Christmas in Oregon, Sean's birthday, and everything else I can squeeze into one post!!

So I know I have been reeeeaaally bad about blogging. I feel kind of bad. I like to read over old posts and remember what life was like when I was writing them. I also know that our family and friends enjoy reading up on our life (especially Sean's!) So instead of using my lack of posting as an excuse to continue ignoring my blog, I am going to do the opposite and try to catch up on everything I should have blogged about the past few months!!

Let's start back in December- Mike, Sean and I went to Oregon to visit my parents who live on the coast. Of course we had a blast!! It was nice to see my parents again, I wish we could see them more often. We spent lots of time at their house (Sean was on a pretty regular nap schedule back then and trying to ignore it usually made for difficult days) but we also got to spend time at the beach and catch up with a few friends! And we were there for Sean's first Christmas, so we had lots of fun with him opening his stocking, presents, etc. Because I am trying to fit a lot into this one post, I won't go into too much more detail, but I will post a few pictures from our awesome trip!

eating dinner made by Grandma

Love my Little Man

Our friend Brittany came to see us!!!

Relaxing on our vacation

Getting dressed to go to the beach

Grandpa Bill, Grandma Mary, Sean, Jenn and Mike

I love my family

opening his presents on Christmas morning!!

playing with my parents' dog Robbie

playing games with Daddy

our friends Hugh and Sarah came to see us from Portland!

Sean and Grandma!!

Mike's grandparents came to see us too- so they are

Sean's great-grandparents Jim and Judy!!

In January our sweet little baby officially turned into a big boy- we celebrated his first birthday on the 25th, and shortly after our little man took off walking and never looked back! His birthday party was so much fun! We celebrated on the 25th with just us, and then had a birthday party for his (and our) friends on the following Sunday : D We learned that Sean loves cake and balloons, and he got some really neat presents from friends and family as well. Mike's mom Angelia came over from Austin to spend some time with us as well. Here are a few pics from his birthday!

eating the first cake on his actual birthday- I love chocolate!!!!

opening presents from Mommy and Daddy on his birthday

Sean's birthday cupcake at his party, made by our friend Nicole

I love this cake too!!!!!

Mommy was getting a little emotional about her baby turning one!

Here's some cake, Mommy, it will make you feel better!!

Uncle Josh!!!!

opening presents from friends and family

birthday balloons!!

Cupcakes made by MaMa and a little Pooh Bear (his favorite stuffed animal)

February marked me going back to work at AT&T, and Mike staying home with Sean. Sadly Mike was laid off from his company Ranger in January, so finances have been a bit tight. But right at the same time we read Dave Ramsey's book "The Total Money Makeover" and it has helped us sooooo much with keeping our heads above water through this tough time in our lives. We have switched over to a cash only budget that we go over every two weeks when my paycheck comes. We pay all of our bills through the bank with our checking account, and all of the other money we have gets withdrawn and divvied out into envelopes for specific spending: gas, groceries, etc. It has been really tough but well worth it. We are also working on paying off all of our debts and eventually being completely debt free! That's a bit of a road ahead of us, and we really can't work too hard on our "debt snowball" until Mike is working again, but we have made a vow to not accumulate any more debt than we already have in the meantime. Also, Mike's unemployment has somewhat been a blessing in disguise. He and Sean have gotten to spend so much one-on-one time together, so the two of them are like peas in a pod. Sean loves his Daddy so much, and Mike has really gotten a lot more comfortable with the parenting thing since having to do so much more on his own.

I am back to working at AT&T full time now. I had to go through 4 weeks of classroom training again (New Hire class) along with 4 weeks of "transition" training. This week is technically my 4th week of transition, but I also had a bunch of 2010 carryover vacation days that had to be used before March 31st, so I am actually taking this week off from work. When I return on Tuesday, I will have a much better schedule: weekdays 8:15am-5:15pm with Thursdays off, and Saturday I will work 8:55am-5:40pm. I am so excited to be able to make dinner and spend time with my boys in the evenings now!! The past 7 weeks I have been working 10am-7pm, so I am still home early enough to put Sean to bed, but just late enough that it's hard to get anything done before I am ready to put myself to bed. Even though I am giving up my Saturdays for an earlier schedule, I am hoping this change will be for the better.

