We're learning to live together, the three of us, now that Michael is home.  I'm thinking about starting yoga next week- I feel so old and stiff- and I know that I'm going to have an active little boy to keep up with!

We're so excited about our upcoming trip...  We'll be in Louisville for almost a month, so- no excuses!!!  Come visit!

So much to say...

So little time to actually say it!  Wow... Time is flying faster than the qualifying at Indy.  Hayden is already almost 14 weeks old- and growing like a weed doesn't begin to cover it.

At his 2 month checkup he was just under 12 lbs and 22" long.  Last Monday at his 3 month checkup he was 14.25 lbs and 25" long!  My little man has become a big chunk o' baby!  He's really discovered his voice, too.  If you've called my house or gotten to hang out with us lately, you can attest to the fact that my son likes to talk just about as much as I do.  He's discovered the use of his hands, and loves to hang on to his onesies when I change his diapers.  I think it's cute and almost helpful at this point, I'm sure it'll get annoying the bigger he gets!  He's also starting to teethe a little!  He doesn't actually have teeth coming in just yet, but they're definitely "on the move" and his poor little gums are itching him something fierce- so he's chewing on Sophie the Giraffe quite a bit, as well as trying to fit his entire fists in his mouth.  That's funny to watch, and hear, when he tries to talk through his hand! 

Hayden has also discovered that he vastly prefers sitting up to lying down.  It's about time for us to find a Bumbo for him so he can practice keeping his balance.  As it is, he enjoys spending his late mornings (after his second breakfast) sitting in his daddy's lap and playing Xbox.  He's shown us that he loves to watch sports on TV.  So much so that he even gets upset when commercials come on!  I don't think it has anything to do with the bright, flashing colors on the screen (tee hee).  And we're both thankful that Michael's "busy season" has come to a close!  I'll admit, it has been very difficult to be a mommy without having Daddy around...  But I think that it's going to be a fun summer for all three of us! 

Thanks for keeping up with my blog, I know I don't post nearly enough- but honestly there's so much going on, it's hard to find a free minute to compose much! 

Oh wow... it's been a little bit

So it's been awhile since I updated this blog!  Life tends to get in the way, especially with a darling little bundle of distraction.

As a last-minute decision, Hubs decided it'd be a good idea for me to take Little Man to Louisville for Easter weekend.  It took a lot of doing, but I got us both packed up and we hit the road Thursday.  Very convenient for me, my dearest buddy from my days at Alabama lives just off the interstate in Nashville and she let me stop at her place as a middle-of-the-trip pit stop.  I was able to feed Hayden, let him get out of his car seat for a little bit and stretch and regroup myself before we headed on North. 

I'd done my research like a good traveler should:  I checked the weather and it said temps in the mid-60s and 70s all weekend with rain chances every day.  I didn't expect what happened:  record rainfall and river flooding.  It was bad.  I took lots of pictures of the flooding in Mom & Daddy's neighborhood but they've disappeared off the camera...  If I find them, I'll post them.

Hayden and his cousin Maggie on Easter

All that aside, Easter was magical.  It stopped raining and the sun came out just in time for the Easter egg hunt at St. Luke's.  Maggie was SO excited- she won a chocolate cross as a prize for finding a special egg.  Something about that just screams sacril-icious.  Hayden was able to wear his adorable white bubble-type outfit and not only did he look like an angel, he played the part by sleeping through church.  He didn't make a peep!  I took him to the communion rail with me and he was blessed by Father Joe, who will be christening him this summer.  (Father Joe also performed the marriage ceremony for Hubs and I almost six years ago, and he blessed my belly when we found out I was pregnant!) 

And I'm sure you've heard me rave about how mellow my little man is... Well he really proved it on our trip- he was passed around to no fewer than 50 friends and relatives on Saturday and Easter Sunday and he was just grinning or sleeping the whole time!  He slept well those nights, too, but he was really amazing. 

I was really glad to get home before July, as we'd originally been planning.  I know so many of my friends and family were just chomping at the bit to meet Hayden.  We had some friends come over on Saturday before Easter to meet him, and he was just a sweet and smiling little angel the whole time!  I guess that's a good thing, too, because we're slightly social folks (tee hee) and we go out all the time.  I was also able to leave him with his first two babysitters!  Mom and Ginny took care of him while I went to get my hair done on Wednesday, and Thursday my friend Julie's husband Damon kept him for a little while so Julie and I could go have some girl time.   He was an angel both times :)  I'm so lucky!

We got some interesting news on Easter.  Most of you know that my parents have a nice houseboat, The Last Resort, on the Ohio River.  We've owned the boat, well, yacht technically, since 1993 and we've had many many good times on it.  Daddy was holding Hayden while he slept when he fielded the phone call from one of their neighbors at the marina.  "Bob, your boat sank!"  Um, WHAT?  Apparently, at 11:30am Easter Sunday, the boat was fine, by 2:30pm, 80% of the boat was under water with only the prow sticking up.  After raising the boat from the marina and some ongoing investigation, it looks like the hull was struck by something and a hole opened up.  The bilge pump probably shorted out and couldn't get the water out.  Luckily no one was on the boat at the time, so they're just going to take their losses and go from there.  RIP Last Resort, you will be missed.  

