Since Last Time

This post will be a hodgepodge of highlights and pictures mostly! This mommy has escaped to Starbucks for a small break and the Little Man is having some Daddy/Son time!

Since being home (for nearly two months now!!) we have enjoyed so much time together as a family as well as other small milestones.

Well, at home. We did do sponge bathing in the NICU, but this was his first bath, in a tub, at home! We definitely have a water baby on our hands, he absolutely loves being in the water.

On July 29 this squish nugget turned one month old! I am taking his monthly pictures on a quilt my friend Kim and her Mom made for Little Man and using his giraffe for size comparison. He was still in a premie sleeper for this picture but it was probably the last time he wore a premie outfit! When we had his weight check he was clocking in at 8lbs and 20 inches long. The blond hair was still there, getting a smidge darker, and his eyes were still a dark blue.

Of course I preordered The Cursed Child months before it came out but Amazon did not deliver until after it was in stores! I was not happy! But once it arrived Little Man and I cuddled on the couch and I read it all in one sitting. There were tears and nostalgia and some really?? moments but overall I enjoyed it. I hope when it comes to the US I can convinced Ryan that we HAVE TO SEE IT. I would love to see how they do the technical elements of this show! My inner theatre nerd was drooling at the ideas.

After he was a little older we took Little Man outside during the day. Just in the back yard for a bit as he needed some sunlight! The wind startled him the first time it hit his face and he jumped! We felt like terrible parents for laughing but he settled pretty quickly and seemed to like it after that. He looks so itty bitty on our big beach towel!

I had to go to the Endocrinologist during my post partum period to work on my thyroid levels post pregnancy, but on our way back we decided to take Will to the beach for the first time. It was dark and much cooler than the 100 something degree day. At first he was not having it because he was hungry, but we gave him a bottle and tried to dip his toes in the ocean...

And he loved it! We did it a few times, it was so warm being it was August in North Carolina, and we loved having that moment with him. We also walked on the beach for awhile and just relaxed. We went back to the beach during the Perseids Meteor Shower too. Will slept on my chest the entire time and we saw at least a dozen meteors streak across the sky as we laid together on a blanket on the sand. I didn't take any pictures since it was a dark night and I just had my phone, but I love that Ryan, Will and I got to experience that.

In late August we drove to my parents' house as a pit stop on our way to New Jersey (which will be a separate post of its own). We stayed a day or two and Little Man got to swim in their pool. My parents' pool is salt water so I felt better about him being in it, plus it was basically 95 degrees in the water as we were in the middle of a streak of days topping 100 degrees! Again, he absolutely loved the water. He kicked his little legs and blissed out in my arms and Ryan's.

Overall I love being Will's mom. He is such a good baby and aside for some formula difficulties we haven't had many issues. I can barely remember my life before him, it seems like he has always been here. We haven't really changed our lives much since he is still so little. We go out to eat, walk in the park, take road trips.... and he mostly sleeps! Now is the time to do it! I know once he is older and moving around those won't all work out, but we even took him to a nice restaurant for my birthday and he slept the entire time without a single peep!

For Labor Day weekend we went to South Carolina to visit Ryan's family... and to house hunt. That also will be another post.

With Ryan's grandmother Skeetsie... she didn't want to put her first great grandson down! I can't blame her. He is the first boy born in Ryan's family since Ryan and is great grandchild number four.

My two favorite guys. Check out that terminal leave beard! It is so weird to see but I am finally getting used to it!

My big, blue eyed, serious man. He just warms my heart! Before I knew it my big boy was two months old! (Ok, that happened August 29th before we went to South Carolina!)

He was 9lbs 8oz at his two month appointment and 22 inches long! My string bean! He did have his first round of shots and I honestly cried more than he did. He did cry at first but then promptly fell asleep for two hours. He then cried a bit after that, as did I, but we fed him an hour or so early and he was ok after that.  

 On September 8th I turned 29 years old. No idea how that happened! We had a low key day as Ryan and I took a trip into New York City when we were up in NJ and had that be my birthday celebration (post coming I promise)! We did go to Duck's for dinner, Little Man slept the entire time and I had one of my first glasses of wine in nearly a year!

Donna and I decided to celebrate my birthday with Moscato and Wine and Design! We had a great time and I got a new painting for my bedroom. One of the best I had done yet there!

A few days later we took Will to Buffalo Wild Wings for the first Giants game of the season... he was not impressed! But we did win so I think he is a good luck charm for sure! (Woohoo 2 and 0!)

