Tile

The kitchen is done! For our Christmas present we got a new tile backsplash. It is soooo amazing and I love it. It adds so much more to the kitchen and it doesn't look plain anymore it stands out and just looks amazing! The guy I hired did such a great job. He had never done tile that was like putting a jigsaw puzzle together like this was. It is in such a random order that trying to fit everything together was very tedious. I am very pleased with the final product and hope that Matt likes it too! Thanks babe!

Thanksgiving 2011

I am finally getting around to posting about my Thanksgiving! We had a great time. Auntie Kathrine and her husband came to visit us for the holiday. We had a fun time just hanging around, watching movies and playing Monopoly. I won 2 games out of 5 and Kat won the rest! She is just soooooo good at the game! She taught me how to win and it is great when I actually beat her. Poor Devon didn't stand a chance playing against us! I got a cake to celebrate our 30th birthdays, her birthday is in Oct and mine is in Dec. I didn't get a pix of the cake but it will be what I get for Mason's first birthday because it is soooo yummy! Chocolate cake with butter cream filling and a chocolate fudge frosting! YUMMO!!!

I got to cook! I haven't been able to cook some of the food I really like to make because it just makes too many servings, and I don't like the left overs for those particular dinners. They just aren't as good the next day. I also did the Thanksgiving day spread and boy it turned out yummy! The turkey was one of the most tender turkeys I have ever had. I did a knock off of Anne Burrell from Food Network with doing a herb butter rubbed turkey. I used sage and fresh rosemary from my own plant and covered the turkey with the herbs mixed into the butter. Also I used the yucky bag of gizzards and the neck in the base of the pan to help with the gravy and it made the gravy super yummy! Kat had to handle the gizzard and neck stuff for me cause I just couldn't do it. Anyhew we had a very low key Thanksgiving and I was very thankful that they were here with me so that I didn't have to do the holiday alone!

The day they left I transformed my home from a fall foliage look to CHRISTMAS! We only get one month to celebrate Christmas so I like to deck out my house just a bit. It is not as much as what my parents usually do with their Christmas village but I still have half a closet shelf filled with just Christmas stuff.

I am on day 2 of super strict mommy with the crib. I am still trying to get Mason used to the crib so that the transition to night sleeping in it won't be so scary for him. Today's put down went a lot better. I still had to do some rocking and light nursing to get him conked out but I made sure he was super tired before I put him in there which meant he was more cranky. Yesterday left me with crying from both him and me and I realized how hard it was to hear him be mad and upset. We are 10 minutes in to him sleeping now and hopefully it continues for the next 1.5 hours, knock on wood.

The grout is going in as I type right now for my Christmas present to myself. I am getting a tile backsplash in my kitchen and I love it! I will post pix when it is done but it looks so AMAZING and it adds sparkle and bling to my kitchen!

Matt is still hanging in there. He is still in Kuwait and is being kept super busy. Please keep him in your prayers for his safety. It is a safer place but I still worry about him.

I am adding some pix from Thanksgiving and Mason's first pictures in front of our Christmas Tree! I love this kid so much! He always give me something to laugh about when I see his "out takes" which I have posted below!

~Auntie Kathrine loving on Mace~

 ~Thanksgiving table scape, as Sandra Lee calls it~

 ~The spread~

 ~Christmas Tree out takes. Archer wanted part of the action. Mason thinking, "Camera Hog"~

Learning Curve

I need help moms!

Mason is 4.5 months old, well close enough, but I am starting to teach him how to be comfortable in his crib so that at 6 months I can hopefully wean him from my bed to his own bed at night. I have been trying to put Mace in his crib for 1 nap a day for the past few weeks, but I haven't been consistent with it. Problem number 1. But there are times that he just wakes up only after 1 hour and screams his scared to death scream. How do I make him less scared? Also how do I put him to nap without having to nurse him to sleep first. That is a bad habit to get into, I know, but I don't know how to knock him out. Today was the first time I didn't have to nurse him to sleep first but he fell asleep in his car seat while I was talking to a friend outside helping me with the Christmas lights. I just transfered him from the car seat and put him in the crib, he did one wail then was out. I have know moms just put their babies in the crib and the baby will fall asleep within a few minutes sometimes with crying sometimes with out. How do I do that??? For night, when he hits 5 months old I was going to have him sleep in his pack and play at night, which is still in my room, to get used to not sleeping with me next to him. I am slowing teaching him or should I just do things like a band-aid and just do it in one fell swoop?

Please moms any help you can give would be great. I really am trying to slowly get him used to his crib because daddy said "NO BABIES IN BED!" And I don't feel comfortable with him in my bed once he start crawling, because I don't want him to crawl right out. THANKS!!!

Turkey Take Over!

