Spiritual Awakening

I have been meaning to post this for a while now...Donald and I were in church a couple Sundays ago, I think you made it about 10 minutes before you were banished to the nursery (sorry J) you like it in there though I promise. Don't you think for one second that mommy has not spied on you multiple times to make sure you are safe and happy and I make no apologies for it!! Anyways- back to sermon. Pastor Doug's message really stuck with me that morning. He asked everyone in the pews to say to the person next to them when the last spiritual awakening was we experienced and we had to say it right away. This was easy for me....YOU. Of course your dad stole my answer. ;) love you honey. This was easy and really sums up motherhood so far for me. When you were born, so was I. You have awakened me spiritually like I never imagined. I long now more than ever for this world to be a better place because you are in it  and I am going to work to make that happen. Unfortunately adidas had a layoff and I did not come out on top but I did come out ok. I'm ok with change and I'm more than ok with having some more to time to spend with you. Some moms never get the opportunity to be a stay at home mom so I may as well take full advantage of it. We will see what comes down the road but for now we are happy, content and excited for whatever our next chapter entails. Hopefully along the way we can do some good in this world.

Already doing good supporting Breast Cancer Awareness!! It's the only way I could get pink on you!

Halloweeeeeeen!

Funny Funny! We love those Nichols babies!

We were pulled  over on the tollway in an awful storm and I was trying to pretend I wasn't scared. 

You are on the move!!!

BFF's!

First trip to Florida! My next blog will have lots of pics from that!

My Wish...

As I see you getting older (way too quickly by the way) I day dream about who you will become. You are ten months old now and really gaining your own little personality. I can already pick out a couple of traits. BRAVE! You will crawl, pull up, try to walk on ANYTHING much to your mommy's dismay. I'm not sure what God was thinking giving me a son but I'm sure glad he did. I'll try to relax a little I promise!
You are HAPPY, you smile at everyone and are a constant joy. You are sweet, you try and share your pacifier with your mommy. This makes us both laugh...don't worry readers I don't actually partake, just pretend! You are an animal lover, you chase after lily all day- too bad it's un requited. :( You are FRIENDLY, you love people especially kids and babies. We paid Jenny and Bowen a visit the other day and when he woke up from his nap you crawled straight over to Jenny and tried to play with him. Seeing as he is only 12 weeks old that was not happening. It was oh so sweet though.

My wish for you is that you keep these wonderful traits that you have already developed before you are even one year old. I hope you are kind and respectful and put other before yourself. I hope you take after your daddy and put your family first. As your mommy I promise to do everything I can to help you to be happy and healthy and to be a positive example for you.

No post is complete without a couple of pictures! xoxox


This one cracks me up, you do this all the time!



SWEET SWEET BABY



Hi Bowen! This picture makes me excited for you to have a sibling one day!

Umm...Cuteness overload.



Contentment

Hi! My It has been a while. It's hard to find time to get it all in with work, baby, family, personal and down time which kind of leads me to what I would like to write about. This is my blog so I can write about anything right? Of course it will have some new pics of baby J in it too. I titled the blog contentment because as I told my sister in law the other day I have reached whole new levels of it lately. It's so easy to get wrapped up into wanting more, I would be happy if I lived in this house, or in this city or if I had this car or this dress but then once we get it there is always something else. It's nice to kind of resign yourself to those thoughts and take a look around at what you do have and just smile. I've been trying hard to do that lately. I have a healthy loving family, a roof over my head, a job and the sweetest baby to every be born and I never want to look back and say I took that time in my life for granted. So I'm not.

The internet can be a wonderful, amazing thing but in this day and age of oversharing it can also make you feel kind of....less than. Pinterest has shown me how unorganized I really am and how to play with my 8 month old 100 different ways in one week. I have to laugh at some of it though because for those of us scowering these sights or even posting them your baby is watching you on the computer and wishing you were not. ;) I AM NOT JUDGING, see I'm online right now (he's napping) but I will find myself looking at websites on how to entertain my infant as he's crawling up to me and making noises to get my attention. All he wants for me to do is pay attention to him. So that's what I will do. :)

We have done lots of fun stuff lately, let's post some pics now!



You are very happy sans clothing!



Water Babies! You love it





 



I had your pictures taken, they all are adorable just like you

 


See...

 

First 4th of July Party







Hahah I love this picture it looks like you are begging me to stop working.



