Last Day of the Year

2010 has been a good year for us. I don't think that we can complain. We started the year off with the good news that we would be having a son come August. I spent the spring and early summer remodeling the nursery to make it perfect. I got to travel to Atlanta in April/May for an awesome baby shower. We anxiously awaited our new addition until the August when he finally decided to grace us with his presence. I can hardly believe that I am sitting here on the last day of 2010 with my 4 month old baby boy. It has been a great ride and I can't say that I would do anything differently. We were lucky enough to have all sets of our parents visit us in Germany (some twice!) and I got to spend almost 6 weeks at home in Atlanta after Thanksgiving. It's been a good year. I am looking forward to everything that 2011 might have in store for us. I don't know how it can get any better than this!Tonight we will ring in the new year quietly with a VERY casual dinner, football games and PERHAPS making it til midnight. My how things can change in just a year! Deaner and I met 5 years ago today so it is a special day for us as well. We head back to Germany on Monday and while that flips me out a bit, I guess it is time to get back home. I never really thought I would refer to it as home but I suppose it has grown on me over the past two years. Hopefully we will enjoy the rest of our time here and I won't act like too big a fool come Monday!! Happy New Year to everyone!!

Hi from Atlanta!

Evans and I are really enjoying our time in Atlanta. Even better is that Deaner will be joining us in less than 48 hours! It has definitely been hard to be away from Daddy for so long. We are both looking forward to picking him up at the airport on Wednesday! Then Deaner and I are really looking forward to taking Evans to see Santa Claus to have his picture taken. We are leaving on Thursday to head to Danville, Virginia to visit Deaner's grandmother and introduce her to her latest great grandchild. I hope Evans cooperates. We have been having some trouble with his sleeping since we have arrived and this desire he has for a bottle at 4:30am is really starting to wear me out! I am crossing my fingers tonight!

No matter how much we have missed Deaner, Evans has been getting A LOT of attention around here. My parents have been loving every minute of having him here and the extra hands are ALWAYS appreciated!Evans had a great time helping pick out the Christmas tree. Thankfully it wasn't 12 degrees yet when we went!Aunt Mimi comes over to help at bathtime. Evans' favorite time of the day!Evans and me at my favorite pizza place, Mellow Mushroom. It was here that we told Deaner's parents last Christmas that Evans was on the way. He really seemed to like it! HA!My awesome friend Erin and her husband Steve and baby James came from Nashville to visit us on Saturday night. It was SO nice to get to see them and meet James. We got to have dinner out while Evans and James stayed home and played with Buddy (my dad).Evans really loves spending time with Buddy surfing the internet!All and all we have had a really good time at home so far. I am already not looking forward to going back to Germany. It seems so far away right now and COLD!!! Just want Deaner to get here!! Happy Monday!!

Home Again Home Again

Jiggity jig!!! We made it to Atlanta safely! I was pretty nervous to be flying with Evans for the first time without Deaner but everything went smoothly. We flew home with my inlaws and Evans and I had the bulkhead seats with plenty of room. Would you believe that Evans didn't make a peep the entire flight? Seriously, the kid was perfect. He smiled, laughed and slept. All the flight attendants fawned all over him and things could not have gone more smoothly. Evans of course had all his worshippers waiting on him in Atlanta! We had a constant stream of visitors yesterday to pay a visit to the little Prince! First his great aunt and Godmother, Jennifer, Uncle Thomas and cousin baby Thomas came over.Baby Thomas wasn't exactly sure what to make of Evans. Mainly he was just upset that Evans got a binky and he didn't!Aunt Amelia could hardly wait to get her hands on him either. So far she has only been able to see him on Skype!Our good family friend's, the Edwards, stopped by for a visit.
Followed by Evans' Gleaton cousins!!Everyone seemed really happy to meet him! Today promises more visitors and more cuteness by Evans. We had a semi rough night but I suppose that is to be expected when you bring a 3 month old half way across the world. Evans was up several times last night but I am hoping he will become more adjusted today. We have skyped with Daddy already twice and I know that he is REALLY missing his baby boy. Thank goodness for Skype. Alrighty, time to hit up the grocery store and stock up on formula! We are happy to be home!! Maybe now I will have more time to blog!! Happy Sunday!

