Thanksgiving 2008

We had a BUSY Thanksgiving!  There was still so much of our family that hadn't met Joshua, that we ended up going to all four family get-togethers.  It started out early Thursday morning.  We left our house in Holly Springs and headed to Charlotte to celebrate with my dad's family.  My uncle Linn couldn't wait to meet Joshua, and it was so sweet seeing them together for the first time.  We got to eat a yummy lunch at Myers Park Country Club in Chalotte with them.  My cousin Scott's little boy, Wyatt, was so cute and helpful with Joshua.  We only get to see that side of the family a few times a year, so we really enjoyed spending time with them.  We left Charlotte and headed to Albemarle to see Derek's mom's family.  Derek's cousin's children, J. and Ali were so cute with Joshua.  Ali is four, and she kept saying how handsome Joshua was and how much he liked her.  They took turns holding him, and passed him back and forth 5 or 6 times.  After Albemarle we headed to Concord to visit with some of my mom's family.  Granny (my grandmother) just can't get enough of our little man.  She always says that it is impossible to look at him and not smile.  (I have to agree!)  From Concord we went to Belmont to celebrate with Derek's dad's family and eat dinner with them.  We don't get to see that family very much, so it was definitely a good time.

It was a great day!....an exhausting day, but a good one!  We totaled up our time in the car on Thanksgiving, and it added up to about six and a half hours.  Joshua was wonderful all day.  He went with the flow all day long, took naps in the car, and was still smiling at the end of the day!

We took it easy the rest of the weekend, spending time with some friends we don't see very often.  On Sunday morning we went to Charlotte to spend some time with our friends Brooke and Jeremy.  Then on Sunday afternoon we went to Concord to see Ashley, Brandon, and the rest of the Cohens!  It was so great to see everyone!

This year we are so thankful for so many things, especially for our family and friends!  We are thankful that God has blessed us with a healthy and sweet baby boy!  We hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Joshua's First Beach Trip

The weekend before Thanksgiving we went down to Litchfield Beach in SC.  A friend of our's has a condo there and offered it to us for the weekend!  The weather was beautiful, but it was COLD!  YaYa was able to come stay for a night and play with Joshua.  She babysat while Derek and I went on a date!  Thanks mom!!!  It was a great weekend!

4 Month Stats

Look at me....posting this on the day of Joshua's appointment!!

He was a sweet sweet boy while we were at the doctor. Many people commented on his cuteness, and I have to agree! He is the most adorable little guy I've ever seen!! Everything went great at his appointment. He is healthy and is growing a lot! The doctor couldn't hear his heart murmur that she heard at his 2 month appointment, so that was an answer to prayer. Here are his stats for 4 months (plus a week):

Weight: 15 lb 5.5 oz (about 60th percentile)

Length: 25 3/4 in (about 75th percentile)

Head Circumference: 16 1/2 in (about 50th percentile)

He screamed and his face turned bright red when they gave him his shots. Poor guy. He cried for maybe 5 minutes afterwards and then went to sleep on the way home. This afternoon he has been doing pretty well....even smiling and talking to mommy some!

I'll leave you with a picture of my cutie....

November Happenings

Here's what we've been up to in November so far....

The first weekend in November we spent some time in Concord and Albemarle and had a great time.  On Saturday we went to Holly and Ben's baby shower in Concord at Ashley's house.  Their little boy is due Christmas Day!!!  We cannot wait to meet him!  Hurry up Baby Wyke!!  Joshua is ready to play with his friend!!  The shower was a lot of fun!  We don't get to see those guys very often, so it's always a special treat to see them!  Joshua was for the most part on his best cute-as-can-be behavior.  Due to our running around everywhere he wasn't exactly on his normal schedule, so we had some fussy moments.  We also got to spend lots of time with my family that day!  It made for a great day!

