Fun Stuff

Devon sent me this link to find out the #1 song in America on any day of your choosing~ http://www.joshhosler.biz It's fun... I kept trying to think of more dates I could look up :)

My birthday (Feb 18, 1983) - #1 song- "Baby, Come to Me" by Patti Austin and James Ingram (If I had been born a year later, it would have been "Karma Chameleon".. haha!)
Micah's birthday (July 16, 2008)- "I Kissed a Girl" by Katy Perry (yuck. I wish he could have gotten something else :P)
Nate's birthday (December 30, 1978)- "Le Freak" by Chic. Nate's is my favorite :)

Visualize Whirrled Peas

Witness Micah trying peas for the first time~

Pre-pea

Mid-pea

Post-pea

I think we've officially found a food he doesn't like :)

Baby Day

The Alamo Drafthouse dedicates the first Tuesday showing for each movie they are playing as the "Baby Day Showing". You can take your little one with you and it is acceptable for them to make noise and babble throughout the movie. Our play group decided to give this a try and see how the babies handled it. Well.... some handled it better than others. Micah was... well.... not the best :P The movie started right around his nap time, so I was hoping I could feed him and then he would go to sleep during the movie..... yeah, not so much.

First 45 minutes~ Micah was freaked out by being in the dark. I walked with him at the back of the theater, I pushed him in his stroller and did everything in my power to keep him from completely losing it.

Second 45 minutes~ Micah does a 180 and is deliriously happy. He is standing on the back of my seat babbling at the screen and laughing hysterically.

Last 2 minutes~ Micah passes out from total exhaustion. I am able to put him into his car seat and strap him in without him waking up (this NEVER happens)

Anyhoo, I've decided that I might want to restrict future Baby Day experiences to the movies with 11 am showings and make sure that they are all as short as the one we saw yesterday. I can't imagine trying to keep him entertained through a longer movie :P

I heart my playgroup

No really... they're awesome :) Not only has it given our babies a chance to spend time with other babies their age, it has provided sanity, entertainment, and friendship to a group of young moms. We go on outings, we go to movies and lunches and we are really there for each other. I feel so blessed to have found this amazing group of women and to have the opportunity to hang out with them and their awesome kids :)

Caroline (now that she's crawling, it's really hard to get a picture of her sitting still!)

Sweet Aubrey

Micah and Carter- They kept playing with the same toys together that day and even reached out to hold each other's hands.

Kaitlyn :)

Here is the group (you can see Cade behind Carter). Sean and Abby were out that day, so I'll have to pull out the camera the next time they come :)

Happy Birthday Elena Joy!

This is one day late, but hey... I don't blog on Sunday :) Elena (my niece) turned 3 years old yesterday! It is so crazy to me that she is 3 now since I remember seeing her just 10 minutes after she was born and she was so little! At the same time, I hardly remember life before she joined our family since she is so much a part of it now :) Anyways, as I am now feeling sufficiently old, I will just say Happy Birthday Laney!! Uncle Nate, Aunt Abby and Cousin Micah love you!!

Baby Talk

Ok, it's official... I am declaring Micah's first word and it is ........ mama. HA! He started making the mamamamama sound awhile ago but I didn't want to count that as his first word since he was just repeating consonant sounds. Well, yesterday morning I got him out of his crib and began nursing him. He pulled off, looked at me and said "mama". I gave him a strange look and thought "Well, that was random" and told him to get back to eating. He pulled off again 30 seconds later and looked at me and said "mama". Hmmm, ok. We then repeated this little dance about 8-9 more times before I just started laughing. I guess I have to make it his official first word :)

With it's official status as first word officially bestowed, mama made another appearance this morning as well. He pulled off and said it another 5 times or so this morning... crazy

T-43 days and counting until I am at the Houston Rodeo!! WOO HOO!! This is my little plug for the rodeo, in case you are a Houstonian (native or adopted) who as never experienced the joy of the rodeo. You must go.... seriously.... buy your tickets now.... you will not regret it. In order to sway you, I have devised a top ten list of reasons why the rodeo is the best entertainment value in Houston~

10. The shops... anything you can imagine handmade or otherwise and these merchants fight for their spots at the rodeo, so you know it's good stuff :)

9. World Class concert performers.

8. The opportunity for lovely pics like the one below :)

7. The scene inside the convention center. Pony rides for the kids, exhibition riding, petting zoo, watching baby chicks hatch, meeting newborn cows, sheep and pigs..

6. The food. Pappasitos, Pappas BBQ, Marble Slab, etc, etc, etc... sooooo good :)

5. The Tilt-a-whirl. Woo Hoo, I'm not preggo this year so I am totally going for a ride!!

4. Pig Races. No explanation needed

3. Mutton Bustin. 3-6 yr old children are put onto the backs of sheep in a mini arena and released from bull riding gates and the child that can hold onto their galloping sheep the longest, wins.