You grew a mustache!

Full on starting to terrorize Lily...



Flew to Cincinatti for Danny's graduation, wow what a trip. Lots of travelling in a short amount of time. Here you are laying in the foyer of the auditorium. Ay ya yay that was a long day. But you did it and I love you and I'm glad we went.

Love Love Love

You are very happy to see bear :)

A very important member of our family came into the world Bowen A Durham (aka your future PIC)

We hung out at the beach!

 and because I am super impressed and so happy about my corner shelf custom built by my uber talented husband and wait for it, wait for it...

 It lights up! He cut holes in the bottom shelf and middle support shelf and strung rope lights around the interior. The ottoman is covering the cord on the left. It turned out great!
Ok now I saved the very best for last.....YOU ARE CRAWLING and I got your first stretch on video! I'm worried you think are dog since are crawling for the cage with a toy in your mouth, o well still cute!!!!!

I am aware that I write this speaking to anyone in general reading and to Jonathan and that is probably not the correct way to prose and blog but it's mine so I get to. Hopefully it won't take me 2 months to give another update. ;)

6 Months of LOVE

Oh my I cannot believe our sweet baby boy is already going to be 6 months old! This post is going to be full of pictures chronicling the past couple of months and basically me going on and on about how wonderful and happy we are so I apologize in advance for the sap....but I just can't help it!

Ok where to start, it's been a while... You had your first Easter! It was fun and you were good, you are making church harder and harder though. Right when Pastor Doug starts preaching you become pretty vocal, we have spent a great deal of time in the foyer. The nursery may be in your near future ;) You need to meet other babies right?! Don't worry if you don't like it I'll either sit in there with you or take you right out of there!

I get really happy when you smile ;)

Our happy Family, Easter Sunday 2012

We also took your pictures in the bluebonnets, well kind of. It was really sunny and you hated that so we got a couple of shots and gave up.



You are very very active and I swear you want to walk before you crawl. Your little legs are so strong, you kick anything in reach, including Lily....poor lily. Don't worry all you dog lovers out there, I quickly move her out of the way. Here you are trying to stand in your crib like the etrade baby.

A couple of other firsts from this past month....Your First Baseball Game! The Frisco Rough Riders, you made your debut on the big screen and you got your very first foul ball, I'll do my absolute best to keep this forever.

 FOOD! You are finally digesting something other than breastmilk! Your very first food was oatmeal cereal and sweet potatoes!

Someone is EXCITED!!! This is at Grandma's, she was so excited for you to eat she woke up and went out and got you a high chair for her house! We all stared at you while you ate like you were the very first kid to eat sweet potatoes, ever. Aside from your first meal I have been making all of your baby food, I surprised myself with this one but I am actually really enjoying it. There is something very gratifying about picking out your organic fruits and veggies myself, and cooking them up for you in my own kitchen. For any moms reading this and rolling there eyes at me right now I will take a side track and remind you of my schedule and job which allows me more time for this. Don't hate me! If you are thinking about doing it and are unsure, it is way easier than you think, I promise!

And now a first for me....you gave me the joy of celebrating my first mother's day! Your daddy outdid himself as usual with my gift, he got me a mosaic picture of me holding you made up of teeny tiny pictures of our first days with you.

If you are half as good to your wife one day as he is to me she will be one lucky lady, so take notes my son ;) We had a wonderful mother's day weekend spent with all the mom's! We went to stay at Grandmas which meant lots of grandma, Nana, aunt and uncle time and relaxation time for your's truly...

Can you tell we loooooove taking pictures of your sweet face?

Last but not least....your first concert! We went to the Wildflower Festival to celebrate Jason's 40th bday. You were super tired when we got there and your daddy and I were terrified we would park, pay, get there and have to leave but you did great, you even fell asleep to the music blaring and then woke up super happy while everyone passed you around and loved on you. When were leaving I had you in the hippie wrap and some strange lady asked if she could take our picture. So when she is showing people here pictures her friends will say, "who is that?" and she will say, "I have no idea" Yes, you are just THAT cute. I'm so proud to be your mamma.

 Your uncle Joshy is giving me a death stare in this one...but you look cute!

 Mommy and Daddy chillaxin with lots of babysitters on hand...

 More lovin!

My little cutie pie. xoxo

Stop Growing!!!

