First Cold of the Winter

A week ago Saturday: spent the evening playing (see above pictures) with Grandmama, Grandad, and Great Grandmama while Mom and Dad went out to dinner.

Saturday (today): awake and crying on and off all night for the past three nights, up for the day at 5:20 am, drank five large bottles of milk and one meal from Mom, ate two large pears, took two naps, sneezed numerous times, shed many tears over Mom wiping a very sore nose, experienced short-lived happiness after rejuvinating meals and naps, went from wide awake to sound asleep within seconds at bedtime

As you can tell above, today was not a normal day for John Harrison. He has had a cold for about a week and has been feeling pretty under the weather for about the past three days. I am hoping that John Harrison will start getting better soon! I am thankful, though, because this is really the first time John Harrison has been sick for more than a day or two since he was really sick last summer. We have been really careful to wash our hands and his and are mindful of keeping John Harrison away from other sick people and kids and out of many crowded locations---I guess most of our efforts have paid off.....but, germs have a way of spreading even when you are cautious.

Hopefully, at least, he'll be well in time for his one year birthday next weekend! Even though John Harrison has been much, much sicker, it is still hard seeing my baby sick. I really hope (for John Harrison's sake and ours!) that our sweet boy sleeps better tonight than he has the past few nights.

My parents came over for dinner tonight, which was a lot of fun. My moma commented tonight how hard it would be to take John Harrison to a photography studio since our little boy rarely stops moving and is always reaching out to grab everything around him......I am very thankful that she is a such a great photographer who "sets up shop" whenever she is around John Harrison. It is fun to see my moma chasing John Harrison around trying to get him to look at the camera. As you can see in the pictures above, John Harrison is getting better and better at posing for the camera. John Harrison is wearing his "bad hair day" shirt in the pictures above. David and I were at Gymboree a few weekends ago and found the shirt for about $3 and couldn't miss out on a bargain and a laugh. We also found a great Hawaiian print shirt for around $4 that will be perfect for our little guy when we go on vacation this summer.

Keep posted for John Harrison's first year photo recap coming soon!

Spring is in sight!

I'm so happy that I'm wearing Dad's old outfit that I'm sticking my tongue out!

spinach face :)look at those sweet blue eyes

wearing new pjs from Aunt Lisa

Today was a reminder that springtime is not too far away. The temperature got up to around 60 today and so I decided to take John Harrison outside to play while I took a break from working. John Harrison isn't used to meeting any resistance when he walks so I think he was a bit intrigued when he tried to walk through the thick bermuda grass. He tried to eat grass, leaves, the gutter, gravel, and even the patio furniture:). I am really looking forward to warmer weather so we can go to the park and zoo and spend more time outside.

Our sweet boy will be ONE in two weeks. Today there were some more reminders that he is growing up. For instance, instead of trying to eat the book, he paid attention while I was reading a book to him. He also felt the animals' "fur" in the farm animals book were reading.

My dad and David's mom have each continued to babysit John Harrison several days each week while David and I work. I am so excited about being able to spend more time with John Harrison in the near future. John Harrison is at such a fun age and I hate to miss a moment.

Our precious Valentine

giving a "tisssss" to Dad

Bookshelves are only for holding books until the books can be thrown onto the floor....

John Harrison has progressed pretty quickly with walking since he stook his first step on January 5th. He is walking all over the place and has been doing so for about a week and a half. He can walk across a room and take 20-30 steps in a row. He still crawls some seems to prefer walking to crawling. John Harrison loves waving his arms up and down when he is excited :). He also will sometimes give kisses (he occassionally says "tissss" before he gives a kiss). He is very much a boy and enjoys knocking down block towers that David and I build. John Harrison is within two weeks of being weaned!! We introduced cow's milk about two weeks ago and he has been doing really well with it.....so I am also eating dairy products again. I think his food and protein sensitivities are finally starting to settle down--finally!!

