Monday, January 28, 2008

The big 2-7!

Yes, I am 27 years old. I still feel like a kid though! I don't know how long it will take before I actually feel like an adult. It doesn't help that I actually still do LOOK like a kid. I know there are many old ladies who pity the poor "teenage" mother they see walking down the street with her baby. ;) Oh well, maybe my young looks will pay off at some point...

Anyway, I had a great week. As usual Stephen went all out for me. I know he feels sorry for me that I have no family to celebrate these kinds of occasions with, so he tends to try to compensate for that fact. On Tuesday night we had pork tenderloin and mashed potatoes (one of my favorite meals) and a 3 layer German Chocolate cake with cream cheese icing, which my sweet husband made FROM SCRATCH all by himself! I was very proud of him. Once the baby was in bed he sang happy birthday to me, I blew out my candles, and opened my presents. It was a great day. Then on Saturday night a friend took Hope so that Stephen and I could go out all by ourselves! We went to the Cheesecake Factory and then did a little shopping. It really was a great week. My sister and brother-in-law are coming in town this weekend for a little belated celebration and then Stephen's parents and Collin and Janelle are coming next weekend for Stephen's birthday. The celebrations just keep going and going! We're so excited! I guess that's about it for now. I will post pics soon. Love you all!

Wednesday, January 9, 2008

More Christmas pics





















Hope's first Christmas

On the way to Grandma's

Hope's first Christmas was a great one. She did well, and enjoyed meeting everyone, spending time with her relatives, and of course, eating wrapping paper! Stephen and I had fun too. It was a much needed break after all of the stuff we had to do prior to Christmas. We went to visit my mom first and stayed with her through Christmas morning. Then we went into San Antonio and celebrated w/Stephen's parents and then my dad and Debbie and the kids. We stayed in San Antonio for about a week and then came back up to Howe for a few days, went to church on Sunday and then got ready to go to Houston for Stephen's music conference. We left early Monday morning and got into Houston at about 12:30, only to find out that his conference had been cancelled at the last minute! We were SO upset, but glad to see Krissy and Gary for a night. We spent a little time with them and then headed back to Howe on Tuesday. We are now trying to settle back in. Hope's sleeping schedule is REALLY screwed up because our schedule has been so iffy, so we are having major issues right now. She seems to think that it's time to wake up at 3:00 in the morning every night now and won't go back to sleep for 2 hours plus. Last night we did a little bit of cry-it-out and she eventually went back to sleep at about 5:30. Naps aren't much better either. We need to try to get her re-trained, but I'm afraid it's going to take lots of time and patience on my part (which I don't have much of at 3:00 in the morning). Anyway, we did have a good time and were glad to see everyone. Some pics are posted below. I will hopefully post more later.

Eating her stuffed toy

Eating the wrapping paper

Opening giftsMore gifts...

Hope is half a year old!


Hope turned 6 months old on December 18th (She's actually almost 7 months old now since I took so long to write this). We had a good visit with the pedi. As of her 6 month b-day, she weighed 17.7 and was in the 80th percentile for her weight. At her 4 month she was in the 90th, so we think her weight gain is starting to slow down a bit. The dr. seemed very pleased with her development and said she looked good. She did get 3 shots and screamed her head off as usual. We thought we would be out of the clear since her 4 month shots went really well, but around 7:00 that night she starting screaming and wouldn't stop for 2 hours. She also developed a fever. So we just pumped her full of tylenol throughout the night to keep the fever down and to help relieve her pain and put her to bed. It was about the worst I've ever seen her and it really scared me. We thought we needed to take her to the hospital for awhile there. The next few days were touch and go. Her legs (where she was poked) were VERY sensitive and she would scream if you touched them. Her fever eventually went down and she is back to normal, thank the Lord.


Hope is now sitting up quite well. I do have to sit with her still because she hasn't yet learned to catch herself when she falls over. But the falls are getting fewer and farther between. That is pretty much the only thing she has mastered since my last post. She doesn't seem to be interested in crawling yet-every time I put her on her tummy, she just rolls right over. She has always HATED to be on her tummy and now she can do something about it herself besides scream. She still loves to stand, and can stand holding onto the couch or something else. She has also started to put consonants together such as ba-ba, la-la, da-da, ma-ma. She talks ALL the time! She has become such a happy, easy-going baby and we enjoy every single day with her. We are so amazed at how fast she is growing and changing and thank the Lord every day for our little miracle.