Closing out 2013

As my Mom often reminds me, I am way behind on writing my blog post. This one ought to be a doozy since we have been insanely busy for the last couple months. In mid-November my good friend Camie came to town and we went to the Baylor/Tech football game. I sure had missed that girl and meeting her sweet family was so much fun! We had to teach the kids how to do a Sic’em, it’s a Baylor tradition! Then came Thanksgiving… all 3 of them! We had a dinner Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday with different parts of our family. Weston was battling a fever but still managed to say “DaDa” for the first time (he’s saving the best for last).

After Thanksgiving we began preparing for the Christmas marathon celebration. We spent an awesome 5 days in Arizona with my family. Weston was once again battling sickness (dang daycare!) but did better the last few days. We celebrated Christmas early there, and he got his first stocking and unwrapped his first present. He was pretty uninterested in the wrapping paper but thought Uncle Nick’s plastic cups were the best thing ever. We also managed to squeeze in Zoo Lights, the family Christmas party, and visiting my bestie’s new house. Once we were home, we had our celebration with my Mom and Doug followed by our celebration with Matt’s family. Our house looked like Toys R Us had exploded inside.

Watching the ducks with Pop Pop.

He may or may not be a bit spoiled.

Since then we have celebrated our friends Kevin and Claudia’s first anniversary, New Year’s Eve, and Matt’s mom’s 50th birthday. This weekend is our niece’s 5th birthday party! Whew!

Weston is 7 months old now. I’m growing ever confident that God gave me the happiest baby he ever made. West loves everything and everyone, but especially loves baths, strawberries, standing up, bouncing, and his Daddy’s scratchy kisses. He calls everything “DaDa” and claps his hands in delight. He has discovered the ability to fake laugh and does it quite frequently (he’s a nut). Most of the time when he’s sitting, he crosses his right foot over his left foot- never the other way around. I find it adorable. We started swim lessons again and we were able to join a class with my friend Natalie and her daughter Hailie. These babies are destined to be friends! Weston still hasn’t shown much interest in crawling so I am definitely procrastinating on our baby proofing. I am sure it will bite me in the tush one day when I wake up to a mover.

Starting swim lessons at a new place!

It’s pretty amazing how proud I can be of a baby. In all reality, he eats, poops, plays, and sleeps but in between he finds ways to make me incredibly proud. My dream for him is just that he enjoys life. As a kid, I was always the cautious and overly responsible one. I hardly went out, rarely drank (although there is one story my mom loves to tell!), and got anxiety at the thought of making a B. Even now, this is something I struggle with. There is some upside to that I suppose but I’ve also missed out on a lot. I played it too safe. I want Weston to graduate high school with an overflowing bank of memories. I want him to be confident and unafraid. I want him to take chances. I want him to have more friends than he has time for. This isn’t to say that I want him to skimp out on his responsibilities just that I want him to have a solid balance of work and play. It’s hard to tell what his personality is going to be so early, but if the last 7 months is any indicator, he’ll have no problems with any of it. I gave birth to a social butterfly. He’s never met a stranger. “Mom? Who’s that? I want the stranger that just walked in the room.” When other Moms go in to daycare, Weston smiles and lifts his arms up as if he’s saying “No, No! Pick me!” I love that he doesn’t need me around to be happy, though at some point we will have to discuss stranger danger. He just seems to love his baby life. I know personalities can change quickly in babies but for now, I’m pretty confident Matt and I nailed it with this kid. Perfect 10.

We did a trial day at Gymboree. We're going to hold off until he's a bit older.

I don't remember what this was for but I sure love him!

Matt and I bought our house in December of 2011 and I never put a single thing up for "decor" in our guest room. Decorating is not my strong suit. The barren walls have always overwhelmed me... where to begin? Well, I finally decided! I started with a headboard. Being the penny pincher that I am, I wasn't about to throw down $300 for a stinking headboard so I decided to make one. Of course, it's not perfect but I am pretty dang pleased! There's lots more I want to do for the room so whenever I finish it (it could be months), I'll post a picture of it all together. Here is the finished headboard. I spent right at $150 (including the jigsaw I had to buy!).