After doing some research, we decided to give John Harrison hormone free non-homogonized whole milk from a dairy about 1 1/2 hours away that raises grassfed cows.....the only catch is that the milk is only sold at one chain of produce stores in town and the closest store is 30 minutes away. We are able to get fresh produce in the same trip, though.

John Harrison nurses when he wakes up in the morning and right before he goes to bed and usually takes two bottles during the day (he sleeps from around 8:30 pm till 5-6 am). The fact that he is only nursing twice a day is a HUGE blessing and success considering that only a few weeks ago, if John Harrison was with me during the day, he would nurse at least 6-8 times in a 24 hours period. He has started to feed himself pieces of fruit and vegetables, but we still puree his meat. I am so, so excited about the progress. I feel like my baby has become a toddler over the past month.

My moma took these pictures last Saturday---she and Dad watched John Harrison while David and I went out to dinner for Valentine's Day. This was the first time David and I have done anything fun together in months and months and months!!! I decided to risk it and ate a steak, salad, and veggies without knowing the ingredients. John Harrison has seemed to have done fine with what I ate.

David and I have both been working quite a bit this month but nothing like the hours we put in last month. The next few months will be busy, but hopefully, life will continue on the trend of settling down so we can become more involved serving with our local church, spending time together, and spending time with our precious son.

Walking progress update

My parents came over to babysit John Harrison yesterday so I could work. Yes, work on a Saturday . . . I wasn't too thrilled either, but I am working against some deadlines and needed to have a productive day.

I had grand plans of sleeping in this morning (church doesn't start till 10). John Harrison woke up around 5:20am. I brought him back to bed and we both slept till about 6:30 (on and off)...then, he got restless, but I was able to coax him to sleep on and off till 7:15. I don't really know why I try so hard to remain in bed when I know I'm not getting quality sleep; there is just something inviting about a warm bed and uninviting about getting up when you are still really tired. Maybe I'll take a nap this afternoon while David watches the NFL playoffs---what a grand idea:).

Since John Harrison was our first and I have never spent all that much time around young babies, I had the misconception about babies that my baby would learn to crawl over a period of a few days. I had no idea that he would learn to crawl over a period of months. Well, going into walking, I knew that it would be a gradual process. John Harrison took his first step on January 5th but really didn't make too much progress for about a week and a half---he did take a few steps every now and then, but nothing too notable. On Friday, his walking really started to progress and he was taking steps more often and taking up to six at a time. It is so fun to see him gain more confidence. My moma took these pictures yesterday....enjoy.

Christmas--first round of pictures

Christmas Day

crawling with tongue hanging out of mouth---something important must be going on!

James opening a time capsule from early elementary school (first or second grade, I think)

exploring N'Sync CD (see below for explanation)

Matt with autographed "Troy Aikman" picture (again, see below for explanation)

the best way to enjoy N'Sync---chewing on the cd cover

squirming in Great Grandmama's arms (John Harrison's common response to being held---he likes moving and dislikes being restrained!)

enjoying a last few fun hours with Aunt Caroline in town

Having fun with wrapping paper

Goodbye Aunt Caroline and Uncle James--we will miss you and hope to visit soon!

I feel like a horrible blogger for not posting anything for nearly one month. Here are some pictures my moma took on Christmas Eve and Christmas morning. I haven't uploaded pictures on my camera from Christmas Day with David's family, but hopefully will do that soon. Christmas was a lot of fun. We had Christmas dinner and opened gifts with my family on Christmas Eve. It was fun having everyone in town for John Harrison's first Christmas! The picture above shows John Harrison opening a gift from his Grandparents. He kept crawling back and forth over the top of the box and then tried to "eat" the wrapping paper. He didn't quite grasp what was going on, but he found great amusement in the wrapping paper and tissue paper.