(Holly, Ashley, Jenn, Erin and Joshua)

We spent that night in Albemarle, and on Sunday we celebrated Gaga's (Derek's dad) birthday with Derek's family!  Tabitha, Taylor and Riley were there.  That was only the second time we've seen those girls since Joshua was born, so it was especially nice to get to see them!  That was a wonderful way to finish up our weekend!!

(Grandma, Gaga, Joshua, Taylor and Riley)

(Joshua and the Birthday Boy)

This past weekend we didn't keep ourselves quite as busy.  Friday night Derek went bowling with the middle school youth leaders from our church, so Joshua and I went to hang out with my friend Jen while the boys were out.  Her husband is the middle school youth pastor.  He was in a fine mood when we got there, and for most of the night.  On Saturday Derek took him "camping" at Jordan Lake.  Okay, maybe they didn't so much go camping, but they did go visit some of his college friends who were camping at Jordan Lake.  Some of them hadn't met Joshua yet, so they had a lot of fun.  Our good friend Jeff Knapp came over for dinner on Saturday night!  It was so nice to see him, and we had a great time!  Thanks for coming, Jeff!!  He and Derek even pulled out the ping pong table that has been out of commission for a long while and played a few games.

Joshua will be 4 months old on Wednesday!  I can't believe my baby is growing up so quickly.  Sometimes it's hard to remember when he was a tiny little newborn.  We're really enjoying the stage he's at right now, though!  He is full of smiles and laughter all the time!  He wants to roll over so badly.  He is so close from going from his back to his tummy.  He gets over on his side and then just hangs out that way.  With just a tiny nudge he goes on over to his tummy.  It won't be too much longer before he does it completely on his own!  He did "accidentally" roll over from his tummy to his back on Wednesday (the 5th) last week.  He did it at Nichole's house....yay for him, sad for mommy.  She said she put him down on his tummy for just a minute and when she turned around he was on his back!  I wrote this post last night and was still bummed about not seeing him roll over and then this morning while Joshua was throwing a small fit (I think he had gas) we put him on his tummy and he rolled over to his back twice!!

We go to the doctor next week for his 4 month appointment.  I can't wait to see how much he weighs and how long he is.  He has grown a lot from his 2 month appointment and is just so big now.  I'll post his stats next week (hopefully!).

Check out our flickr page for more pictures.  I'll try and do better with posting, but I can't make any promises.  Until next time.....whenever that is.....

October Happenings

Sorry for the lack of posts.  I have a hard time finding enough time to sit down and write.  Plus our computer died a few weeks ago, so we had to get the hard drive replaced.  The sad part about that is that we lost some of our pictures.  Luckily, many of them were on our flickr page, so it wasn't a total loss.  Here's a run down of what we were up to in October....

Derek's birthday was October 15th, so we spent the Saturday before his birthday in Albemarle.  His mom cooked a huge lunch that was so yummy!  YaYa (my mom) got to come see us in Albemarle and spend some time with our little man, so it was a really fun day!

Joshua turned 3 months old October 12th, and we went and had some pictures taken.  They turned out so so cute!  As soon as we scan them I will post the two pictures we bought. (I know, I know.....we've had them for weeks and they still aren't scanned and saved to our computer.)

The weekend before Halloween we went to the fall festival at our church, Hope Community Church.  Joshua was the cutest pumpkin around!  We got to see lots of friendly faces there!  Here are a couple.....

(Jason, Evan, Joshua and Derek)

(Derek, Joshua, Greg and Ayden)