I finished a little project, that I totally copied my mom with by the way, but I made 30 turkeys on Sunday. Not real turkeys silly, but yummier turkeys. I made them for the ladies I visit teach and their fams. It was a real fun project that is super easy! Just take oreos, 2 per turkey, a Reeses peanut butter cup, candy corn, whopper, butterscotch chip, melted butterscotch frosting and red frosting. And assemble. I just made a little assembly line which made it very easy! I also used ziploc bags for the frosting and the melted butterscotch for the feet. I love them and the people that have gotten them love them and it would be a fun project with your kiddos! Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

~I love the face of these two, "Um, what is gonna happen now?"~

4 months

Mason is 4 months old today! CRAZINESS!!! He is weighing at a whopping 16 pounds 11 ounces (75-90th %) and he is 24 inches tall (25%). I am so happy how healthy he is and how strong he is. This little guy loves to stand and do squats all day long. He is already working out his leg muscles so that when he is big he can leg press as much as his momma! (just shy of 400 lbs by the way)

He loves to smile and giggle and is really starting to do the belly laughs. He always gets the hiccups though when he giggles and it is really cute for him to do a giggle then be interrupted by a hiccup.

He loves to do tummy time, still in the middle of the night when he should be going to bed. He gets a kick out of seeing me lay next to him and his head is higher than mine. The doc is super excited by his development and still thinks that he will be mobile very soon. SCARY! I am starting to think about how to baby proof my home and what needs to be done.

He loves to talk to Daddy on the computer. He loves to get nice and close to the camera so Daddy gets a view of his forehead or just a super close up of his face. He loves to look at the computer and the TV and sadly my cell phone when I am using them! He is already such a technology baby. He wants to hold my cell phone and when I put it away he keeps looking for it to play with it. I think it has something to do with the red case more than the phone itself.

He loves to coo and gurgle his spit and just talk to me. He now "talks" with me when he puts his head down for bed, after the tummy time, but he will coo and then wait for me to respond then coo then wait. It is the cutest thing!

He is very strict about his bed time and nap times. He is out cold by 9 am for his first nap, then by 1 pm for his afternoon nap and 5:30ish for his late afternoon nap. And if I am not on my way up to bed with him by 7:30 for reading he basically loses it. He knows his nighttime routine and loves it and is always asleep by 8:30. Such a smart little guy. I could go on and on about how wonderful he is and how much he has changed my life and how much I love him. I just wish that Matt was home to get to know him in person and see him everyday. Almost 7 months left for Matt to come home and it will be here before I know it.

I thought it would be fun to post the "silly" pix of Mason from his photo shoot. Enjoy!

~Cue music: I'm too sexy for my hair~ 

 ~I call this the "Mr. Collins" from the 6 hour long A&E version of Pride and Prejudice. When he is waving to his wife, Charlotte, just to show Elizabeth that they are very much in love. Charlotte just kind of blows him off. It kind of is a freaky look~

 ~You want me to do WHAT?!?~

~"HeHeHe! I am finally on this quilt!" After months of looking at it hanging on the wall Mace was finally allowed to lay on it! I think he is having way too much fun!~

200

This is my 200th post ever! In 4 years 200 posts is pretty good, for a person that doesn't journal. I have always told Matt that this was my electronic journal. I feel like there should be a cake, but alas cake would not help shrink my hips back down.

My new word that I hate is: frustration. I am tired of being frustrated with myself and the lack of movement my body has made since I had Mace. When I think about the lack of weight loss I get so frustrated and upset then all I want to do is emotional eat. Which is not a good habit to get in to. My goal is to stop being frustrated and do something about it. I can't go back in the past and change how much weight I gained, and really I didn't do that bad but basically everything I lost prior to Mace I got back and it is stuck. So I am going to move everyday. I am already eating better and cut sugar out and eating more whole foods and healthier snacks. My goal is to do some exercise everyday, and housework doesn't count. That means some sort of workout dvd or outside and walk. That is my goal to get my butt moving to get it moving out of here! I will get back to how I was and will be even hotter because I am a mom and I am amazing! Time to get moving!

On a different note...

A couple of weeks ago Mace had his first professional photo session! He did really, really well. We were booked with an hour slot and we were done in 40 minutes because the guy already hit his max of pix to take. Mace did really well and we got some really great pix. Weirdly the favs among everyone are the ones including me. I did my hair and makeup just in case but I didn't think that they would turn out as good as they did. We did get some Christmas ones too, but I am going to save posting some of those until closer to Christmas and after the cards are sent out so you are surprised when you get it! So without further adieu...

~Grandma's Fav~

 ~Mason loves looking at Grandma's quilt!~

Pix Overload

I just spent some time updating my iPhoto app on my Mac. I have taken over 600 pix of my cute little kid since he was born. I love having so many pix of him available to look at. But I do have a lot of pix of the same thing trying to get that perfect pose. I don't want to delete any of them because they are so good, mind you I did delete photos that were blurred or didn't look right, so technically I have taken way more than 600 pix. At some point I will transfer them to another hard drive but Matt took them with him to Iraq so I will just have to wait until Matt gets home!

Things are going so well here. Mace is sleeping 8 hours solid at night and takes two 1 hour naps and one long 2.5 hour long nap during the day. And as you can see from the following pix he is a very happy boy, most of the time! Enjoy some random pix of my cute little kid. I will have more info on how Mace is doing later this week in his 4 month old post. Can you believe it, that he is going to be 4 months this week! He is just getting so big!

~Trying out his highchair for the first time! He loves it!~

~Cute little big feet~

~This one is for you Grandma!~

~Tummy Time, what movie am I watching, can you tell in the next few pix?~