Ho Ho Ho!

Jake met Santa for the first time today at the Mall. Jonesa and I took him to visit Santa and of course succumbed to the overpriced photos of Jake with Jolly Ol' Saint Nick. He went right to Santa when he saw him and did great until the end when I guess he realized he was sitting on a stranger's lap and let out a big scream. Jake is definitely developing a bit of a temper these days. He gets bored in his stroller easily and is not quite so easy to take shopping. At night he's been extremely cranky. He is cutting his top two teeth and I'm sure that has quite a bit to do with it. I also realize I've had it so easy until now and I was due for some long bouts of crying. Jake used to go straight down to bed without any struggle. Now, he wants me to rock him for about an hour before he'll go to sleep. With his surgery coming up so soon, I don't honestly mind. I enjoy the time with him as he snuggles close to me. They say there is a bit of an adjustment period after the surgery before we will get our routine back. After he's all fixed up and back home, I will just have to let him cry it out in his crib. Until then, I'm afraid he's going to be spoiled at night. The last picture below is of Jake looking up at me as he pulled up on the sofa last night. He was wearing his "big boy" pajamas his Aunt Destin got him and he looked so cute. He's walking around the coffee table and walking the length of the sofa. I'm told he will have much more energy after the surgery. He's already very active so I can't wait to see how fast he'll get then. I guess maybe I can finally lose that last 10 pounds chasing after him :)

Happy Thanksmas!

For the past five holiday seasons that Ty and I have been married we have alternated spending Thanksgiving and Christmas with our respective families. The first year we had Thanksgiving in Conroe with Al and Jonesa, Jonesa decided we should do Christmas too since we wouldn't all be together for Christmas and this affectionately became called "Thanksmas." We have Thanksgiving on Thursday and all of the turkey we can eat and then Friday we have Christmas and exchange gifts. On the years we're in Oklahoma with my family we do the same. This year we ate all of the turkey that we could, had long naps, drank lots of coffee, watched some great football games, and stared at Jake...He provided hours of entertainment for all of us. Here is the photo story of our holiday:

Jake donned his Thanksgiving bib and learned he really loved hot rolls and didn't prefer the turkey and vegetable baby food. Although to his credit, the turkey baby food did not smell too great and the hot rolls were delicious!

Jake watched a lot of football over the past few days. Here he is taking in the Cowboy's game with Uncle Mark. I dressed him in his OU outfit for Saturday and that must have been good luck since the Sooners rolled over OSU.

On Friday we dressed Jake in this reindeer outfit and Santa hat. He does not look too pleased in this photo, but honestly enjoyed opening his gifts. He playing with the wrapping paper the best.

Here Jake is on the hippo his Jo Mama and Papa Al got him. He can also use this as a walker and got to be very fast walking it around the house. He learned how to use it very quickly and we loved watching him explore this new found freedom.

At this point Jake has had too much holiday fun and is enjoying sleeping with Jo Mama. We were actually having a family sing-a-long here. Ty, Destin, Al, and Mark played their guitars as Jonesa and I sang along (mostly Jonesa!). It was a wonderful weekend and we can honestly say we are thankful for family!

It's the Little Things

It's the little things in life that make me smile. We had a delightful time this weekend just spending time together as a family. We ate at our favorite local Mexican restaurant on Friday night and had a lesisurely Saturday around the house. Saturday night Jonesa and Al kept Jake for us so Ty and I could go on a date. We dropped Jake off at their house and went to the movies in Conroe. Jake had a great time playing outside in the leaves and watching his Papa Al work in the yard. Jake definitely loves the outdoors! I absolutely LOVED the movie Ty and I saw--Dan in Real Life with Steve Carell. First of all, we both are Steve Carell fans from our much beloved TV show, The Office. This wasn't really a comedy although he had some really funny lines. It wasn't really a tearjerker drama either. It was exactly what the title says--real...about a real family. Ty decided I needed to get out more after I went on and on about how fun it was to be at a movie theater eating popcorn. He also thinks I'm way too dramatic since I declared this to be one of my top five favorite movies of all time. Apparently, according to him, I always say this after movies. This one was different--I really did LOVE it. Maybe I am a bit too dramatic at times though.

My dramatic nature leads me to my next story about our weekend. Sunday after church, Ty was napping on the couch, and I had just fed Jake some baby food when Gilbert stole the baby food jar and ran behind the couch with it. As I was chasing Gilbert, I somehow stepped on a wasp. Now, I have no idea how the wasp got in our house, and I am VERY glad Jake did not find it. I have never been stung before. I chalk this up to being a city girl and growing up in the suberbs. Ty says there are wasps in the suberbs too...Well, after the sting, I woke Ty up with my yelling while Jake laughed hysterically and I hopped around the house. I called my mom for help only to find out they were having a nice Sunday lunch with my brother's family and my mom had made her famous hot rolls. This made me more mad since I was not there and had made grilled cheese sandwiches for lunch. She told me to put baking soda and meat tendorizer on my foot. This did eventually work and the pain subsided. (I'm beginning to think Sundays are cursed since last Sunday the kidney stone episode happened). Ty also made fun of me because I thought at first I had been stung by a bee. He thinks its very funny that I didn't know the difference between a bee and a wasp. I tried to explain that it was my first reaction to assume it was a bee since it stung. That's quite logical to me. He continues to laugh...