 He is almost three months old now and just getting so so big! His little cowboy boots melt my heart! He sleeps mostly through the night, usually only getting up once or twice, but just to eat and then go back to sleep. We are working on it!

His hair is still dark blonde, his eyes are blue, and he is the spitting image of his daddy at times, just with my cheeks and coloring!

Last week my mom came to visit and we drove to South of the Border to meet Ryan and gave Little Man his first visit. I will note, my husband hates this place with a passion but I love how corny it is!! Since my mom was in town she babysat Little Man so we could have a date night. I had been dying to take Ryan to Wine and Design for years and going with Donna a few weeks ago made me really want to go! So we went to an open studio.

 We decided to try Starry Night as it is my favorite painting. They had a double canvas version but we did more along the lines of the actual painting than the example. We got so in to in that we were there for nearly five hours and the last people to leave! Our artist Bryan was awesome! He traced the large tree and houses for us and guided us where needed, but I am super proud of how well Ryan and I did on our own. It was very chaotic getting everyone settled (it is BOGO September so it was packed!) but once we got going we were happy. The painting now hangs over our bed. Awesome!

So, it a nutshell.... I am caught up. I will blog separately about New Jersey and ... well the big change coming down the pipeline. That entry will be husband read and approved before posting. Stay tuned!

South Carolina Baby Shower

Last weekend, the 11th, Ryan and I made our way to South Carolina as his family were throwing our Bean a baby shower. We left Friday afternoon and made our way south, arriving in time for a lovely BBQ dinner with his mom, sister, and grandmother. Saturday afternoon was our shower and man did our little guy get spoiled! His mom's neighbor Christi hosted the shower for us and the guests included lots of family and friends from the neighborhood.

As you can see there were lots of tiny outfits gifted that I could not contain my excitement about. So. Tiny.

It seemed like everyone had a great time and we really enjoyed getting to see family and friends that we don't get to visit with as often as we like!

Plus they made me a fun hat with all the ribbons! Bean got first wear in the belly though.

The rest of Saturday we lazed around, eating leftovers and just spending time together. I get tired pretty easily these days so lying on the couch and going to bed early is fine in my book!

Sunday we took some pictures together before packing up the jeep on the hottest day of the year thus far, easily over 100 degrees and horribly humid. I did not envy my husband wrangling the crib into the car and was not disappointed when he turned down my offer to help!

We channeled our inner Zoolander a bit too.

Our Bean is definitely one lucky baby and he isn't even here yet! So much love. The next time we see our South Carolina family will probably be when the baby is born, so only a few more weeks!

Unfortunately we did encounter some car trouble on the way home. We were driving in the middle of nowhere South Carolina when suddenly our Jeep turned off while we were going 55 on the highway! Luckily we were able to stop ok, but remember me mentioning it was the hottest day of the year thus far? 100 degrees plus, middle of nowhere, fields, closed store, closed church, and a random hospital unit that I had to walk to at least once to use the bathroom. I was afraid to drink too much as it was a hike and we were waiting on the tow truck. After nearly two hours we somehow got the Jeep started again and just went on our way, calling AAA to cancel the tow (another ordeal in itself!). Our 4.5 hour drive ended up taking nearly 7 hours and man was I glad to get home. I was a sweaty, uncomfortable mess for sure! The joys of pregnancy!

Thanksgiving 2014

Our Thanksgiving this year was spent at my inlaws in South Carolina and to make it an even bigger family celebration, my parents and brother drove down and spent it with us! So we had all of our parents with us for Thanksgiving this year. Perfection. I love being able to spend the holidays with family and having our complete family together is a luxury that I know many do not have. Very thankful indeed. Especially with our Christmas plans so up in the air it is nice to know we saw all of our parents for Thanksgiving.

Ryan and I with my parents and brother... and the Dup Dup

Selfie style later on with my mother in law and sister in law

We ate so much! I tried to be careful with my gallbladder on the fritz but man I could not resist trying a little bit of everything.

 

Plus there was pie... about four of them. Two apple, two pumpkin plus my mom made pecan pie bars that were so amazing they didn't survive the weekend.

 

As you can imagine we were too full to function much beyond watching football. Naturally my brother insisted on some selfies and I think I broke a top teen rule by taking a screenshot of a snapchat (an app I still don't really understand but have because I have maybe four friends who use it and insist I do too). I don't care though, I love the picture of me and my "baby" brother, who turned 18 years old on the first. Where has the time gone!? We gave him a Casio G-Shock watch that will hopefully last him forever... Ryan has had one since bootcamp and it got him through two deployments and various other crazy situations, so it is a good watch indeed. We also drove to Ryan's grandmother's house and his sister's dad's house to visit that evening.

