Ringing in the New Year

Our New Year's celebration might not be exciting like it was last year, but there is something to be said about relaxing at home with your loved ones, listening to your neighbors shoot fireworks, having your baby in your arms and your dog cuddled in your lap.

A perfect way to end the year:

Neil smiled at me, AT ME.  Not because he had gas or because he didn't know he was doing it, but in response to something I did.

Here is to many more smiles in 2012!

One Month of Madness

And by madness I mean total and absolute adoration.  Our little man is one month old today.  It has been quite the adjustment going from not having to baby to well...having a baby.  But this month really has flown by.  It seems like I was just being told it was time to push and now I have a baby that is growing like a weed.

About Neil at one month:
-Not quite sleeping through the night, but most of the time he is down to one wake up.  He is a pretty good sleeper with the exception of those nights that he things 3 am is play time, which it most certainly is not.
-Likes to be close to people.  He doesn't necessarily have to be held all the time, but he just wants you to be close to him.  He especially likes it when you get in his face.  The boy has no boundary issues.
-Uses the bathroom like a champ.  His favorite is to pee in his diaper, make you think he is finished and then pee on you.  Gotcha Mom!
-No more newborn clothes here, I think I have a future chubster on my hands.
-Likes his pacifier but can't quite figure out how to keep it in his mouth for very long.
-Has started getting control of his own head.  This makes trying to nurse him very interesting sometimes.
-He has discovered that he can control is legs as well.  This means that he loves to kick...anything in close proximity to him, including your face.
-Travels well (mostly).  Being a good car baby really is a blessing for us because with both of our families being 7 hours away, we spend a lot of time on the road.
-Very hot natured.  I always worried about not knowing how to dress a baby, but Neil definitely prefers not to be dressed at all, so that works out well for both of us.
-Started taking a bottle from Dad.
-Started taking naps in his crib.
-His favorite song is "Down by the Bay" sung by yours truly.

This kid never crys...I swear.  PSYCH!

I realize what I have turned into, a mommy blogger, that only manages to find the time to blog when she wants to talk about how cool or awesome or totally adorable her baby is.  *raises guilty hand* Yes...that's me.  I am sorry, but that is my life.  I wake up with the little guy in the morning and I go to bed with him at night.  One day I will get an adult life back and do cool things like drink to much and make bad decisions (kidding).

In the meantime I will enjoy being a mom.  Everyone always says it goes by so fast and we all know it is true, we don't have to be told.  In my opinion all good things in life go by way too fast!

My Boys

This is one of the things I love about being at home with my boys.  They both love to nap on me.  I can't wait for Neil to realize what an awesome big brother he has!

A Great Holiday Weekend

Today is the conclusion to a great holiday weekend.  Matt and I were lucky enough to host his family for Thanksgiving this year.  Having a one week old made being able to travel this year out of the question unfortunately, but his Mom and Dad, Sister, her husband, and their two little girls came all the way to TN to celebrate with us.  

Obviously Thanksgiving for Matt and I this year was even more special because it was the first holiday that we got to celebrate with Neil.  We had so much to be thankful for this year!

It kind of makes me sad to see this picture, because I was FOR SURE this outfit would be too big for him to wear at Thanksgiving and it wasn't.  It is true, they grow so fast!

Me and Neil

Our Thanksgiving Spread courtesy of Matt's Mom and Sister

Even Duece got a small Thanksgiving plate.  We are lucky that he has adapted to having Neil around so quickly! 

We went and checked out Christmas on the Cumberland after eating our yummy food.

And while I am a tried and true Southern Miss fan (even when they lose to UAB), I allowed my sweet baby to cheer for Mississippi State this weekend.  Thank you Uncle Bud for the camo State onesie, I guarantee he was the cutest state fan on Saturday!

Now that our weekend has come to an end, we are going to be venturing into uncharted territory.  Matt goes back to work tomorrow and all of our family is gone, so it will be just me and Neil during the day.  Matt is just one more thing that I was thankful for this year.  He has done such a great job at making the transition to parenthood easier for me, so we are really gonna miss him when he leaves in the morning!  Lets hope that Neil doesn't put on a show for me this week.

One Week Old

Yesterday my baby turned one week old. 