Christmas Eve had some definite highlights. You may recall last year me describing about the gift that kept on giving (Little Boy Lost DVD). Well, this year, we decided to regift even more items. My sister received a used N'Sync cd that my friend gave me in high school. My brother-in-law Matt received a used Veggie Tales cd that was at least 13 years old.....vintage Veggie Tales practically! My brother received a $1 fishing DVD featuring the dynamic master fisherman "Dan Hernandez" that I picked up from Wal-mart several years ago; it didn't matter to me that I had already gifted that DVD to James in years past---or that he had regifted it to me ---it was time to return it to its rightful owner---in his free time James is a fisherman after all! My sister Margaret gifted us a copy of the infamous Little Boy Lost DVD that we had gifted to someone (not sure whom......we snagged so many copies of that thriller last year for $1 or less on half.com and gave them to so many ungreatful recipients). Right after Margaret gifted us Little Boy Lost, David started going off on how we were so over that tradition and how it just wasn't appropriate. Then, we handed a package to Caroline---what gift lay within---but Little Boy Lost DVD. The "giftus maximum" as David dubbed it was something I came across at my parents' house this past fall. Background--my brother was a huge Troy Aikman fan many years ago and James sent off for an autographed picture of his football hero. Of course, the autograph was one that had been copied and was in no way original--but, sometime after the picture came in the mail, my sister Margaret took a sharpie and copied over the fautograph (my term for fake autograph) --and voila---the picture look like it was genuinely signed by Troy himself. Well, after I came across the Aikman autographed picture, I knew that it would be a great addition to our Christmas celebration. David decided that my brother-in-law, Matt, should receive the "giftus maximus." We even framed the photo of Troy to make it look like an official gift. When Matt opened the gift, James looked over and shouted, "Hey, that's mine!" "I haven't seen that in years!" James did see the humor and retrieved the picture from Matt and actually regifted the picture to Caroline's Dad the next day. Ahh, the neverending joy of gifts that keep on giving. If you're wondering, yes, we did exchange serious good gifts in addition to the awful ones that no one would ever want. Sadly for us, but happy for them--James and Caroline moved to Santa Monica, CA a few weeks ago so that James could take a job out there. We will miss them tremendously---but are excited to have a fun place to visit.

Holiday meals are hard for me considering I can't eat too much in the way of normal food. My dad grilled some delicious filets for me with enough left over to have on Christmas Day, as well---thanks Dad!! On Christmas Eve I had okra, filet, rice, and butternut squash and the same on Christmas Day minus the butternut squash. Although I didn't have any desserts on Christmas, I have since come up with a recipe to make apple pie with a rice flour crust and use apples, honey, and rice flour for the filling---it is actually really good---probably the best thing I can eat! I actually cut out oatmeal from my diet back in the middle of December, but have added a few things back including green beans and a few other vegetables....no major additions, though. I tried adding wheat back into my diet back in late November and the results were disastrous---very fussy baby for over a week. That made me very scared of adding much else back.

Anyways.....enough on the food subject. Back to Christmas---we went over to my parents' house on Christmas morning and then spent a lot of the day with David's family. We enjoyed the time together, but missed David's Grammy whose flight was delayed due to snow (she did arrive the next day, though). We spent the evening with David's Grandpa and uncle. David's Grandmother (his Dad's mother) passed away on December 22nd----we will miss Grandmother, but are so excited that she is with the Lord and no longer suffering. I think back to this time last year and every time we went to visit David's grandparents, Grandmother would get so excited to see and feel how my belly had grown and feel John Harrison kick and move around. She so wanted to live to see her great grandson born!

In addition to the busyness with Christmas and surrounding David's Grandmother passing away, we have been swamped with work recently (in a good way!). David and I have both put in long, long days 6+ days per week for about the past 2 months (explains the lack of blogging). Hopefully, things will settle down in the next few months. John Harrison is growing up so quickly. He took his first step on January 5th, one day before his 10 month birthday. He takes a few steps every now and then but still is a little ways from reallly walking independently. He is cutting his eighth tooth right now! He pretty much only stops moving when he is sleeping....even then he tosses and turns some. He is getting more and more interactive with us and it is so fun to see him understand more and more. What a sweet, BUSY 10 month old boy God has blessed us with!!

Growing up!

hangin out with Grandpa the Saturday after Thanksgiving

having fun with Grandad

"Showing two of my six teeth"