 

Friday I don't think we got out of our pajamas. We watched a lot of movies, Home Alone, How to Train Your Dragon, The Wizard of Oz, and Love Actually. It was officially after Thanksgiving so I was all about the Christmas movies!

 

Saturday we became productive members of society again and actually got up early to head down to the street fair/market in Downtown Columbia. I love stuff like this! It was chilly bur not freezing and I had some delicious hot cocoa to boot.

I also found pierogies. In South Carolina! Epic, epic win in my book!

 

 

We got some pretty cool things there including home made ravioli (bacon, mozerella and sundried tomato), an art print of Molecular Chemistry that has wine bottles and the chemical breakdown of wine (LOVE), boiled peanuts, hot sauce and some other snacks. Then Ryan realized he never actually showed me Columbia properly in the, you know, seven years we've been together... so I got a tour. We went by the state house and some other really neat buildings and the campus of USC.

Christmas tree near the State House

State House all decorated for Christmas

 

Family selfie in front of the tree

After that we went back to the house with wings (well salad for me) to watch the USC/Clemson rivalry game... and that did not turn out well for us. After winning the last five years in a row Clemson beat the Gamecocks this year. Sad. Well, I guess they can have this one! Saturday night we watched more movies and slept in a bit Sunday before battling traffic to get home again. It took us an hour and a half longer than normal (thanks 95!) but we made it.

Overall it was a wonderful weekend with family and I am so thankful we had it!

Wine Walk

This past weekend Ryan, Rylie and I drove down to South Carolina for some needed family time and Mother's Day. I had to work Friday so we had a late start (and somehow I drove all four hours) but we had a really nice weekend. Saturday we went to the Lexington Wine Walk and had a blast! We took a cab both ways so my mother in law, Ryan and I could all enjoy ourselves and we definitely did!! 

Once we got to the walk we received our wine glass and wine coozie! I didn't even know wine coozies existed! All along the street local businesses had table with wine, food and freebies. Our coozie collection has grown, a ladybug necklace somehow stayed on me all night and light up bracelets made the night flash. There was live music and I had a hook up at the table with the sparkling wine so I was a happy camper!

I even got to slow dance with my husband :D Perfect night!

 
 And my sister in law is adorable! We were all up late Saturday and needless to say Sunday was pretty lazy and quiet!! We left to head home pretty late in the afternoon and somehow I ended up driving three quarters of the way again :P We got home late and Ryan went right to sleep as he has been on the range ever since. Poor guy is getting up at 3am everyday! Today I didn't work so I saw him for a whole two hours before he went to bed. Only two more days and we will have a similar schedule once more. 
 
 

 The Dup had fun too despite hating the car (and the cat... But that's another story!). This is the closest I've ever seen her to sticking her head out the window of a moving vehicle. My dog is weird. 
 
 

Mother's Day 2012

This year Mother's Day was pretty special.... I actually got to spend it with my mom and mother-in-law! I haven't had a Mother's Day with my mom since 2005. College always ran later than Mother's Day, usually it was finals week! In 2010 I was on my honeymoon and 2011 I was living in Virginia, still a bit of a trek for us to go for the weeked with work the next day. Now that we live in North Carolina Ryan's family is about four and a half hours away and my family lives only three hours from them. Sadly my family is still six or so hours across the state, but South Carolina is a good middle meeting spot!

Ryan was on 'house hunting' leave last week (even though he took leave previously and were settled, he still rated it and they told him to take it!) so we drove down to South Carolina on Friday morning. We packed the pup in the car and began our drive. It was mostly through farmland, no big interstates for us until more than halfway through the drive. We got to South Carolina in the afternoon and had lunch with Ryan's grandmother and spent a few hours with her. Then we went to my inlaw's.

My inlaw's are always a fun trip, usually coupled with bottles of wine and long talking sessions on the screened in porch. Lightweight me definitely overdid it the first night and I was in bed early... and the bed kept trying to toss me out! Five glasses of wine will do that to someone with very low tolerance. We spent time with Amy, my mother in law, and Hannah my sister in law. Other various relatives visited throughout the weekend and it was terrific seeing everyone.

My family came in on Sunday afternoon, we had a nice brunch and then made our way to Sumo's for hibachi, our gift to our mom's. We had a great time as our chef was hilarious! It was the first time since our wedding two years ago that our families were in the same room! It went very well.

Monday we drove back and resettled into the house. Ryan is now back at work and I am working on my blog and reaching out to some casting agencies for extras work.... I'll keep you all posted on that!!

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