And he is still the cutest thing ever.  We have all settled in pretty well to having a baby at the house, but I would be lying if I didn't say it has been an adjustment.  The past week and the coming week we have and will be surround by our families, and it is fun to watch them love on Neil.  Also, many thanks to everyone that sent their love and congratulations to us.

At one week old, Neil likes:

-to pee on things, namely me and his dad

-to mess his diaper as soon as we change it

-to eat

-to hang out in his swing and the recliner with dad

I can't wait for the coming weeks that his personality really starts to develop!

Monkey Loo and a Baby TOO!

Well it is official...we have a baby!

After a long, long, long, (did I say long?) day Monday, Matt and I are now Dad and Mom to our sweet monkey.

Robert Neil Langford

November 14, 2011

11:40 pm

7lbs 1oz and 20 inches long

We have only had him for a short 18 hours but I have to say that he is the best baby.  He is so sweet, likes to be snuggled, and is incredibly alert with his deep grey eyes.  Matt and I are taking our time loving on him until we can bring him home!

Spoiling our only child

I have become super aware lately that our first child, Duece, will no longer be our only child.  It has been just Duece, Matt, and I for the last 3 years.  I think that my furry baby is going to handle the transition fairly well...as long as we remember to feed him and still let him snuggle with us at night.   

Matt and I decided that we would take him the Bark Park on Sunday in an attempt to have a family day.  I have a love/hate relationship with dog parks.  I feel like they can be compared to the first day of 6th grade for dogs.  Everyone is excited about the first day of school.  They don't want mom and dad following them around anymore.  They get more privileges and can explore on their own.  They meet new friends and bark about all the dog park gossip.  Then...the bully shows up.  There is always a bully at the dog park. 

Listen up fur parents:  Contrary to your beliefs, it is possible for your sweet angelic pup to be a bully.  If you have a bully dog and you insist on bringing them to the dog park, at least watch them.  Because if your cracked out crazy dog jumps up on my baby, I can not be held responsible for what happens to you.

It was pretty uneventful and this particular park is huge.  It is almost like a fenced in forest, which I think Duece loves even more because that is his natural element.

He explored in the trees, marking every single one of them.  I have no idea where he keeps all the pee, because he can just keep going and going.

Matt wanted to document that I do my "dooty" (see what I did there) and pick up after Duece.  My other dog park pet peeve, ppl not pickup up their dogs business.

Look who we saw here!  No not Beauf, but Duece loved him just the same.  Fred and his brother Wayland were the 2nd and 3rd cutest bassets we had ever seen.

"Just meeting some new friends mom."

We totally got photo bombed while Duece and I were trying to take a picture.  

My tired boy on the way home from his exciting adventure!

Bzzzz...here that? That is me, busy as a bee!

Nesting? You can call it that if you want to, but I really don't think it is.\

In my mind, nesting would be a total overhaul of my entire attitude (i.e. not wanting to lay on the couch and clean my baseboards instead...not gonna happen)  Never the less I have still been extremely busy these last two days cooking it away in my kitchen.  Just slap my butt and call me Betty Crocker!

If I wasn't pregnant, I probably wouldn't have put so much hard work into preparing meals in anticipation of Neil's arrival.  But alas, I am pregnant, and this baby is coming like a freight train that I can't stop.  Having some meals ready to go in the freezer made me feel like I wasn't going to leave Matt with a total crap shoot when it comes to cooking supper for me.

So what did I cook?  I will break it down for you, that way you can also appreciate my hard work.

Taco Soup (3 meals)

Broccoli Cheddar Soup (2 meals)

Creamy Potato Soup (2 meals)

Chicken Spaghetti (1 mean)

Turkey Burgers (6 patties/2 meals)

Mama's BBQ Chicken (2 complete slow-cooker meals)

Apple Pie Porkchops (1 complete slow-cooker meal)

Chicken Pot Pie Muffins (18 individual pot pies)

Blueberry Muffins (2 dz)

Sausage and Cheese Muffins (dz)

Cream Cheese Sausage Balls (2 dz)

Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough (2 dz)

In addition to these complete meals, I also prepared the following that can just be pulled from the freezer to use in things like: casseroles, nachos, hamburger helper, pizzas, spaghetti, breakfast burritos, etc...