Our sweet little man Sean is just blossoming so quickly it's been hard to keep up!! He officially took his first (3) steps at my parents house in OR on Christmas day. Between then and his birthday, he would switch back and forth from being daring and trying to step from furniture without holding on, to just crawling with no walking at all. Right after I started back at work was when he truly became comfortable with it, so I have it written in the baby book as February 8th when he took off walking and never looked back.

He has also gotten to be much more interested in communicating. He signs several words with us, some of which he tries to verbally say as well. He signs water, more, all done, eat, milk, bath time, diaper, potty, dog, fish, help, night night, cracker, and book. He is trying to verbally say water, ball, book, dog, DaDa, MaMa, shoe, diaper, bathtime, kisses, hugs, hi, more, all done, and see. I am sure I am missing some! A lot of time he will get his signs mixed up, but we are still working on it! Also sometimes he forgets the sign, but I will know what he wants so I will sign and say the word, and then he will sign and try to say it back. It's really neat to see him develop so quickly! He also like to play "peek-a-book," and when he sees our cell phones, he puts his hand to his ear and says "hi" : D

Sean loves to eat, sleep, read, and play outside. Those are probably his most favorite things! Along with dancing- the kid loves music!! He also loves to watch the dvds we have for him, but I am really trying to not over-use those, especially considering how beautiful the weather has been! We have been trying to take him for walks around the neighborhood at least 1-2 times per day. Sometimes he will actually walk with Daddy the whole time, other times he gets picked up because he's tired, or they will go in the stroller. He's very hands on and really enjoys stopping to touch every rock he finds, all the leaves he sees, etc. He is also becoming very aware of everything that goes on in the neighborhood and is constantly pointing at things- dogs, birds, trucks, other children.

Currently we are working on dropping bottles and the second nap. We just got some new "big boy" sippy cups that Sean really likes, so we are on day two of no bottles except one right before bedtime. Some days Sean will take one 2.5-3.5 hour nap, around 11:30 or 12 until sometime between 2-3:30pm. Other days he is too tired and grumpy to stay up past 10:30am and ends up needing a second nap around 3 or 4pm. We are trying to just go with the flow and let him sleep when he needs to, but as parents it's also our job to help maintain some order so that we all can sleep well at night time and get ready for the next busy day. Our little man eats like a champion, and his favorite foods are fruits, veggies, and of course MaMa's spaghetti! He also will drink water all day if we let him, so we have learned to cut him off around 5:30-6pm so he doesn't end up with a soaking wet diaper when he wakes up in the morning. I have found that we don't even need to buy juice for him, considering he loves to eat fruits and veggies alone and loves to drink both water and milk.

Well I guess that will be it for now. As usual, I will leave you with a few recent pictures of our pride and joy

I love my Little Heart Breaker

walking around outside with Daddy

such a heartthrob!

BATHTIME!!!!!

YEY!!!!!

drinking milk from his big boy sippy

Yum

peek-a-boo!!

we went to the zoo with our friend Katie and her son Luke

learning to eat with a spoon

Keeping up!!!

OK, I am reeeeaallly going to try harder to keep my blog updated. It's tough, because I am on FB ALL THE TIME and I figure that everyone who reads my blog is on FB anyway, so what's the point in keeping a blog? But regardless, I am going to try to keep up here anyways!!

So it's February 2nd, and I started back at work yesterday. Boo. Well, honestly it wasn't that bad. After I walked in the door, the first thing I noticed was the entire inside of the building was painted BLUE instead of ORANGE. That's cool I guess. Then I noticed the "commons" area (basically a large circular section in the middle of the "wings" that hold the cubicle areas) was completely empty. Before I had left (over 1 year ago, may I remind you) this area had some plants, some couches, a couple of chairs, etc. A lot of people liked to hang out here at breaks/lunches. Now there is NOTHING there!! So I guess people are forced to sit in the cafeteria area at uncomfortable chairs at the lunch tables. I guess the higher ups at the company came to visit a few months ago and didn't like seeing employees sprawled out/sleeping on the couches- apparently it looks bad when they are touring/interviewing for prospecting employees.