Picture Update

Pictures are better than nothing, right? Deaner's parents arrived today and will be with us for Thanksgiving. I'm looking forward to a week of sightseeing, catching up and of course THANKSGIVING!! This year I have 8 for dinner and I am really looking forward to celebrating with family and friends. I love cooking for others and if it is anything like last year, it will be a blast. The only sad part is that our friends Steph and Jon will be in Oklahoma this year!! Boo!! We will definitely miss them. I might also be walking on a cloud because one week from today I will be back in the States showing off my baby! I could not be more excited. Not only will I have a fun week here, I then get to go home! Of course I will miss Deaner A LOT and I know that he will miss us but it just made sense to do things this way. I have too many friends and too much family that want a piece of Evans to only be home for 3 weeks. And let's be honest, with the past month and a half that I have had, it will be nice to have some help at home. I am STILL being treated by my doctor twice a week for my c-section "wound" (I know it sounds like I have been shot or something) and this upcoming week will be my last! I am almost completely healed and right now the treatments are just precautionary. Don't want to take any risks! I have officially been seen by my doctor more times SINCE I have had Evans than when I was pregnant with him. So much for my easy pregnancy!!

Anyways, I thought I would update my blog with some pictures of my precious baby boy. Evans is so great that I can't even say enough about him. He sleeps when he is supposed to, he eats when he is supposed to and laughs at all the point inbetween. He makes me smile. I know he is going to make my parents smile when we get home! Here is Evans getting an EKG at his second doctor's appointment! He didn't seem to mind at all! Too bad he didn't know that the shots were coming!My perfect baby.On a walk with daddy.His new monster hat.Helping with the laundry!This is what happens when Deaner dresses the baby to go on a walk. Seriously? Both these outfits are OUTRAGEOUS!What's up??Evans finds his tongue. And continues to lick everything around!The cutest baby lamb after his bath!Super happy in his carseat.And finally, Evans favorite place to take a nap. Please excuse my unshowered self!That is all for now. Time for me to get in bed and give up on this Ole Miss v. LSU game. Sometimes it is just best to give up on a season. It is better for your health. Plus, I'm finally reading The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo and that is WAY more entertaining than this football game. I hope that everything is good with everyone in blog land. I always claim that I am going to be better about the blogging but the truth is that I tend to choose sleep/napping over it on most days. Maybe once I get home next week and have several days of undisturbed sleep while my mom watches Evans, I'll be better. A six week vacation home is JUST what the doctor ordered! Happy Saturday!

Attempting to Catch Up

I am only blogging today because I am afraid if I don't, my parents are going to revolt against me. They don't seem to understand that this blog is what falls by the wayside when other things need to be done, including caring for a baby! Things here are going pretty good I have to say. We have had some minor setbacks in the past few weeks but I am working at overcoming them. The weekend before last Deaner and I decided it would be a fun trip to take Evans to Brugges. Since Deaner had that Monday off of work our plan was to leave for Brugges on Sunday morning and spend Sunday afternoon and all day Monday there. From Brugges we were to head to Brussels on Tuesday morning for Deaner to work there for the day and then Wednesday morning we were going to head to Mons for a big work meeting before heading home on Friday morning. Sounds easy enough right? Wrong. We got to Brugges LATE on Sunday. Why does everything take so much longer with a baby?? And here is what our car looked like. UNREAL.Who knew we would require SO much stuff. But don't worry, we did end up taking out one of those strollers and adding a playgym. It doesn't appear that all this stuff bothered Evans one bit. Sunday night in Brugges we just found a restaurant to have dinner in and then pretty much hit the hay. Monday morning we were up bright and early to do some sight seeing. The only problem was that I was not really feeling very good. I felt pretty queasy and pretty much just yuck. More on that later. Brugges is honestly one of the prettiest cities we have visited. They had gorgeous canals, buildings, churches and delicious beer, french fries and steak! I would have been in heaven had I been feeling a bit better. Here are some shots from our sightseeing. The weather was beautiful and sunny and we even got to take a canal tour.It was a really great trip and I can't wait to go back again next time Deaner has some work in Brussels. He is not so sure he is going to be bringing me back anytime soon though! Back to feeling bad. My c-section incision had really been bothering me and was still really sore. I thought this was weird because at this point in the game, I felt like I should have been completely healed. Everything was supposedly fine at my 6 week postpartum so I just didn't understand it. Well, Tuesday morning I woke up and felt a very swollen area on my abdomen. It was very red and something was definitely wrong. When we got to Brussels I called my doctors office and she said that I needed to either go to the ER there or come home first thing in the morning to see her. UGH! Last time I went to Brussels with Deaner he had to miss a meeting to bring him home because I was sick. I couldn't believe this was happening again. That night my incision ruptured and we left first thing in the morning to get home. My doctor's office was closed but she met me there to take a look. It was pretty much the worst case scenario that we could have been thinking. I had a massive abdomenal infection and it didn't look good. My doctor said that she would do everything she could to keep me out of the hospital but that if it got worse I would have to go. Despite her office being closed for two weeks of vacation, she agreed to meet me there EVERY SINGLE DAY to treat me in order to keep me out of the hospital. The other part to the agreement was that Richard not go back to work until TODAY. She told him that he had to stay home and pretty much do everything while I worked on getting better. I have LOVED having him home the past two weeks. Recovery has been SLOW and not very comfortable but we are getting there. This Wednesday will mark two weeks of treatment and two weeks of being on antibiotics. The first one my body did not respond to at all but this second one has been working better. I am finally down to going to the doctor every other day now and Deaner went back to work today. It has been a LONG day. My doctor is seeing me before all her other patients in the mornings now that the office is open again but that means that I have to get to her office by 8:45am. No small feat with an 8 week old! SO, that is the update on me. I am VERY thankful to have such a great doctor who was willing not to pawn me off to the hospital since it was her vacation after all. I know for a fact that my doctor in Atlanta would not have done this for me!

