All posts by JB

Day 6

Today I am consiously thankful for my incredible husband.  I don’t know how women raise children on their own or with a partner who doesn’t WANT to be a Dad.  When I spend time around other dads that aren’t as committed or as happy to be a Dad as Randy…it makes me appreciate him SO much more!

Randy is unbelieveably helpful with feeding and changing and playing and bathing and putting the kids to bed.  The best part is that he WANTS to do all those things.

Randy, when I chose to marry you I knew I loved you and we would be great partners for the rest of our lives.  What I didn’t know was how fantastic of a Dad you would be.

Day 5

Today I am SUPER thankful that I was out of the state and unable to watch yet another epic Aggie Football meltdown.  I was so excited about this football season, and now I am just excited for it to be over.  Next year we get to play in the SEC and at least we should rightfully lose to those teams!!!

Day 4

Today I am thankful for my job. My job is quite stressful and intense…but I really enjoy it. I have been doing the same job for 2 years and I’m ready for something new, but I still enjoy it.
The real reason I am thankful for my job today is because I am not at it!!! Today I am thankful for a vacation from the humdrum of everyday life. Today I am thankful that I have a good education that allowed me to get a good job…with a good vacation allowance!!! I can’t wait to show the pictures of what we have been up to the last few days 🙂

Thanksgiving Challenge

This year I am going to intentionally focus on Thanksgiving for the wonderful opportunity it is to give thanks for all the blessings in our life.  I will not skip right from Halloween to Christmas and I will intentionally give thanks for (at least) one thing every day.  It might be a single picture, or only a sentence, but I am going to try to post one thing to be thankful for every day this month.  Any one want to join me?

Today I am thankful for Reed’s infectious laugh at the breakfast table.  He is a morning person like his momma and I love how happy he is every morning.  Helps me start every day off on the right foot.

The Pumpkin Patch

I love October.  Seriously, love this month.  It holds everything good in the world.  College Football is in full swing and conference play is fierce.  World Series is on.  Time to break out the crock pot and cook chili and black beans and all types of pumpkin desserts (too bad I haven’t been able to make ANY pumpkin desserts due to the diet).  In theory it is also time for sweaters and boots and scarfs, but that will never be my reality as long as I’m living in San Antonio.  It is also time to break out my Autumn Leaves candle from Bath and Body Works.  Weekends in October are just fantastic.

October also brings about pumpkin patches and Halloween costumes.  I seriously LOVE Halloween costumes for kids.  My mom was great at Halloween costumes.  Back in the day costumes were always homemade and creative.  Now it is so easy and cheap to buy costumes rather than be creative about them.  I REALLY try to be creative, but it doesn’t always happen.  This year I was excited for Alison to be a princess and Reed to be her pet dragon.  I found a cute dragon costume for Reed (not homemade) and put together a princess costume for Alison.  Friday night we went to their school Halloween carnival and they went in costume.  So stinking cute.

Then on Friday after the carnival I met some girlfriends for coffee.  I had to walk past a Gymboree to get to Starbucks, so of course I went inside.  Among a few other treasures I found a seriously adorable peacock costume (that I had seen online and loved).  It was on sale for $6.99!!!!  And the tights were only $5.  I walked out of the store without it  and thankfully Missie and Danielle made me go back and buy it.  It is AWESOME!  This little girl in this awesome costume makes me so.stinking.happy!!

I think she’s finally done

*Warning – this post is an overshare.  Disregard if you aren’t interested 🙂

This morning was probably my last time to nurse my sweet little girl. 

I have been dieting hard for the last 4 weeks.  Calories cut to 600/day.  Yes, I am well aware that this is extreme and that it isn’t sustainable.  (This is the diet I did last year and lost 20 pounds in 5 weeks, and got pregnant with Ali in the middle, so I had to stop dieting 10 pounds from my goal.)

I have been waiting to start the diet until I was ready to cut down on nursing and that happened at the end of September.  I started the diet on September 23rd and was only feeding Alison in the mornings.  Somehow I have been able to have enough supply even with the crazy cut in calories…until today.  This morning she nursed for like 6 minutes total and then pulled away screaming.  I am afraid I don’t have anything left.  Sad day for me.

Some of you might be judging me for being vain and choosing to diet even though I knew it would diminish my supply significantly.  Rest assured if I only had like 10 pounds to lose I would have waited.  I have lost 21 pounds in the last 30 days and I don’t regret feeding her formula for a moment.  She and I (and Randy) are much happier with a mommy who feels better about herself.

I loved nursing you Alison.  I loved holding you close and spending alone time with you.  Now I guess we will just have to start shopping together for our bonding time.  Just kidding Randy!!!