Not really, keep growing it means you're healthy! I'm so thankful for that every day I look at you and stare into those deep blue eyes. You are such an absolute joy right now at 4 months and 3 weeks old. It is fascinating to watch you learn how to use your hands and feet and even your voice. Even though you cannot talk yet you sure do know how to get our attention. If I didn't believe in God before you came along I sure would be a believer now.
I just read back to my earlier blogs and laughed. Things are much more calm now, I can't remeber life without you and I don't really want to. You are on a pretty consistent schedule of Eat, Play, Sleep every 3 hours and then we put you to bed around 10. You are sleeping in your crib now! You love it in there and it was an easy transition. Somewhat, we slept in the guest room for 2 nights bc it's right next door and I may have stared at the video monitor all night long. I read a lot on transitioning your baby into the crib and everything listed two methods a.)cry it out method & b.) no cry method. Guess which one I chose? B! This clearly states that it is more difficult on the caregiver who decides to use this method bc it involves getting up to soothe you when you wake up at night. Well that's me and if it means you are comfortable and happy I will gladly sacrifice my sleep. Cry it out method said awful things about babies feeling abandoned and scared and I'm just not ready for you to feel those emotions quite yet..or ever. Ok I know I'm not naive I know they will come soon enough but for now, while I can, I just want to make things as good as possible for you, my angel. I will also say that I have a pretty low stress job and do not have to report to an office at 8am so hard nights are much easier for me to cope with than normal working moms. I am very very lucky and try not to take it for granted. So if there are any moms out there who are all for the crying method than by all means, to each is own and I absolutely mean that. One of the hardest things about being a new mom is other people's judgement and I am definitely not here to do that!

In this picture I imagine you saying, "Mommy, please don't use the cry it out method" haha

And then in this one you are saying, "YAY, thanks for not using that method"

You are so stinking cute!

Point of View

Oh my...as usual forever since my last post. I spoke with my cousin Katie last weekend and she told me about her friend who created a blog using the perspective of the baby which I thought was a super cute idea so we are going to give it a shot:


Accoring to Jonathan:
Today I am 3 months and 3 weeks old, I am slowly getting used to this new world. I think I like it. My absolute favorite person in the world is my mommy. (haha- Daddy when you write a blog you can change this). She takes such good care of me and tells me how wonderful, cute, sweet and adorable I am all day long. She also kisses me like a thousand times a day. I know that one day this will drive me nuts but I cannot get enough love right now. She really sucks at changing my clothes though. Why in the world does she put clothes on me just to see what they look like and not because I will actually be wearing them? I think I have made my message loud and clear that I hate this. I don't understand why I have to wear clothes at all? I'm definitely the happiest when I'm in my birthday suit. O well, I still love my mommy soooooo much. I love my daddy too, I love talking to him in our secret languange and I love when he picks me up really high. I don't like to look at him though especially when he holds me. It drives him crazy and makes mommy laugh. Here's a video of me doing this:

Lots has happened since mommy blogged last. I decided to stop torturing her and sleep through the night. 3 1/2 months seemed long enough. I now give her a good 7 hours and a couple of naps a day. She seems to be a little more sane now and less emotional. I bet Daddy is happy. You are welcome Daddy!

Last Sunday they took me to this big room where everybody sings and stands and sits and a man held me and dripped water on my head then he walked me all around the room so people could look at me. Then we went out to eat with a bunch of people and I slept while everyone ate.

                                                        Jonathan Grant White baptized 3.11.12

I'm pretty sure there are a lot of people that love me. I have a grandma and a nana that just can't seem to get enough of me. They tell me how loved I am and all of the stuff they are going to do with me when I'm bigger. My auntie sharon said she is going to take me for drinks on a patio and mommy said not for a long time. I guess they are not talking about milk. Here are the things I hear people say the most:

"He loves to lie on the floor"
"He moves his legs so much"
"He loves his bath, he is so good"
"He is so smart"
"He loves his crib"
"He sure is gassy"

....just to name a few. Mommy started working this week but she not upset becsause she gets to work from home and when she will have to go out to stores grandma is going to take really good care of me. Overall I am just a really happy baby and when I smile at my mommy she says it's the best feeling in the entire world. I would say it's better out here than in her tummy. xoxo

Here I am looking super cute laying in mommy and daddy's bed before I went to sleep. They let me hang with them before I go to my bed. I love this...