One more thing about the weekend that was not so good...OU lost to Texas Tech. I am now rooting for the Jayhawks...Go Kansas!

As far as Jake goes, he is continuing to be healthy and happy. Last week I was able to speak with another woman whose son had a similar surgery to the one Jake will be having. She was very helpful and I was able to wrap my mind around what will happen more. Our church has given us a prayer pager and people page us when they have prayed for Jake. This continues to be so encouraging to us. We have a wonderful church family. We are just anxiously awaiting the surgery, and continuing to enjoy our precious baby boy. I love the picture I posted today. To me, this one looks just like Ty!

A weekend road trip with a twist

Ty, Jake, and I ventured to his dad's house in Marshall, Texas this weekend. We knew with Jake's surgery coming up this would be the last time for quite awhile that we could visit them. Ty took off work on Friday so we got in late Thursday night. Ty was able to hunt on his dad's ranch both Friday and Saturday mornings and enjoyed being out in nature and out of the office. My sister-in-law, Jolie, took off work Friday so she and her daughter, Elsie Jane, could hang out with Jake and me. We took the kids to the park, out to lunch, and to shop downtown Marshall. Elsie Jane is 18 months and is already mothering Jake. She was very concerned all weekend with his pacifier. If he dropped it, she put it immediately back in his mouth. At lunch, Jake patted her arm and she patted his back and said, "careful." She is too cute. You can see the picture of the two of them above. Saturday evening Ty's brother Eric and his wife Jill had all of us over for dinner and to watch the LSU game. Dinner was wonderful and LSU obviously killed Louisiana Tech so Ty and his family were all happy about the game.

Sunday morning we loaded up and left Larry and Donna's to go visit Ty's aunt and uncle in Mooringsport, LA. On the way there I started feeling quite sick. Within a few minutes I realized that a dreaded kidney stone had returned to my body with a vengeance! I haven't had them for 5 years or so, but I definitely remember what they feel like. It definitely feels like labor except you don't get a beautiful baby as the end result. When we got to Kay and Kenny's, I pretty much just curled up in a ball on a bed and waited for some relief. Luckily, Ty's grandad had some pain medicine which helped the pain subside after an hour or so. I guess I've passed the stone because I felt fine a few hours later. I felt pretty silly about the whole incident and its definitely not how I wanted the weekend to end. Nevertheless, we did have a nice time and enjoyed spending time with family.

Jake was the star of the weekend of course. Below you can see him in the bathtub. Nonnie got out several bath toys, and Jake loved playing with the foam letters. There is also a picture of Jake with his Pops, and Jake and his Great-Granddaddy Cochran. I love that picture because they are smiling at each other and its so cute! He was mesmerized by Grandad's suspender straps.

Fun Photos

Our busy little boy

Jake went from crawling to pulling up rather quickly. The little guy is everywhere these days! Every morning he is standing in his crib waiting for me to pick him up and feed him breakfast. I snapped the above picture this weekend because he looks so cute standing there. Since he's fairly little, he does look like a doll (literally!). He found the stairs last week and is mesmerized by them. We have them gated, but this weekend we moved the gate to see what he would do. It turns out Jake can climb the stairs! I stood behind him and Ty stood at the top of the stairs and he had so much fun. We will definitely keep them gated at all times now. He pulls up on everything and now can walk the length of the coffee table by holding on to it. I would love so much for him to walk early because it would be great if he could walk before his surgery. He'll be delayed after his surgery for awhile so if he could do it before, he'd be ahead of the curve. Not to worry if he can't though...he'll catch up soon enough I know.

I did talk to one of his surgery nurses today. She confirmed that they will admit Jake the day before surgery for all of the pre-op testing and hopefully do the surgery first thing Tuesday morning. We can't be guaranteed a time until the day of because of possible emergency surgeries that could arise. She said she would send out a packet of information today and whatever questions it doesn't answer, I could call back and ask. Its only 5 weeks away now, but I'm actually feeling fairly relieved. He seems to be sweating so much more at every feeding ( a symptom of the hole in his heart). Watching him crawl everywhere, you would never know he had a problem, but the sweating is a reminder to me. I hate that he has to work so hard just to eat so I am thankful he will be "patched up" soon.

The pictures below are ones I snapped this morning. I promise I do dress my child most of the time! He just is quite hot natured so he roamed around in his diaper this morning :) The other picture is Jake with his Papa Al. Al and Jonesa stopped by for a visit on Saturday night to see Jake.