Itsy Bitsy Spider

B has learned "The Itsy Bitsy Spider" motions and it's adorable!! I sing the song way too many times to count, but mostly when he's in his high chair and I'm trying to warm up food.

The itsy bitsy spider climbed up the water spout.

Down came the rain, and washed the spider out.

Out came the sun and dried up all the rain

The itsy bitsy spider went up the spout again.

He does all the motions and I've tried to get it on video, but no avail.

He just gets fascinated with the camera. :)

That bed head gets me every single morning. Love it. Love him! :)

Lovely Day

"If you don't like the weather in Texas, just wait 'til tomorrow."  haha! So true!

It was pretty cold and rainy earlier this week, and then today it was sunny and 72! It was beautiful! My kids definietly enjoyed running around at recess without coats and hats. The beautiful weather isn't supposed to last long, as snow is forcasted for Tuesday. My goodness.

I picked up Bryson a little early from school and we headed straight to the park and ran around and played for close to an hour. I try to take him everyday, when it's not freezing of course:) We had so much fun today!

Bryson LOVES playing basketball on his little goal he got for his birthday. He plays everyday and loooves it! Well, there were a few boys playing basketball at the park today and he was completely fascinated. He took off running towards the court quite a few times. :) Future NBA star on our hands? Who knows. But I do have a strong strong feeling he is going to be a crazy sports loving boy like his daddy!!

Families

I think I've mentioned once or twice...or a hundred times... that we have the absolute best families that anyone could every ask for. I'm pretty sure that Michael and I mention how special our families are at least once a week. We truly are blessed! Now, more than ever, we really appreciate them and how much they love us and Bryson. :)



Tubes

After many many ear infections, and a strong suggestion from our ENT, we decided that the best thing for Bryson and his poor little ears was to get tubes.

We chose to do it as soon as possible, so we had to get to the hospital a 6:30 AM on Monday morning.

I was beyond nervous about my little baby. I barely slept the night before (partially due to Bryson waking up every few hours...hence the reson for the tubes...). Several of my friends told me how "easy" the procedure was, but I still a nervous wreck.

We were going to stop to get breakfast before going to hospital and on our way, I realized I couldn't find my wallet, which had my license, credit card and insurance information for Bryson. Michael and I hit panic mode and searched the car like made men. We couldn't find it, so Michael dropped me off at the hospital (5 mins away) and he went back to the house to look for my wallet. I signed in and waited for the Dr. and Michael ran though the house looking for my wallet, which by the way is almost always in my car!!! He found it in Bryson's room (I have no recollection how/why it was in there) and then rushed back up to the hospital.

An hour later, Michael,  my Mom, Bryson and I were sitting in the waiting room laughing about the morning events. I mentioned how I was much calmer about the procedure than I had expected, and my mom reminded me that God can purposefully cause chaos to keep our minds off bigger things. :)

A few minutes later, we were called back to start getting ready and to change into his adorable little bitty gown.

We played, sang songs and made animal noises until he went back. Thankfully, it was just as quick as everyone said, and he was only away from us for 11 minutes, not like I was counting or anything :)

We stayed in the post op room for about 30 minutes and then got to go home. One the way out to the car, Bryson was already back to his sillly, noisy, lovey self!!

He LOVED playing with his Mickey balloon from Mimi and Papa!

He's been feeling SO much better since getting the tubes! I'm so glad we did this. He is no sleeping 12-13 hours straight at night and feeling better during the day! I'm so glad that Bryson is finally starting for feel relief from his poor ears!!

Tonight

Michael, Bryson and I have had a long, wonderful day! I LOVE LOVE the weekends when we have nothing to do and we can just all hang out together!! I truly adore our time together as a family!!

Tonight, Michael went to a concert with Ray and since Bryson had a super short nap today, (for a really funny reason...you have to see the pictures at the bottom!!) I figured he would go to sleep early tonight and I could catch up on cleaning and organizing the guest room and knock out some laundry. Wrong. B had all sorts of energy tonight!! Even though I didn't do anything on my to-do list, I had the BEST time playing with Bryson!

 (Notice Orion and Bryson are practically BFFs and glued at the hip mouth.)

And, obviously, some things are just innate....

Ok, back to why his nap was so short. I gave him his bottle this afternoon and then put him in his crib. He was tired, but didn't want to go to sleep. I listened to him sing and talk and laugh for about 15 minutes through the monitor. After I could tell he was asleep, I went to check on him like normal. I don't know how in the world he ended up like this or how he ever fell asleep, but this is what I saw:

I gently maneuvered both of his legs safely back inside the aircaft and hoped he was good to nap a couple hours, but he woke up shortly after. It seriously boggles my mind how he ended up like that!! haha

Oh wait, I guess I should explain the crib. A few weeks ago I went to get him out of his crib and he had stuff ALL over his mouth. It turns out he had been chewing on his crib railing! I knew he had taken a bite here and there several months ago, but I thought he was over that phase. I had to do something STAT because 1. babies aren't supposed to eat wood, and 2. he can't sleep in an ugly crib (ha! kidding!)

Anyway, I ran to Lowes and got some giant zip ties and threw some towels on the rails. I attached some links and a couple little toys to the end so he could eat those instead of his crib :)

So, I guess he gets to sleep in an ugly crib after all! HAHA!!



Update on B

It feels like a lot has happened in the past 2 weeks or so...

Oddly enough, he's all of a sudden decided that he likes pacis. A LOT! A couple weeks ago I noticed he kept doing the sign for "drink" all day long. But when I gave him a bottle or sippy cup, he would walk around with it in his mouth like this:

So I decided to give him a paci and see what he did with it, and it's been glued in his mouth ever since. He's never given it the time of day and then he turns one and decides he likes it. haha! Fortunately, he doesn't sleep with it or cry for it if it's not in his mouth, but if he's grumpy and we give it to him, he'll keep in in for a while.

