daddy's boy

taken by Freeland when River was 2 months old

Dont let the picture fool you. River is a daddy's boy through & through. He smiles the most, talks the most, laughs the most and is the most playful when Freeland is home. And I love it. Freeland can also calm him down 1000x's better than I can. Well, except for the fact that I have ummm milk.. that always does the trick. But without that I can never calm River down. Freeland on the other hand.. just holds him & sings and boom.. he is calm. Its sweet.

I think River may be starting to get teeth. maybe? I have no idea. It started with the drool. Tons of Drool. But now its moved onto a rash on his face from so much drool, diarrhea, wanting everything in his mouth, (especially our fingers) and then the last few nights he has been up every 3-4 hours all the sudden. (this could also be because of the cursed swaddle though)  Oh and yesterday while River was "chewing" my finger it felt like his gums were harder.. as if there were teeth in there about to pop out?

But when I look in his mouth, I see nothing.

So who knows. Guess he could get teeth any day now or it could be a while. He isn't screaming in pain & doesn't look like it hurts him so maybe he is just a drooly baby who wanted to keep me up all night because he loves seeing me. I did have a dream last night that he woke up with all his teeth in & I freaked out. hmmmm...

Did I mention that we put River in the church nursery for the first time last Sunday? We did. It was heart breaking to leave him. I mean Im fine leaving him with Freeland. Ive been away from him. The same, Im fine leaving him with friends.. but for whatever reason it felt much harder leaving him in the nursery. And we made the HUGE rookie mistake of turning around and looking back at him as we walked out! (word of advice: don't ever do that. it makes everything so much harder!) He was fine. It was just an hour. They said he didn't fuss or cry at all. But it was the longest hour.

I think it was harder for us because we are starting to look at day cares. And this was just the start of us getting used to dropping him off for the entire afternoon somewhere else. I think I need to start praying for strength to be able to do that right now because it raises my blood pressure and makes me feel all sorts of anxiety just thinking about it. :)

And in other news we took River to his first Major League Baseball game last night.  It was also his first mini-road trip. (2 hours to Cleveland and 2 hours back) I'll have to post some pictures. But we are proud that his first game was watching the Yankee's play. (too bad A-rod didn't hit his 600th home run while we were there! that would have been fun to see in person)

Looking forward to this weekend. I feel like this has been the looooongest week ever.

belly laughs

here is a video of the sweetest noise ever

Sometimes he laughs more than this (other times he just stares at us making fools of ourselves) but this is the best Ive been able to actually get on camera.

He just woke up from a nap so he still had his little swaddle/sleep sack on..



and here he is rolling over the other week. (I know most people could care less to watch this but I figured our moms would want to watch it)



so okay really he just falls over but still.

this time last year

I wanna be a cowboy baby

please enjoy not only the friggin cutest cowboy I have ever seen ..

but also the many faces that our sweet River makes daily:











and my personal favorites:

4 generations of family

how special to have these pictures. 4 generations all together. So sweet.



ignore that it looks like Im grabbing his neck

also: those of you who thought I look just like my dad. Crazy how I also look just like my mom & nana too huh? Actually my entire life my nana & dad have "discussed" (all in good fun) multiple times who I look the most like. They tell me its been a discussion since I was born. I will say its pretty funny to listen to them go back & forth about it. (I personally think it just depends on who Im standing next to)




River & his nana




freeland, nana, & River.



and just for fun. River loves to be held like this:


it really is so special to me that River gets to know his great grandparents. Im looking forward to him meeting my other grandma, my  pop, carl and the rest of our family in Texas too. Hopefully soon! (before he graduates high school at least!) Just Kidding!

River meets Oliver for the first time

First of all .. more exciting news: my step-brother is engaged! Although we couldn't be there to witness & celebrate the engagement (im not bitter) Im still SO excited for him and his fiance!! I somehow haven't met her yet (since Hello.. we live on the other side of the country from Arkansas) which makes me sad because by the time Freeland & I got engaged I felt like Andrew new him pretty well. But hopefully when we make it back to Texas we can all hang out.

Second, we've been working on Oliver getting more used to babies. And by working on it I mean: we make Oliver sit on the ground and proceed to put River all over him.. put his feet in Oliver's face.. let him "walk" on his back.. knock him around.. grab his nose etc. etc. etc. That may sound mean.. but lets remember Oliver is like 200+ pounds and River is 12 something pounds. And Oliver needs to learn now that River is in charge of him.. he isnt in charge of River. (remember 200lbs vs. 12lbs)

to preface: Oliver is fine with kids. I hope Im not making it sound like he isnt.. he just gets spooked easily by them and walks away. We simply just want him to learn that kids arent going to hurt him.. he can sit still and doesnt have to walk away. that is all.