Besides all this other garbage going on, things have been good. Evans continues to be the dream baby. He started sleeping thru the night around 6 weeks and last night he went down at 10:00pm and I had to wake him up at 7:30 to go to the doctor with me. I can't ask for much more than that! He isn't the best napper during the day but I'd rather him sleep at night than during the day so you won't hear me complaining! He is such a happy baby and laughs all the time. He especially loves talking to my parents on Skype. Deaner and I made the decision a few days ago that I am going to return to the States with his dad and stepmom after their visit at Thanksgiving instead of waiting to fly with him home on December 15th. Originally I thought 3 weeks would be plenty of time at home but I have so many people that I want to see and so many events planned that it just makes sense for me to go early. So Evans and I will fly home with Dick and Maggie on November 27th. Needless to say that my parents are out of their minds with excitement and Evans and I are worried about missing Daddy while we are away so long! I know Deaner will miss us too but he might not mind sleeping in a quiet house and it will give him some time to make up on traveling that he has missed.

That is about all I have to update I believe. I know I promise all the time that I will be better about blogging and I promise I will try. Once I am home I should have more time since I will have extra hands to help out. I just can't wait for my family to meet Evans! My sister and brother still haven't seen him! I hope that everyone has been doing great and will try and stick with me until I get into a better routine!!!!! Happy Monday!

You Learn Something New Every Day

I am definitely a believer in the above statement, especially since I had Evans. Things here in Germany are going well. Evans and I are adjusting to each other and to not having any company in our house for the first time in a month. It is bittersweet for sure. I LOVED having extra sets of hands around to help out and to keep me company but I know it was time for us to get on a routine and settle into each other. We are doing well and Evans continues to be the best baby ever. He isn't much of a crier and is generally pretty happy. He played by himself on his playmat yesterday morning for over 40 minutes! Last night was his first night in his own crib and he slept 6 hours straight. I couldn't have asked for a better baby. Leaves me wondering if my next child will be the devil?? So back to the above statement.....this morning I sterilized all Evans' bottles and bottle parts by dipping them in a pot of hot hot water on the stove. Fast forward. Got Evans up from his nap and started to feed him. He was acting very weird after about 5 minutes and really wasn't eating his bottle. I didn't know what was wrong with him so I burped him. Still wouldn't eat. Gave him some gas drops, just in case, and he still wouldn't eat. Then I realized that not ONE DROP of formula had come out of the bottle. Turned bottle upside down........nothing. Apparently I sterilized in a little bit to warm of water because the nipple was glued shut! What a dummy! Nothing that my earring couldn't fix but poor baby was sucking for like 15 minutes and not getting a thing! So, note to self, my child eats like a hog, if it appears he is not eating at all, something is preventing him from eating. Lesson learned.

The picture above makes me smile. Evans loves getting a bath at night and he has the cutest towels. It is just hard to keep the camera around all the time if it is just me watching him. I had to bring him upstairs and prop him up on my bed for this one. He is also in love with the swing that my sister and brother in law gave him. I've gotten lots of emails sent thanks to this swing.Saturday we had people over to watch football and made the first big pot of chili for the year. It was delicious (thanks Deaner!) and Ole Miss beat Kentucky so overall it was a good day. And I got to enjoy some adult beverages! Evans and Deaner dressed for the UVA v. FSU game. While UVA didn't fair very well, they still looked really cute dressed alike!I know that this is one random post but I picked out the pictures that I wanted to share and now I realize that they don't really flow very well. We tried Evans new jogging stroller this past weekend and he LOVES it. He loves being outside in general, which frightens me with the approaching weather that I know is coming, but we have been trying to enjoy as much time outside as possible. Sunday we took him up into the vineyards for a wine event you can tell how much he enjoyed it.Please don't freak that he isn't supposed to be in the BOB yet because he is too small. We aren't jogging him in it and we have a head support insert that keeps him steady. Plus, this version of the BOB reclines pretty far back so he is fine. Much better for him on the cobblestones than the Snap 'N Go which pretty much rattles his brain.