2. The Calf Scramble. 30 local FFA kids come out each night and are released into Reliant Stadium with the goal of capturing a calf, tying a rope around it and dragging it back to the middle of the arena. Sounds easy, right? Hardly. Every year I go, watching these poor kids run around an entire arena while holding a cow by it's tail makes me laugh so hard I cry.. trust me, it's funny. (this is part of the actual rodeo)

1. The rodeo. Seriously. Bull riding, barrel racing, this is exciting stuff ya'll!!

Zoo Day

On Monday, Micah and I went to the zoo with our play group for one of their annual free admission days..... the zoo was great, the prolific number of totally oblivious guests was not :P We are all excited about going back on a dead day and just forking over 8 bucks :) Still, we had a good time and I even got a few pics (Kristen and Aubrey were with us, but Aubrey slept the entire time so they didn't make it into any pics :P) ~


Me and Micah with Kelli and Caroline~

I love this one :) Devon is snapping to get Abby to look at the camera, and Lillie is blinking while Sean looks at who knows what~

Way to go Nate!!

Yesterday, Nate ran his very first half marathon and he kicked butt!! His goal was to finish under 2 hours, but he had no idea if he'd be able to do it. Well.... he finished in 1 hour and 52 minutes!! He looked really strong too when we saw him at mile 7 and mile 10. Also on my hero list is my Dad who whipped the marathon into shape with a time of 3 hours and 42 minutes. We saw him at mile 20 (we missed him at mile 7... it was WAY too crowded :P) and he was going strong and kicking the butts of many youngsters who could only watch him run away in defeat :) Way to go Boys!!

6 Months!!!

This one freaks me out, not gonna lie... Micah is 6 months old today!! He is getting so old! New developments include him saying "mamamama" among other sounds, he is eating cereal and veggies (he LOVES veggies so far), he can sit up on his own now, he can stand up on his own while holding on to something (although he is admittedly not the best at it yet :P), and he is FINALLY sleeping well :) He will grab my hands on command "Micah, grab my hands"..and in they go :) I can't believe he is halfway to his first birthday.... crazy!!

Skinny Mini

Micah is tiny... officially. The doctor told me so. He is very very small... well, weight wise at least. More on the specifics tomorrow. For now though, I have to start feeding him copious amounts of solids and bump up his formula intake. The doctor says that this doesn't mean the end of breast feeding, but I am skeptical. I just don't think he is going to have room in his tummy for breast milk after everything else he is supposed to be taking in. This makes me surprisingly sad. I mean, I knew I would wean him eventually, but I thought I had another 6 months or so. Well, I'm going to do whatever I have to do to make sure that he is still nursing. I will stuff him with solids, I'll offer him formula, but by golly he's gonna nurse too :P

2 cold 2 blog. Apparently when he "fixed" my heater yesterday, it was only fixed for an hour or so..... hence the 61 degrees my downstairs is right now :P 61 degrees is just too cold to have Micah down there. Unfortunately, he inherited my poor circulation and even in the warmer upstairs, his hands and (sock covered) feet are little extremity-sickles. Anyhoo, my upstairs exile continues and my warm feelings for the heater repairman are dwindling :P

Broken Break Down

Well, how many of you out there are familiar with the red plate idea? This is a tradition that many people have of having a special red plate that is used by anybody in the family who is having a special day. If it's your birthday, you eat off the red plate; if you ace algebra, you eat off the red plate; if you get a promotion, the plate. Anyhoo, I really liked this idea, but didn't want to pay for the official red plate and also thought that I'd prefer something with a little more of a personal twist.

I decided to make our "red plate" at Mad Potter on our anniversary. I spent 3 hours carefully painting it, paying attention to every detail. I was so excited to get it back and see how it turned out. Then... I jinxed myself. As I was handing it over, I said to Nate "It better not break in the kiln!" Um, yeah... well you can guess what happened :P It busted into two halves. We went to pick it up, and there it was in all it's broken glory. I about cried. I get to go back for free and redo it, of course, but that begs the question of when on earth am I going to find the time to do that?! I can't exactly bring Micah unless I want it to take 6 hours next time. Hmmmmm... quandary. Now, on the upside, I am already examining the sad pieces to decide what I want to do differently next time.... maybe this will just be a case of practice makes (somewhat) perfect :)

Hot Cold

This post title refers to the weather..... in my house. So, backtracking a little bit... this summer when I was uber pregnant and walking laps around the inside of my house to try to make Micah come out, I had some air conditioning issues. Sometimes I would set the temperature lower because I was hot (hello, fat and exercising is a bad combo for temperature control :P) and the thermostat would decide that it simply did not want to tell the ac to turn on. It would do this until Nate got home and then it would innocently begin working again so that I looked even more convincingly like the crazy pregnant lady that I was trying to avoid becoming.