Cooked Ground Beef ( 4, 1 lb servings)

Shredded Chicken (5, 3 cup servings)

Crumbled Sausage (2, 1 lb servings)

Food

More Food

OMG, and more soupy food!

Man, that feels good to type it all out and see that for at least a few weeks/months, Matt and I will have some easy, go to things in the freezer to make supper easy and we can spend that time loving on our little biscuit to come. 

I also wanted to take a moment to have my own little PSA:

If you love to use your slow-cooker, then you need to perk up your ears and listen to what I have to say!

Run, don't walk, to the nearest store and buy yourself some slow cooker liners.  I swear that if God had decided not to rest on that seventh day, he would have gone ahead and given these little puppies to the world. 

I used my slow cooker for several of the things above and I never had to wash it.  Did you hear that?  What do I hate more than cleaning the toilets?  Cleaning my slow cooker after I have slow cooked in it all. day. long.  I just pop in one of these bad boys, cook cook cook away, and trash it when I am done.  So nice.  

You can thank me later.

All Retro Laminate Furniture Goes to Heaven

I am retro laminate furniture's dream.  Nuff said.

I would love to buy new furniture every year.  I love furniture and I wish that I had the financial means to switch things in my house out for new stuff whenever the mood strikes me.  Unfortunately, the Langfords live on planet Earth, and I pretty sure the selfish people that lived here before us cut down that blasted money tree and took it with them.   Trust me I have looked everywhere for it, even under the deck.  So for now, Matt and I are stuck with our perfectly fine old furniture.

That brings to me to the point of this tale, which I will sing to you in the tune of Will Smith's "Fresh Prince of Belair"

This is a story all about how

Our furniture got painted and tricked out now

I'd like to take a minute...tell a story to you

About how our old furniture became brand new.

Out in East Sunrise born and raised

was a boy called Matt who played most of his days

Running around, his parents said

We should buy Matt a dresser and a bed.

Twenty years later who would have known

Matt and I would still be giving that furniture a home.

Laminate, Brass, Retro and Gold

The only thing it lacked was a nice coat of mold.

So I...grabbed up a brush and a can full of paint

All that hard work, I felt like a Saint.

Now as it sits so new in the room

I can definitely say it is no longer doomed.

Two decades later you can't even tell

that his laminate furniture was headed to hell.

Good intentions and a sweet little wife

To that old furniture she gave new life.

Okay, so was that rocking rhyme a complete waste of time or pure genius?
Don't answer that!

Before:

Anyway, I finally finished giving Matt's 20+ year old bedroom set a make over so we could continue using it in our guest bedroom.  I think it has come a long way from where it started, and I will feel comfortable giving it a home for at least another 2.5 years, or until I find that blasted money tree.

After:

Much better!

Reality Check In A Bag

A friend asked me what I was doing today and told me, "I am packing my hospital bag."  I immediately thought, 'yeah, I should probably get on that'.  Seeing as how Neil could decide to make his appearance at any point.  I might only be 35 weeks, but as sure as I get comfortable with the idea of him coming is 5 weeks, he will decide to debut tonight as soon as my head hits the pillow.  No bueno.  I am ready to meet him, but not tonight.  K? Matt is out of town.  Thanks!

That brings me to my hospital bag.  Nothing brings a dose of reality like having to pack a bag to take to the hospital in case of labor, not imaginary labor, but actual pushing a baby out of your body labor.  Whoa Nelly!  I will spare you all of the not so blog friendly things that have to go into your "reality bag" and share with you what I wish was going into my hospital bag.  In theory ALL of these things would make me feel better during and after delivery.

And those are just to name a few.

This whole experience is really making me examine was is going to happen to my body in the aftermath of having a child.  Again, I will spare you the details because I think typing it out would make me blush.  However, I am a firm believer that if teenagers, male and female, knew all of the gory details about childbirth...they would definitely think twice about playing seven minutes in heaven...if you know what I mean.

So to all of the parents of teenagers out there, Halloween is coming up and kids always like a good horror story, why not really freak them out and tell them about Labor and Delivery!

Consider that my PSA for the week.