And last but not least I had to post the picture that makes me laugh every time I see it. I took this after a bath while he was playing on our bed. He just looks so goofy.Nice tongue Evans! Anyways, I have been trying to be better about blogging but it is hard. It is hard trying to decide between a nap (where I know I will never fall asleep) and playing on the computer. Maybe the computer will start winning more. We are taking Evans to Brugges, Belgium this weekend, then onto Brussels and then onto Mons and will be back on Thursday. Since I'll be stuck in a hotel Tuesday thru Thursday, perhaps I will have more time to blog!! Happy Thursday everyone!

VICTORY

Swaddling is a modern day miracle. Seriously. I thought Evans was doing great sleeping 3-4 hour stretches at night. Then I swaddled him. Last night he slept from 10:15pm to 5:15am. SEVEN FREAKING HOURS!!! Incredible. Then he slept two more hours after that. I can't say that I am feeling all that refreshed since I was awake at 2:30am wondering what was wrong with him and all but I FEEL so good about him sleeping that long. My aunt recommended the book The Baby Whisperer Solves All Your Problems by Tracy Hogg (I know, unfortunate name!) and Melinda Blau and so I ordered it from Barnes and Noble. The book outlines a routine to get your baby into and we were roughly already following it. I have a feeling it is going to help us out a lot and I am excited to start trying to get into a routine now that our company is gone.

Yesterday was our first day home all day long and I think it went well. I was anxious that I wouldn't be able to keep Evans occupied all by myself but he is such an easy baby (knock on wood) and everything was fine. I have realized in the past week how much I miss being able to sleep in. I guess those days are gone.

Tonight my friend Julia and her husband Daniel and kids are coming to stay with us. I can't wait to see them. Julia and I went to middle school together and we were in each other's weddings. It will be great to have some friend time and catch up. I suppose I should go and lie down now since Evans is asleep and we have an outing this afternoon to Aunt Steph's house and then to Ikea to look for a picture frame to frame his birth announcement. Then it is dinner at the Brauhaus! Hoping for a good day today! Hope all is well with everyone else!! Happy Humpday!!

Today In My Life

Today was an interesting day in my life.

1. Evans and I had our first arguement this morning. He wanted to wake up. I wanted to sleep. He won. I'm sure we will play again tomorrow.

2. I ran over my cup of coffee, which I left on the ground while opening the garage door, while backing the car out.

3. After retrieving my coffee, which was clearly in a travel cup of steel seeing as it didn't break OR even spill (God was watching out for me), I was about to pull out of the driveway before glancing up and seeing the front door still wide open with the stroller in the doorframe. At least the baby was in the car!

4. I had to get a new I.D. card on base because my name wasn't on it correctly. My new picture makes my face look ENOURMOUS. Why couldn't I just keep my old picture when I was skinny and not 5 weeks post partum?

5. I held Evans in my lap for 3 hours while I got highlights in my hair. Thankfully he was an ANGEL, pretty much as always.

6. We had a semi fussy afternoon but I managed not to lose my mind.

7. I bumped into a stroller and said "excuse me".

All and all, not so bad for my first day alone! Evans has now applied for his American birth certificate, passport and social security card. As of now, he is solely a German citizen. Got to get that fixed!! Almost time for bed! I'm exhausted!

Baby Update

So I am still alive but sometimes I wonder by how much! Things in Germany are going well but I am about to be put to the true test. Deaner's mother and aunt have been here for the past week and they are leaving on Sunday. It is the last of my guests until November and I am slightly anxious about it. I know I can do this alone but it is going to be a lot more exhausting. Right now Evans is sleeping from 10:30-2:30am, feed, 2:30-5:30am, feed, and then up at 7:30am and not wanting to go back to sleep. I've been the one feeding him but Deaner's mom has been taking over at 7:30 and allowing me to sleep for several extra hours. I am really really going to miss those hours!! And his mom and aunt! I really hope I am not lonely once the company clears out and that Christmas time comes quickly. As much as we love Germany it is times like these when I miss my family being around. I want to be able to show off my baby while he is still so little! He won't be little for long since he is already over 10 pounds!! His pediatrician appointment went well and all is good. Next time we go we have to start vaccinations and I am dreading that! But for now, I thought I would share some more pictures since everyone is visiting Heidelberg and I have the day to myself.

Evans has really started to love bathtime and I try to bathe him everyday. The first bathtime was not as successful......Now he could sit in his whale tub forever!We have taken a few field trips down to the winestand trying to enjoy the last bit of nice weather that Germany has been offering. This is Evans and his Gannie (Deaner's mom).We have eaten dinner at all our favorite places. Seriously, we just drag this baby around with us everywhere and he is SO good. Never cries (knock on wood) and is generally pretty happy.And there is certainly no mistaking who this boy's father is! Have you ever seen a baby look more like his dad??Anyways, it is time for me to close my eyes for an hour before everyone gets home and we have to get ready for dinner. Hopefully I can be better about posting next week but who knows!! I never know what the day is going to hold for me now!