A Sunday Morning

Also, just a note... all but two of these pictures are SOOC (Straight Out of the Camera) meaning that I only edited two of them. Pretty awesome. I love my 50mm lens.

It's Friday!

• Levi went to the doctor for his two month check up yesterday.  He weighs 11lbs. 8 oz., he is 23" long and his head is 15 1/2" in circumference.  He's a growing boy!  Baby boy also has a flat head.  This did not surprise me.  I already knew it.  William was upset that "I was right".  So Operation No-More-Flat-Head has commenced. 
• William is taking a month of FMLA leave. We are super excited.  It starts May 11th.  Let us know if you want to see us! 
• I got paid today... I'm kind of shocked because I haven't worked in 8 weeks and I thought it was unpaid.  Maybe I'm confused... but I sure hope we don't owe them money... I would be pretty upset!
• On the note of money, did you know William and I don't have a single credit card? Yea... it's a good feeling.  We enjoy not having one.  No, we can't earn airline miles, but we also aren't in thousands of dollars of debt like most people our age.  Yes, we know we could just pay it off every month... but honestly, we are happy just paying for everything in cash. 
• May is very soon! I love May! I'm excited about going to Shreveport next weekend for Colton's graduation, celebrating Mother's Day at the bay, and my birthday.  I love birthdays! 

8 weeks and giggling

Dear Levi,

This was one of the best and worst weeks for you.  Well maybe more for me.  I'm pretty sure you won't remember or care to rate this week among all the others.  Anyways... Mommy hit rock bottom on the reflux roller coaster.  You spit up everywhere, soaking yourself and the entire bed.  I felt like the worst. mom. EVER. So we were up bright and early yesterday morning to get a prescription of the miracle drug prevacid. All I have to say is it better keep all fluids in your stomach for $90 a month.  I'm sure glad you think it tastes good, otherwise I might seriously be rethinking shoving $90 medicine down your throat every 12 hours. The most awesome thing happened this week though.  You started giggling.  You did it a little bit for Aunt Jonna on Sunday, and then you just keep doing it more.  See the videos at the bottom for proof.  You are also holding your head up quite a bit more and talking.  

Okay, now we need to have a serious chat.  Mommy needs a favor.  Can we just go ahead and drop that middle of the night feeding? I mean seriously I don't think you'll starve before morning.  I'll even wake up at 6:30? Or 6:00? Okay, fine I'll wake up at 5:30 to feed you if it means I don't have to get up at 3am.  I love you... I really do... but for reals... Mommy is tired! I'm writing this from bed (and it's 8:15pm). 

I can't wait to hear your sweet giggles tomorrow.  

Love, Mommy

Huge smile for Daddy

A behind the scenes photo... if you were wondering how I got him to smile this much... William tickled his lip/chin before each picture :) 

A few favorites

This is Levi pumping some iron... gotta work out those muscles!

Can anyone say nose dive? Levi was doing some tummy time and he was kicking his legs so hard and he just fell over the boppy... whoops! Of course I was a good momma and snapped a picture before coming to his rescue ;)

Here is Levi in his "Mr. Crabby Pants" outfit! Not that he is EVER crabby! Love that chunk!

Phone Dump

Ideas for Deployment

William and I have been doing a lot of planning.
One of the things we feel like we have to plan and get in order is special things for Levi.

Here are some of our ideas... I'd love to hear if any of you have any other ideas.... we will take all the help we can get.

1. LOTS AND LOTS OF PICTURES - Levi will love seeing pictures of himself and his daddy.  So we've got 2 months to take as many as possible. We are also going to get a professional shoot done of the 3 (4? including Lucy) of us before William leaves.
2. Home Videos - Again, I know Levi will love these... so I've got the flip cam charged and in the diaper bag! 
3. Recorded books - William is going to record some books for me to "read" with Levi
4. Build a Bear - We will get a special build a bear made with a recording for Levi's first birthday
5. Make an alphabet book with pictures of William - We are going to make a book like an alphabet book only William will be with something that starts with each letter!
6. Daddy Doll - most children have comfort items and I would hope that Levi would choose something like this to be his.  
7. Shirts - I want William to wear a bunch of his shirts before he leaves that way Levi (and maybe me) can have something to cuddle that smells like him
8. "Special Moments for Daddy" box - I'm going to make a special box where we can put things that we want to show William when he gets home
9. Letters/cards for special occasions - William will never know what his schedule will be like over there, so it's important for us to plan ahead and have things lined up for special occasions so that he doesn't have to think about it or worry about it not making it on time. 