After I got over the shock of all that, I began to see some of my co-workers, and they all gave me hugs, and told me they were so glad I was back, and how they were all taking bets on whether I would be back at all ; ) Then, of course, they asked about the baby, and I got to show off pictures and be a proud Momma : ) I basically spent all day checking 700+ emails (that was only about 2 months worth, the rest were deleted due to lack of space on my computer LOL), trying to get passwords reset and regain access to the systems I will be using, and "nesting" in with other employees on their calls. It was a very easy and non-stressful first day back, and by the time my shift was over I felt like I had never left in the first place.

The BEST news is that instead of an 11am-8pm schedule like I had anticipated, I actually have a 10:30am-7:30pm schedule- which means I have the possibility of being home by 8, which means some nights I will actually get to kiss my little munchkin goodnight before he goes to bed- YEY!!!!!

So I am getting used to the idea that the next chapter in my life involves spending 50 hours a week in a building with other adults, talking to people about their cell phone bills- rather than spending all day with my sweet little angel of a baby. It's not a bad thing- he is a year old now (which I will blog about later) and he is truly blossoming into his own person now. So honestly it is a good thing that I am going back to work. He gets to spend more quality time with Daddy (with no Momma present) and once he starts daycare he will get to develop some social skills with other kiddos his age. I am soooooo thankful that I got to spend the entire first year of his life with him at home, so at least there is that. Not to mention I will be bringing home a paycheck now, what-what??

I will try to post later this week (maybe on Sunday?) about Sean's first birthday and his birthday party. But here are some cute pictures to tide you over for now ; )

Trip to Tucson- Sean's first trip on a plane

To start the holiday season, we took a trip to Tucson, AZ to visit the Reed family, Mike's mom and dad. I will admit I was really nervous at first- but when you have babies and live far away from your parents, you come to the reality that it is just mean to NOT fly to see them, since they want to spend time with their grandbabies and all : )

So we had a Thanksgiving get together at our house with our friends here in Louisiana on Thanksgiving day, and later that night I worked hard to get the millions of baby things packed for our big trip the next morning. We had made one trip before to Austin, TX in September, so I was a little familiar with all of the "necessary" things to bring. But this was our first flight with Sean, so you have to think things over a little differently- what can go in the checked bag that might get tossed around a bit, what do you need access to while you fly, because getting extras out of the checked bag later would not be an option, traveling with liquids, etc. We left around 7 am the next morning to catch our 8:52 AM flight out of Lafayette. Our layover would be in Houston and we planned on being in Tucson by about 1 PM.

Well of course Mike kept telling me everything would be fine, because I was all jittery and nervous- a combination of not liking to fly in the first place, and then bringing my baby boy into the mix just made my nerves that much more on edge. We check in for our flight, and they tell us that our plane will actually not be leaving until 10:10 AM, which will bring us into Houston at 11:22 AM. Our connecting flight was scheduled to leave at 11:30, so they told us our only two options were to catch the later flight to Tucson (at 6:15 PM) or come back the next day. Well, we were only going to be in Tucson until 8 AM Monday morning, so we really did not want to shorter our trip by another day. So we decided to tough out the long layover and just see what happened.

Sean was a total rockstar on the first flight- He was fighting a really tough cold since the previous Sunday, so he was all snotty and yucky. His doctor said to go ahead and give him some Benadryl right before the flight- it would help with the cold, his ears, etc. for the flight, and maybe even help him sleep. So he fell asleep about 10 minutes before we boarded, and slept for the whole 40 minute flight.

When we got to Houston, we realized it was just 11 AM. So maybe we could avoid the 7 hour layover and catch the 11:30 flight?? We checked the screen for our original flight and gate number, and made our way as quickly as we could across the Houston airport (which is HUGE btw) in about 25 minutes. When we got there, a flight attendant was standing right there, "are you guys going to Tucson?" YES!" "Oh good, let me get your boarding passes...." I then explained to her how they wouldn't let us keep our original ticket at the Lafayette airport but that the flight was shorter than they planned and we made it there in time for this flight, so we were hoping to get our spots on this flight back. "Oh, you don't have tickets for this flight? Sorry. The gate is already closed. There's nothing I can do." WHAT?? The plane was still there! I showed her our 10 month old son and explained to her that I was really not looking forward to spending the next 7 hours with him in the airport, especially since I followed TSA's instructions and only brought enough bottles/food for our planned 5 hour trip. She didn't care, of course. I am just another pissed off passenger who didn't get the flight they wanted on a holiday weekend. No big deal, no skin off her back. Whatever.