If the road to hell is paved with good intentions then my blog must be located next door

Because trust me...I have had all sorts of good intentions and have they got me anywhere?  Absolutely not, unless you consider somewhere to be the recliner in front of the T.V.  It is kind of like when you work all day long to get all of your clothes washed and dried but you don't put any of the away...they just sit there and before to long you realize it is easier to just pull what you need out of the huge pile o' clothes than it is to blog fold them.  Eventually though you have to blog fold them.  Bad analogy?  Okay give me a break, I am a little rusty at this.  Actually, I was gone so long that blogger changed somethings, enough things to freak me out and keep me from blogging, so technically it is bloggers fault.  Email them your complaints.

I want to tell you about all about what has gone on in the last month or so.

For starters, Matt, Duece, and I moved across the country.  Yes, that would be the second time in 6 months.  We made the trek from Sierra Vista, AZ and now call Clarksville, TN "home".  It was a fairly uneventful 1600 mile move that took us four days.  It was interested traveling that far while pregnant, but both dad, baby, and I survived.  It was in no small part thanks to my mom who spent her labor day weekend riding with a whiny pregnant woman eating slim jims.

Did we have a home when we got to TN? Absolutely not...we like to keep things interesting.   It isn't as bad as it sounds though because we found a house in a great neighborhood fairly quickly.  Although after seeing the first 10 or so houses on our list I did cry.  In my defense I didn't think a neighborhood in which all of the following could be seen was an appropriate place for a baby to be raised:
1.  Cars on blocks
2.  Men with no shirts, saggy pants, and tattooed tears on their faces
3.  All of the neighbors being allergic to yardwork
4.  Rabid dogs
Agree or disagree?  I thought you would see it my way.

In addition to moving we had to actually MOVE, which meant boxes, all 500 of them.  Actually it was more like 280 (that is not a lie).  280 boxes do not put themselves away.  Isn't the Army supposed to help you unpack?  Well, funny you should ask.  Yes, they are supposed to help us unpack if we request it, but apparently Diamond (again, I can't make this stuff up) decided that he had other things to be doing other than his job.  So Matt and I had to find a place to put all of the crap that I swear multiplies when you put it in a cardboard box with the same ferocity that gremlins multiply when you get them wet.

We are all officially settled in though.  Just this weekend, a full month after moving in, I made the guest room inhabitable and finished setting up little baby Neil's nursery.

On the pregnancy front there is one big development.  My belly button.  It is loosing it's battle.  The sad thing is that there really isn't anything I can do to help it.  I feel like God did bless me with an extraordinarily deep button, so in the best case scenario it will just be come flush with the rest of my skin and I won't be stuck with an awful outie for a few weeks.  No offense to anyone with an outie, but that just isn't for me.

I will be 35 weeks on Monday which means 5 weeks until my due date.
*Commence Freak Out*
HOLY SHITAKE...I just realized that as I typed it.  If the thought of being a parent in 5 weeks or less doesn't really freak you the freak out, then I don't know what will.  Technically we are ready for him.  And by technically I mean his room is ready, the stroller is put together, the car seat is installed, and we really really want to see and hold him.  But holy hannah...we are gonna have a baby!
*End Freak Out*

See, that happens to me every couple of days.  That may or may not include me crying hysterically to Matt that I have no idea what I am going to do.  If that did hypothetically happen, Matt would do a great job of telling me not to freak out.  I like to think that I am doing the freaking out right now so I can be calm when D-day (delivery day) gets here.

More on our impending parenthood later....

So there you have it folks, the last couple of weeks in a nutshell.  Now I have "work" to do, those cookies aren't going to eat themselves.

Confession

My dad prompted me to make this confession today.   I am lazy.  I just moved across the country for the 2nd time in less than 6 months.  I will be back to blogging soon.

Those are my yella shorts Nachos.

I am a little behind the times, but...last weekend Matt and I went to the face of the sun Phoenix.  A large group of the guys really wanted to go up there to play golf and see a diamondbacks game and they were friendly enough to let the ladies tag along.  I didn't take a lot of pictures because well, I admit, I am just the worst about taking them.

 

Matt and his yellow shorts.  We love this shorts!  If you are a man the golf course is one place you can take risks with your clothes. 

The group of guys after they finished their round.

Me and the best nachos at the Diamondbacks game

And on the way home I was able to convince Matt to take me to my first trip to IKEA.  I heart Ikea and its cheap"ish" Swedish furniture.