Im proud to say that Oliver now lets River do whatever. So hopefully when the day comes that River is crawling/walking & wants to pull his ear, tail, and bang on his paws Oliver will be ready. He was already better with Henry this weekend (meaning he didnt jump up and walk away when Henry walked towards him) so Im thinking he is starting to understand that little things arent going to hurt him.

I took some pictures the other night. Now that River is starting to stare at the dogs and watch them walk back and forth across the room its pretty cute. I feel like he is starting to "know" them more which we love. We put him in his bumbo so he could sit and see Oliver:

River.. meet Oliver. Oliver meet River:

Hello you huge dog

Oliver starts with smelling his foot:

thankfully they still smell like a baby and not little boy stinky feet

then he moves onto the head:



ahhh dad.. what is this thing?






why is it all up in my grill?

Oliver wouldn't stop sniffing all over his bald little head:


stare down :



then we moved over to Maddie (she is already a pro with kids for the most part):


Oliver got jealous and wondered why we moved away





this picture proves that while she will pay attention to you for a second.. in the end Maddie really only cares about Freeland:



cant wait for River to be able to climb all over them & actually play with them.

Rivers first time in the pool

granted it was just a blow up pool in our backyard

but it was still his first time swimming.

please tell me this isn't the cutest thing in the world:


Rivers "I just woke up" face

my mom bought him this swimsuit

so that's why we HAD to buy the pool - so he could use the swimsuit

get it?


still trying to figure out why we woke him up from a nap..

ps thats the most you will ever see of me in a swimsuit for the rest of my life I have decided. phew. 

pps: normally I would NEVER wake a baby up from a nap. NEVER. But we had to be somewhere and he was still napping so that is why. but its something I just want to throw out there: Im in the never wake up a sleeping baby fan club.


dont act too excited son.

getting in with dad:



playing with his bath toys:


that's the sun glaring on Freelands face if you were wondering

and my personal favorites.. this is what River did the rest of the time:


lounged in dad's lap like he owned the place



watch out ladies.

yesterday he went swimming with Henry. Ill have to upload those pictures asap. (meaning in  like 3 weeks)

our girls group slumber party

First of all .. most exciting news ever: ZACH & VANESSA ARE HAVING A BABY!!!

and they are finally sharing the news with the world. HELLO! I couldn't be more excited. (and sad that we are SO far away but still thankful I know our kids will still know each other regardless of how far apart we are) Look out world - if its a boy he will be the next Kobe Bryant! Congratulations friends!!! We love you guys.

Okay, You may remember back in the day when we had a slumber party at Sarah's house.

Well.. it was time to do it again. And of course.. Sarah set everything up & made it amazing.

This year it looked completely different since a few of us had to get back home to either a husband getting ready for boards, studying, or a baby who needed to be fed .. but it was still such a fun night & makes me wonder why we don't do it more often.


holy cow we had lots of yummy food


Sarah set up her living room with the air mattress ready for sleepin on.

after we ate TONS of pizza and snacked on all the other food we sat around and listened to a mix cd we all made. Too bad we don't have tape players anymore to do mix tapes! It was definitely fun trying to figure out who chose what song.

Then we made friendship bracelets like we did last time! (ps Sarah I left mine at your house!)

and then we spent the next hour prank calling everyone we knew:



we called Lauren, Sarah, & Elizabeth (all who used to live here and moved away because of rotations/residency) and then we moved on to husbands... brothers.. and even some of the girls moms!

It was HIIII-larious! If you received a call about a surprise play group that was listed on craigslist, joining the la leche league, or having a class reunion.. Im sorry.



after all that things got even more fun when Bethany pulled out the Wii! She brought over a dance game with her (im sorry I don't remember the name) But it was seriously SO fun (and a nice work out too) I will let the pictures speak for themselves:




























it was seriously exhausting!

forgot to mention.. there was one boy there:

mr. jackson

after we played a game (seriously again have no idea what it was called) but it was fun







and then I had to leave because I was afraid River would wake up at midnight and at the time Freeland had to be in the hospital at 6 in the morning so I didn't want him to have to wake up with him. What do you know though - I rush home and River didn't wake up! of course.

The sleepover was so much fun. Im so thankful for the close girlfriends that I have here & that even with a baby at home Im able to go enjoy nights like this still.