 

9 Months

Alison you have been an outside baby as long as you were an inside baby.  Watching you grow and learn and change is such an awesome reminder of God’s power.  I can’t tell you how much I love being your mom and how much I love all the time we spend on the ground playing every night.

Weight 18pounds (35th%)

Length: 27 inches (25th%)

Head circumfrence: 17.75 (70th%)

Such a tiny little girl…with a big old Reasonover head 🙂

At nine months you still only have 2 teeth.  You are wearing size 2 diapers and 6-12month or 9month clothes (but you can still fit into some of your 3-6 month onesies!)  I am trying to work on putting shoes on you.  You aren’t a fan of shoes and it really is my fault.  I don’t think I bought any shoes for you until the last month.  You never put them on for the first 8 months of your life, so its no wonder you aren’t a fan.  Now that it’s getting colder I need to start training you to keep your shoes on.

You are turning into a picky eater.  You will eat any and all fruit, but you aren’t such a fan of veggies or meat.  You are also compeletly over being fed with a spoon.  If you can’t feed yourself you aren’t interested.  Except when it comes to applesauce.  Applesauce is affectionally known as ‘baby crack’ around our house.  If you won’t eat your carrots we mix it with applesauce.  Then you will eat it all!  Works with almost everything.  You don’t like much protein except black beans, so I’m feeding you lots of those.  We are starting to work with a sippy cup (with water) and the doctor gave us the go ahead to add milk in small amounts to the cup soon.  We have started yogurt, so it’s ok to start adding some milk.

Sleeping is still a challenge with you little girl.  You do sleep through most nights, but on the nights you don’t sleep we have a hard time getting you to go back down.  You just want me to hold you all.the.time!!

This past month you finally starting crawling for real and not just army crawling.  Now you are all over the place and into everything.  You can pull yourself to standing and like to play with toys where you stand up.  I am not ready for you to walk so just stay on the ground 🙂

You L-O-V-E your brother.  You are finally getting tougher and sturdier so I can let the two of you play.  You love to sit back and watch Reed when he’s acting goofy or wrestling with Daddy.  You just watch him with those huge blue eyes and laugh and laugh and laugh.  Oh we have such a great time in the evenings after work.

You like to blabber a lot!  (Randy says you are just like me, but I disagree).  You will look at Randy and say da-da, but I don’t think it is intentional. 

The cutest little development I have seen is that you will hold your hand up as though you are waving, but you don’t actually wave.  When we leave the nursery at church you always hold up your hand to the girls when we leave.  They get SUCH a kick out of it.

My favorite thing is that when you are on the ground and want me to pick you up you will hold up your arms and open/close your hands.  I know I talk about how much you want to be held and about how you only want me to hold you.  This is a problem when I’m trying to get ready for work or make dinner…but oh this brings me such incredible joy.  There isn’t much more I want out of this life than the happiness I get from you (and Reed).  When you hold you little hands up for me to pick you up I will literally drop whatever I’m doing to satisfy your request.  I love you so much sweet girl.

 

The Perfect Type of Sunday

I want to write this down because Sunday was a great day.  I especially need to remember this great day in light of my last post.

A cool front has finally arrived in San Antonio.  I woke up to 59 degrees.  So I made coffee and took the kids outside to play before church.  We were going to a different church and the service wasn’t until 11 so we got to relax a bit.  (I actually had time to paint my toe nails!!)

We went to church with all of Randy’s family because the church his dad was raised in was closing its doors.  It was sad, but happy too.  Really nice to be with family too. 

After church we went to lunch for Papa B’s birthday.  The kids were crazy, but fun.  I had a great time at lunch and just enjoyed spending time together.

We got home from MUCH later than usual (after 2:30).  Luckily Reed and Alison took naps so Randy was able to take one too.  Ali woke up and she and I played together for over an hour, just the two of us.  We were watching football, playing, smelling my favorite autumn leaves candle and just enjoying each other. 

When Reed and Randy woke up from lengthy and very needed naps we took a walk as a family.  It was fantastic weather!!  For the first time since March we were able to take a walk without pouring sweat.  Reed was having a great time and Ali was just smiling up a storm.  We went inside for bathtime. 

After bath when it gets dark Reed loves to go outside on the front lawn to look at the moon and stars.  We sit on the grass and sing the moon song and twinkle, twinkle.  This is quickly becoming one of my favorite rituals that we do.  He gets an extra boost of energy after bathtime and is always a blobbermouth when we go outside at night.  He wants to hug and kiss Ali endlessly.  After our evening singing and talking we went inside and he was ready for bed.  Randy put Reed to bed and I fed Alison and put her to bed. 

All in all, the perfect Sunday.  And icing on the cake is that I have been on my diet for 10 days and have lost 14 pounds.  Praise the Lord for small favors!!!