Road Trip

On Wednesday of last week Joshua and I embarked on a road trip for the day.  We stopped in Albemarle and got to visit with Grandma, Gaga, Aunt Pam, Ma and Poppy!  Grandma treated us to lunch at Rosebriar!!  I haven't had their Reese's Pie in sooo long.  It was such a wonderful treat!!  Thanks Grandma!  After our visit in Albemarle we headed to Concord.  We stopped by Yaya's (my mom) school so that she could show Joshua off to all of her co-workers.  They all seemed to enjoy meeting him.  Then we stopped and got a real Cherry Lemon Sundrop before heading to Granny's house!  We surprised Granny with our visit b/c my mom had not told her we were coming to town.  She was so happy to see us she almost cried!  We also got to visit with Aunt Angel and cousin Courtney before heading back home.  It was an exhausting day but was well worth it!  We so enjoyed seeing everyone.  I just wish Derek could have come with us.  And sadly, we will not be able to do that again for a long time as I have to go back to work on Monday (the 6th).  I am so sad to be leaving my little man.  We have had such fun these last twelve weeks that I've been able to stay at home with him.  I hate to have to go back to work, but I am so thankful that I got off as long as I did.  I'm sure I'll shed some tears on Monday as I leave him for work.  We're leaving him in good hands, though.  Our friend Nichole is going to be keeping him at her house with her little boy.

Joshua is such a sweet and fun little boy.  We are so blessed to have him!  He will be 12 weeks old tomorrow and is still growing like a weed.  He smiles so much now!  My favorite thing he does now is if I stick my tongue out at him he'll copy me and stick his out!  I know I'll regret encouraging this one day, but for now it is just so cute!

Check out our flickr page for pictures from our road trip!

Catching Up!

Sorry for the lack of posts.  I don't really have an excuse other than the fact that I'm a busy mommy :).  I'll give a quick update of the last few weeks.

In my last post I mentioned we were going to take Joshua to meet some family.  He ended up meeting more family than we were thinking, and it was a great weekend!  He got to meet both sets of his great-grandparents; his aunt Tabitha, uncle Ben, and cousins Taylor and Riley; lots of extended family; and some great Concord friends at Ashley's house!  Derek's Mema and PopPop (Joshua's great-grandparents) were gracious enough to let us spend the night with them and share some great quality time with them!  Joshua even got to go meet his great aunt Pam in the hospital!  Needless to say, we were very busy.  It was so good to get to see all of those people, but we wish we would have had more time to spend with each of them.

(Riley, Taylor and Joshua)

Since then he's just been busy learning and growing.  He absolutely LOVES his playmat!  He is getting so good at swatting at the toys and squealing with delight!  I just love watching him play.  He is starting to outgrow some of his clothes (mostly newborn) and is fitting in more of his 0-3 month clothes now.  I'm not sure why he's not outgrowing his 0-3 month clothes b/c he's gotten SO BIG!  You'll see what I mean when I post his 2 month stats.  He has also started sleeping for longer stretches at night!  Yay!  That makes mommy and daddy very happy.  The longest he's gone is 6 hours between feedings, which means we still have to get up at least once during the night, but that's not bad.  He definitely doesn't do that every night.  Most nights he has about a 5 hour stretch between feedings for the first leg of his night, and then goes 4 or 3 hours between the next one (or two).  Last week he came down with his first cold (sort of).  That night he woke up every hour!  Not good for mommy and daddy.  The next morning when we got up we realized he was completely congested along with lots of coughing and sneezing.  He was pitiful and slept most of the day once I put him in his bouncy seat where he was more upright.  He still has some congestion, sneezing and coughing, but sounds much better and is acting like himself again.  He absolutely hates the nasal aspirator that we use to suck the snot out of his nose, but it brings him relief so we'll keep using it.  He is such a sweet boy.  His mommy sure does love him, and I think he feels the same way about her!  He's also crazy about his daddy!  His face lights up with a big smile when daddy comes home from work and plays with him.  We are so blessed to have such a great little boy!

Joshua went to his first NC State game two weeks ago!  He did great, and we were able to stay for the entire game!  Thank you to our friends Jeffrey and Jenn who invited us to go!

(Jeffrey, Jenn, Erin, Joshua and Derek)

Last Friday we had dinner with the Deans and the McLendons.  The Deans were great hosts!  Kara and Alisa sure did enjoy holding our little guy!  He didn't seem to mind all of the attention, and even though he hadn't been feeling that great all day he was on his best behavior!  We had a blast hanging out with some good friends!  It had been a while since we had all gotten together, so it was fun to catch up.