Time came to start planning our return trip to Alabama when I got to looking at my Twitter feed and Facebook feeds.  I follow two of my favorite weathermen from NBC 13 here in Birmingham and they were warning of the potential for a super-evil severe weather event on Tuesday and Wednesday.  Well, our plan was to leave on Tuesday, but then I got to researching the weather and, after consulting with Hubs, we decided it would be best to stay put till the following weekend.  (He was going to be out of town working, so why not extend the trip till he got home..?)  It's a good thing that we did stay put, because we all know what happened on Wednesday. 

We were very lucky here in Calera.  Tornadoes split the path to our north and south, but steered clear of us.  We didn't even lose power.  Our friends and family were marginally affected, losing power, downed trees, etc... but we all know someone who knows someone who has it much worse.  I organized a bunch of ladies on some pregnancy and post-pregnancy websites to send their unwanted baby formula and other infant-care supplies to Tuscaloosa and I also took a big bag of diapers, wipes, formula, and other baby-care stuff to be donated to the families affected.  If you are so inclined to make donations, please let me know and I'll send you the information.  These areas were hard-hit and any and all help is desperately needed.

OK- that's enough for now...

Traveling with a two-month old baby... Not as bad as I thought

Whew.  What a busy week it's been!  I decided to go on a weekend trip with sweet husband to Memphis...  He had to work Friday and Sunday, but we'd have the whole day Saturday together to explore.  Friday's trip up was going to be a grand experiment.  We'd never had Hayden in the car for longer than two hours and the trip to Memphis is four and a half hours (on a good day).  So we "tanked him up" (fed him really well) before we left and set out, praying that Little Dude would do what he always does in the car: sleep.  He did!  Once we got to Memphis, though, he was totally over being in the car-seat, so I laid him down in his stroller and we hit Beale Street after we dropped Mike off at the FedEx Forum for his Grizzlies game.  Well, we kind of hit Beale Street.  I took Hayden to the Hard Rock Cafe and we both enjoyed lunch...  He totally wolfed down his bottle and I found a way to feed him and myself at the same time.  All was right with the world.

Lucky for me I have a couple of really great friends (Brian, above left and Doug, above right) up in Memphis and Hayden and I got to have dinner with them.  I'm a big fan of good barbeque, and Memphis is known for theirs, so the boys took me to Brad's BBQ for some amazing Q.  Saturday Mike took us to Uncle Lou's, a favorite spot of his and his crew's when they go to Memphis to work.  Mike got the chicken, of course, and I tried the "Fatboy" sandwich- think grilled cheese, with ham and turkey, on steroids (see below) and tried their fried pickles, too.  Uncle Lou also makes his own kind of Cool Aid (had to change the spelling for copyright reasons), and it's SOOOO much better than the stuff we drank as kids.  When the guy brought our meals to us, he saw Hayden snoozing away in his car-seat (poor little guy).  He asked what we had ordered for him... I laughed and said a whole fried chicken. 

We left Uncle Lou's and trekked over to Graceland.  Kinda.  I wanted to go, just to say I've been.  Then I found out it's roughly the same cost to put a child through college at Yale than to take two adults to see some crap that Elvis used to own.  And I'm not even a fan of Elvis, so instead of going in, we just did a quick drive-by.  I saw the Lisa Marie, Elvis' big ol' airplane and a big line of people.  We're glad we didn't go.  It was a little too warm, anyway, and I was a bad mommy and forgot Hayden's sunscreen.

Sunday we were fortunate to get a ticket to see the Grizzlies' game against the New Orleans Hornets.  With Friday's win, the Grizzlies clinched a spot in the NBA Playoffs, so everyone was really excited.  Hayden, however, was pretty unimpressed.  He snoozed his way through the entire game.  Pyrotechnics?  No worries.  Roaring crowds?  Not a peep.  All in all, it was a great weekend. 

Sunday night we made our way home, and Hayden, again, slept the entire trip.  We did a quick unpack/repack and hit the road Monday morning to go visit Mike's parents.  My brother- and sister-in-law were down visiting as well with our nephew, Nehemiah, who was totally chomping at the bit to meet his new cousin.  I think that in a couple of years, these two cuties are going to cause some serious mayhem.  We had a small Easter egg hunt for Nehemiah, and Hayden pretended to supervise by sleeping the whole time.  We figure that next year, he'll be a little more interested. 

So I know that I've been bad at keeping this updated, but now that Hayden is two months old (whoa, y'all weren't kidding when you said time flies) and isn't quite as needy, I can take a little more time to update y'all on our adventures.

Visiting grandparents

My little man is almost seven weeks old!  His Mimi and Bob Bob (my parents) came down to visit for a long weekend to spend some good time with Hayden.  Not only has Mom been an amazing help cleaning up around the house, but she and Daddy have really gotten to bond with Hayden- kinda hard to bond with a 2-3 day old baby when you're vying for your spot to hold the baby with three to six other people, not including the baby's parents!

We were able to watch the University of Kentucky's first Final Four appearance since 1998 together.  Yes, it was a disappointing loss (one point!?), but we're proud of our boys in blue...  And speaking of boys in blue!