This is what we have so far... but like I said I'm happy to entertain more ideas!

After 7 weeks...

HIS HAIR IS STILL RED!!! 

 "I'm a happy baby!"

 "This is my serious face. Lucy, get out of my picture."

 "What's over there?"

 "Look at the pretty lights...."

"In my spare time I model for GQ  Parenting Magazine!"

Dear Levi,

Well here we are... week seven.  It's shocking to think you are nearly two months old.  This week you had your first trip to the zoo.  You slept.  You also dropped your 10pm feeding this week.  You eat 2-4 ounces at 7am, 10am, 1pm and 4pm.  Then we get you ready for bed and you eat 5ish ounces at 7pm.  After reading your favorite book "The Going to Bed Book" you are out like a light.  You've been waking up once between 2am and 4am.  But I'm thinking that you will drop that feeding soon.  Last night you didn't even cry when you woke up, just sort of talked at me until I noticed you were up.  You stay awake for about 30 minutes to an hour before most feedings and then just a few minutes afterward.  We've found it works better for you to be up before you eat so you can play without spitting up all over yourself.  

If you read this one day... you'll know that this week we found out that daddy is getting deployed.  I know you will probably never remember this time.  But I feel this huge burden to make sure that yall have a good relationship before he leaves and makes sure that you learn who he is and how much he loves you so that when he gets back you will know him.  My biggest fear about deployment is that  your daddy will get home and you will be afraid of him as if he is a stranger.  If that happens, I know it will eventually be okay.  But I know it will break your daddy's heart... so I'm determined to make sure you know him.  

Alright... enough of the sad stuff... You continue to be such an amazing baby! We couldn't love you more.  It's been so much fun to see your daddy come to love you and figure out how to show that love to you each day. (Not that he didn't before... but you know dads... they just don't know what to do with babies at first.) And of course, I love you more each day.  

Love you little man,

Mommy

Going to the zoo!

Well, first let me start off by saying that it was William's idea to take our 6 week old to the zoo.  And despite my thoughts like "He doesn't care about animals" and "He will just sleep the whole time", I figured what the heck.  William won't get to take Levi many times to do things like that until after he gets back from Afghanistan so we might as well go now.

I was right though, Levi slept all but like 45 minutes of it.  We had a nice time walking around though.

 Look out Levi! There's a penguin behind you!

 Can you spot the scary looking Mandrill (kind of like a monkey)?

 Daddy loves pushing the stroller

 Well hello there Mr. Elephant

 Daddy letting Levi "see" the Lion... although if you know anything about babies you know he can't even come close to seeing that lion!

My favorite animals!

Table of Contents

If our life were a book, I feel like the table of contents would look something like this.

Table of Contents
Chapter 1: 1998-2001 Middle School - Memorial Middle School
Chapter 2: 2001-2005 High School - Stratford High School and Memorial High School
Chapter 3: 2005-2008 College - Wellesley/Baylor and Texas A&M
Chapter 4: 2009-2010 College/Graduate School - University of Texas at Dallas and Texas A&M/Dallas
Chapter 5: 2010-2012 Jobs - Richardson Schools and wherever the heck William got sent (West Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas) also 6 month stint of active duty in Arizona
Chapter 6: 2012-2013 Baby and Deployment

Here we go again....
A new chapter.
I'm pretty sure I'm going to like this chapter the least of all of them.
Which is sad. Because it started off pretty great.
Since 2005 William and I haven't spent more than 2 months in the same city.  Those 2 months were during summers in college.  Since 2008 we've barely spent a few weeks in the same city.  Some how we make it work.  Things were looking up.  We got a house, had a baby... William had 5 job interviews in the past two weeks for office jobs... where I would get to LIVE with him all the time.  Then the inevitable took place. William found out he is getting active duty orders.  He will fulfill his military obligation this year.  In a big way. 14 months away from us.  My precious son will be three and a half months old when his daddy leaves and doesn't come home for at least 14 months. It's a terribly painful thought.  I mean he won't remember.  But we will.  I have about a million feelings and fears. I feel like so many of my dreams for my family have been dashed by this news.  But I know life must go on.  And I'm going to have to put on a brave face for our baby.  And I will.  I'll hate it, but I will.