Well..... it's baaaaaack. Our downstairs heater refuses to turn on! I don't know if the thermostat is misbehaving again, or if something is wrong with that unit, but I woke up to a house that was a brisk 63 degrees and refuses to heat up. As a result, Micah and I are camping out upstairs today where the thermostat has no qualms about keeping me in 72 degree heaven. As I walk up and down the stairs to fetch toys, food and various other items, I get halfway down and feel the cold overtake me. On my way back, I sprint to the middle of the stairwell so that I can feel the delicious warmth gently slap me across the face... mmmmm, warm :) Anyways, I'm hoping this is a tempermental thing and the munchkin and I can relocate downstairs shortly.... I'm not sitting in 63 degrees all day... I'm not built for that :P

Sinking to new lows

In the past, when I've said that Micah didn't sleep, I've meant that he was up every 2 hours throughout the night. Well, I'm telling you that Micah didn't sleep last night and by that I mean that he DIDN'T sleep. He never slept last night for anything longer than 10 minutes. It got so bad that we knew he was fed, changed and taken care of so we set an alarm for a next reasonable feeding time (at that point only 1.25 hours away) and simply turned off the monitor and just got up to the alarm.

When it sounded at 2, he was still faithfully crying at the top of his lungs so I fed him and we tried to put him back down and were again unsuccessful. We did the alarm tactic again, this time getting two hours of sleep. As far as we know (and his wet shirt would imply) he never went to sleep in that time, nor did he stop crying. This is why I laugh when people tell me to let him cry himself to sleep..... he has never once accomplished that and we have let it go well over an hour and a half many times.

Anyways, he is up for good now and is as happy and contented as if he had gotten 12 hours last night. Normally in the morning I enjoy his smiles and laughing, but I have to admit that when he turned on the charm at 5 am this morning without so much of a wink of sleep I kinda wanted to smack him :P

Joy Papers

Some of you might have noticed the Joy Papers link on the side of my blog. I figured I should mention it at some time and now, apparently, is the time :) I started making paper frames for my friends in college and found that I loved the affordability and range of options available to me. I recently resurrected the frames to use as baby gifts for my many pregnant friends. On a whim, I posted them for sale on the handmade site Etsy, which is what the link on the right is connected to.

I posted a few below for your viewing pleasure :) The last one is my most recent and I have a serious crush on it. No really, I think I am going to design Micah's entire "big boy" room around this frame... I already have a mess load of ideas, so I am pretty pumped :)

Boy Wonder

Seriously, have you ever seen such an accomplished sitter? ;-) Micah started sitting up on his own on Monday and has only gotten better since! I can't leave him sitting yet as he can still topple over, but I am seeing a definite light at the end of my days of carrying him all over the house with me. Way to go, Bubs!!

Here is Micah with his new favorite toy... thanks Dre!

Lifelong Friends

Nate and I were in Dallas this weekend for Nick and Meredith's wedding (so fun :) and we were able to see some people that I grew up with! It was so much fun to introduce them to Micah, even though it seemed to freak everyone out that I was a mom :)

Micah with Karen Felts, one of my best friend's mom~

Micah with Rachel Felts :)

Micah posing with Jean and Alicia who were very sweet to let me take their picture sans makeup :)

Consumer Alert

I found out yesterday about a law that has very recently been passed in Congress. It is known as the Consumer Products Safety Improvement Act and it is stupid :P This new law falls into the category of the Governement trying to protect us too much. In it's simplest form, it states that you will no longer be able to place used children's clothes or toys into the "stream of commerce" unless you can prove that they've been tested for lead and pthalates after February 10th of this year. As I and others understand it, that means no selling items without such proof on ebay, Craigslist, yard sales, and church/organization consignment sales.

Of course, that means no buying kids' clothes and toys without certification from these sources either. This act could easily triple the amount that many families pay to clothe their kid until there are enough second-hand items manufactured after Feb. 10 to replenish the second-hand market (and even then it's likely that prices at thrift stores, etc. will be higher due to the added cost of testing them). It will absolutely eliminate the notion of recouping any of the cost of older items through reselling.

In a crumbling economy, they have passed a law that will put many consignment owners and small business children's clothing stores (that can't afford the testing) out of business. It will mean that you can no longer donate toys or children's clothing to charities and people who are struggling will have to find a way to buy new, or not at all. The law is absolutely retroactive and covers everything ever manufactured.

Words cannot express how stupid, unfortunate and wasteful this law is. Think of all of the clothing that is almost brand new that will be thrown away simply because there is nowhere for it to be passed on. Not only this, most clothing has NO potential to even have lead and pthalates in it! The exceptions are clothing items with charms or embellishments sewn on that may contain lead. I haven't figured out how exactly to protest this yet, but I figure that blogging is a good first step. I am likely going to contact my representative and raise a stink, and if this issue matters to you, then I suggest you do the same. Oh and all you peeps in Washington? Stop for a second to think about the effects of your actions before you pass laws that will be detrimental to so many. Oh, and stop trying to overprotect us... it's annoying.


*** Newly Added- If you are interested in contacting your representative, use this link https://writerep.house.gov/writerep/welcome.shtml and it will tell you who your rep is and let you email them. Also, for Texas our Senators are Kay Bailey Hutchison (http://hutchison.senate.gov/contact.cfm) and John Cornyn (http://cornyn.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Contact.ContactForm). I typed what I wanted to say then just copied and pasted it into each contact form. Let's flood their inboxes! If you have a blog, pass it on!