Mommy update.....on Monday of this week I woke up feeling awful.  I had no energy, terrible body aches and just felt yucky.  That lasted throughout the day and into the night.  By the time we went to bed Monday night I couldn't get comfortable and even though I was exhausted I couldn't go to sleep.  At midnight I woke up throwing up, which continued until Tuesday morning (too much information, I know).  Derek stayed home from work to take care of Joshua and me, and he was awesome!  We are very fortunate to have him.  I was totally bummed b/c Joshua's 2 month check up was on Tuesday, and I had been looking forward to sharing all of my concerns and asking his doctor all of the questions I had.  I also wanted to be there for my baby when he got his shots.  Derek ended up taking him, so I wrote down everything I wanted to talk to the doctor about.  By Wednesday morning I was feeling much better, although even today I don't feel 100% better.  Thank you Derek for everything you did for us!

Now on to Joshua's 2 month check up.....

I knew he had been eating a lot and always seemed hungry, but I wasn't quite prepared for what that amounted to.  He weighed 12 lbs 11 oz - 75th percentile!!!  No wonder my arm gets tired carrying him around all day.  He was 23 inches long - 50th percentile and his head was in the 50th percentile.  He got 3 shots and one oral vaccine.  Derek said he let out a brief scream and went right to sleep when he put him back in his car seat.  He was a little fussy b/c his legs were sore from the shots Tuesday night.  Today he is totally back to normal....he is such a little trooper!

Derek left us this morning for a guys weekend at the beach.  We are going to miss him lots while he is gone, but we hope he has a great time!

I think that is it.  If it's not I'm not writing anymore!...I think my baby wants my attention.

Happy Birthday to our nephew AND niece!

Happy 3rd birthday Hudson!  Technically it isn't August 21st yet here in America, but it is in Thailand right now.  I can't believe he's already three years old!

Also, happy birthday to our newest niece....Kathryn Marie Taylor!  That's right....Hudson and his new sister have the same birthday!  Pamela had her at about 12:40 am on the 21st in Thailand!!  (That would be this afternoon on the 20th here.)  Congratulations David and Pamela!!  We are so excited and can't wait to meet her!

5 1/2 Weeks Old

Our sweet little boy is almost 6 weeks old.  Time is flying!  A lot has changed since the last post.  Joshua is getting so big.  It seems like he's getting longer, but I think it's just that he isn't scrunched up in the fetal position anymore.  He is also getting some chub on him.  That could be because he wants to eat so much!  He has started smiling some.  It's awesome!  I just love it when his whole face lights up when he smiles!  It melts my heart.  He definitely still rules our household.  The world seems to revolve around him.  He determines our schedule and what we do each day.  I still haven't learned how to keep up with every day chores and cleaning the house having him around, but we don't mind that for now.  I guess when the house gets too bad we'll have to do something about it.  He has been staying awake a lot more during the day, and he loves to play on his play mat.  I have ventured out several times with him by myself.  It's been really nice to get out of the house.  Joshua hasn't met some of his great-grandparents or his aunt Tabitha's family, so this weekend we are going away over night for the first time to see them.  It should be an adventure!  That's all I have time for right now.  We will try and update the flickr page with some new pictures soon!

Three Weeks Old

Joshua will be 3 weeks old tomorrow! Time is flying by, and he is growing up so much already. We spend most of our days and nights eating a lot and sleeping a little. He is a good and very sweet baby. We really enjoy having him around! He has had lots of visitors since we've been home and is loved by so many people.

At his 2 week appointment on Monday he was already up to 7 lbs. 6 oz. and measured 20 1/2 in. long. He's in the 15th percentile for weight and the 40th percentile for height. He's learning to hold his head up some and staying awake more each day. Be sure to check our flickr page often for up-to-date pictures.....that will probably be updated more than the blog. It's time to eat again so this sleepy mommy must go for now.