We've made several quick decisions because of this news.  Since everything is happening so fast and we have no time to move or anything like that, Levi and I will stay in Dallas.  I'm not sad about that.  I love my job and we have lots of friends up here.  I'm also not going to go back to work this year.  That was a tough decision since I love my job so much, but we need time together.  My district was nice enough to grant me three extra days of leave to make this happen.  I'm sure many other things will happen and change but for now these are the biggies.

Obviously this blog will continue to be where I write whatever I want.  I'm sure it will be deployment related.

"Non Sequiturs"

I really need to call the roof people and get them out here and I really wish Levi would take a nap today.  There's a plant on my back patio that is D.E.A.D.  and maybe I should start vacuuming more often.  Levi's formula smells really bad and I need to go to the dentist.  My Jason's Deli float is really good and I forgot to put the trash out for pick up this morning.  If we sell our house I'm guessing we need to put some sort of furniture in the empty guest room and I really need to hire someone to trim our trees.  There's a big stability ball in my living room leftover from when I was in labor and I should probably run to get some more formula this afternoon.  Maybe William will be home for dinner and since I forgot to take the trash out I could add that dead plant to the bag.  I have a thank you note to deliver to my neighbor and Levi is FINALLY sleeping.

*Idea for this post was stolen borrowed from Pioneer Woman.  I doubt she'll mind.

Always the unknown

When will our life "settle down"?

New jobs... moving... deployments... or maybe just staying put.

I just wish I knew what next month held for us.

Six Weeks Young

Dear Levi,
You are six weeks old today! Wow! I can hardly remember what life was like six weeks ago.  You had a good week this week.  You liked that every day you got to see your daddy in the evening.  You have started to fall into a fairly predictable routine, with the exception of a few blips here and there.  Still no sign of dropping the 3am feeding, but I'll let you hold on to it for two more weeks.  Your grandma came into town on Thursday evening and we took you to the doctor bright and early on Friday morning.  You weighed 10lbs. 8oz.  and were 22 inches long... so far you've gained 2lbs. 7 oz. and have grown 1 1/4 inches.  You are a big boy!! This week you also went shopping at the Galleria with "Aunt" Jenn and then shopping at Northpark with Grandma.  In both cases we decided Nordstrom is by far the best place to feed a baby in a mall... very classy :) You celebrated your first Easter by crying most of the morning due to a two day moratorium you had on napping.  I really don't suggest you try that again.  It makes you very crabby. Today daddy and I went to set up your college fund.  But I'm going to have to ask everyone reading this not to tell you it exists... because we aren't planning on telling you until you are at least 25 years old.  When you decide what you want to do with your life... then you can have the money :) You started smiling this week for REAL. I mean a real social smile... not just smiling while you are sleeping. You should see the antics I pull trying to make you smile. So far, you just do it on your own terms. Also today we went to our "First Moms" group.  It was fun to connect with a few women and babies and I can't wait to meet some more wonderful ladies! You met a pretty girl named Caitlin two weeks older than you... you can marry her if you want... but remember she's an older woman.

Can't wait to see what next week brings! I'm hoping and praying it's 6-8 hours of sleep straight :)

Love,
Your Mommy

During this week's photo shoot, we had a little bit of an issue... 

 Levi kept giving us this face... 

 And this face... And mom knows what that face means...

 So we laid him down on the floor... 

 Because he likes to "do his business" lying flat on his back. 

 And then Daddy got to change his diaper! 

(In this picture Daddy is telling him he stinks... and boy did he)

 Then he took these pictures... He was very happy :) 

 Watch me try to eat my hand!

 Hey you, I'm looking at YOU!

 Smiles!

 And I'm bored... 

Levi and Daddy staring each other down!