Also, After all of his ear infections, our pediatritian sugested we go to an ENT so he could keep tabs on Bryson and his ears. Well, we went to see the ENT and the Audiologist on Monday. B's hearing is on target developmentally (thank goodness!) but he has trouble hearing very quiet sounds, which is due to the constant fluid in his ears. Our ENT recommended tubes almost instantly after looking in his ears and hearing his history of 6 ear infections in the last 5 months. So, we scheduled an appointment for tubes next Monday. I figured 7 days was soon enough, and we could stave off any infection that might looming around his ears. WRONG. He developed another infection 2 days later. BLAH! Poor baby and his poor infected ears :(

I go back and forth on my emotions about Bryson getting tubes.
Half the time I'm extremely emotional about my baby "taking a long nap" and more or less having surgery. I'm so worried that something terrible is going to happen or it's just flat out not going to work. He's my baby and my heart aches that he has to go through this and that he's in so much pain.

The other half of the time I am so excited about the tubes and I can't wait until all of this is over and behind us. I can't wait until he's pain-free. He is such a strong boy. We can hear him moaning in his sleep almost every night and it breaks my heart. He'll wake up crying often and I just want to take him to the hospital right then and there and beg them to put in the tubes.

I've been talking to a few friends who have recently gone through the same thing with their kids and I know this is exactly what he needs and that everything is going to be so wonderful on the flip side :)

Come on, Monday morning! Make my baby feel better!!!

Snowy Day

We went to church Sunday morning and it was lightly raining. After ABF, we had Joyland duty with the 2 year olds and about halfway through we looked out the window and it was snowing! And it kept snowing. And snowing. And snowing!

I LOVE the snow and am pretty sure I was more excited about going outside to play more than any of the kids. And I couldn't wait to zoom home drive home at turtle speed to put on Bryson's boots and go build a snowman. Bryson is a creature of habit and thrives on his schedule, so I had to push playtime back a few hours so he could nap, but we were outside all bundled up playing in snow about 3 seconds after he woke up. :)

Surprisingly enough, he loved the snow! A boy after his mom's own heart!!

We ended up getting about 7 inches of snow on Sunday and we still have a good 2-3 inches covering our yard as I write this. (5 days later!!) I'm hoping for more snow soon...maybe even enough to get us a snow day at school!! :)

Bass Pro Shop

I finally figured out why I wasn't able to upload pictures to the Blog. Apparently, I put a few too many pictures on here and I have completely filled up my storage quota on Blogger. Blah. Have no fear, though, all is well now. So, for the 3 of you out there (hi grandma!) that have been waiting to see Mr. B, wait no longer! :)

A while back, after we went to ICE, we headed over to Bass Pro Shop. The boys looked around at guns and fishing gear and other manly things and the girls walked around and showed Bryson all the ginormous animals all over the store. :)

Santa's Workshop was still set up, so B crawled all over his giant chair for a while. :)

We had so much fun walking around looking at all the animals all over the store. B learned lots of new animal noised that day!! :)

FREE Gift Cards!!

Ok, friends, I'm totally addicted  to a new app my sister showed me around Christmas!

It's the coolest thing ever. If you have an iPhone, you have to download Shopkick.

What is it, you ask? Well, You open up the app and it locates all the stores within a couple mile radius and then you open up the link to each store and it gives you points. Just for opening the link which takes 3 seconds! Since there are usually a gazillion stores everywhere you go, you get lots of points. If you go into a big store like Target, Best Buy, Macy's, etc, and open up the app you get MEGA points!! Then, once you have a certain amount of points, you can "buy" things with your points. Kinda like a video game, but the things are real. You can buy anything from gift cards to jeans, purses, and TVs. And, if you're super ambitious, and want to save all your points for years and years, you can buy a Princess Cruise around the world! Haha! Let's all pull all our points together, ok?? :)

Anyway, I've had the app for less than a couple of weeks and already have enough points for a gift card! I'm thinking I'll get a Target gift card since it helped me earn so many points  for opening the app in the store and it is my home away from home.  Woohoo! The gift card gets sent straight to your phone so you can spend it immediately :) 

Once you download the app, you can enter the promo code indigo1647 for an extra 100 points right off the bat!!

Pretty sweet, if you ask me!

And voila! There you have it. FREE gift cards just for playing with your phone. You don't have to buy a single thing ever to get the goodies! :)

Go get your points!

(P.S. I would have put a picture of the silly little green mascot on here, but I still can't upload pictures to Blogger right now. BOOO.)

ICE ice, baby

The Gaylord Texan puts on an amazing ice show every year. We went a few years ago and decided to go again this year. It is SO incredible how they create all the ice sculptures! Plus, it's in a beautiful hotel, so it's fun to look around :)

We walked around and took a few pictures before we went into ICE.

Since they have to keep the ice sculptures frozen (obviously!) they keep the room at 17 degrees. So people don't freeze to death, they give everyone giant parkas which are quite warm :) They're also extremely flattering, as you will see. Poor B was a little popsicle after we were finished.

Afterwards, we warmed up with some hot chocolate. Yum!! Since we were in the area, on request of the boys, we went to Bass Pro Shop and I got some more adorable pictures of Bryson in awestruck wonder of the giant animals. BUT, Blogger is being silly and won't let me download them right now. So, we'll have to wait on those. :) Thank you mom and dad for a fun trip to ICE!! :)