So I took her advice and spoke with someone in customer care, to see if we could get another flight. Which I knew we couldn't- they already told us the next flight out was at 6:15. But I went to talk to her anyways- Mike was thinking maybe we could catch a flight into Phoenix and get our rental car there and just drive to Tucson, if it would be much quicker. After going over the flight times, drive times, time zone differences, etc. with her we figured out we would shave about 1.5-2 hours off if we could do it that way. So as I am getting the Phoenix tickets squared away with her, I remember that Sean's car seat is checked, and on it's way to Tucson already. Bah!!! So I call Enterprise to see if we can rent a car seat when we get the car in Phoenix, blah blah blah..... after getting transferred 3 times and still waiting for the right person to pick up, I finally gave up and told the flight attendant to just keep our 6:15 flight into Tucson. Defeated.

But it really wasn't that bad. We ate lunch at Ruby's Dinner in the airport, and then I took Sean for a walk around the airport to see if I could get him to nap. After he woke up, we mostly just hung out and used the portable DVD player we borrowed (thanks Katie!) to watch Super Why and kept Sean occupied. I think he enjoyed the change of scenery anyways ; ) About 45 minutes before our flight was boarding, I got Sean to fall asleep again, and he ended up sleeping for the first hour or so of the flight to Tucson.

When we got into Tucson, we got our rental (he talked us into the Chevy Tahoe because he gave us a good deal on it, haha) and made our way to Mike's parent's house. By this time it was about 9 PM Mountain time (10 PM central time!) so Sean was exhausted!! We let him explore the house for a minute, and then put him right to bed.

The next day, after getting some much needed sleep, we were all ready to start our vacation! As the sun was coming up, we got some good pictures of the view from John and Susan's backyard.

When Sean woke up, we brought out all the baby toys and let him get used to the new environment, and meet n' greet with Grandma and Grandpa Reed.

John and Susan have a bunch of bird feeders, so their backyard was always full of birds. Sean really enjoyed watching them from inside : )

Then we went to breakfast- we wanted breakfast tacos, but the place we planned on going to was closed for the holiday weekend, apparently they were renovating. So we went to Joe's Pancake House instead : )

After breakfast, we took Sean back for a nap. After he woke up, we went to go meet up with some old friends of ours- my good friend Kassie used to work with me at the Montessori in Issaquah. She and her husband Leif moved to San Tan Valley (formally Queen Creek), AZ a few years ago. It 's close to Phoenix, only about 2 hours from Tucson, so they drove down to meet us. I was not only excited to see Kassie, but also to see their 5 month old son Blake : ) He is SUCH a cutie!!!!!

After lunch with the Nordlinders, Sean was ready for nap number 2. We took him home and while he napped I went to Safeway (oh how I miss Safeway!!!) to get him some cold remedies and some foods that he liked.

After nap number two, we went to Mike's cousin Lori and her husband Kevin's house- they live really close to John and Susan. We had a leftover Thanksgiving dinner, and had a great time watching Sean interact with the Coffin's four kids. Their youngest, Ray, is only about 18 months, so he and Sean really enjoyed playing together : ) Of course, by the end of it all Sean was ready for bedtime, so we didn't really get a good picture of him smiling ; )

The next day was Sunday, and Mike's parents were going to be at church for a decent chunk of the day. So we took advantage of the alone time and RELAXED!! We also took Sean out in the backyard to play a bit, and for a stroll around the neighborhood. He went down his first slide, and got to see the cacti in AZ ; )

After playing at the house and in the neighborhood, we got Sean home for a nap. Mommy took a nap too ; ) Then we really wanted to get out to see the big cacti, so we drove down to Saguaro State park and drove the 8 mile loop around to see the desert. It was so beautiful out there.

Later that night, we made a trip across town to visit John's brother Jim and their mother Grandma Bern. Sean got to meet one of his great grandmas!!! It's always interesting to spend time with Mike's uncle Jim- he has very interesting taste in decorations around his house, and spending time with him always makes for great stories : )

Four generations photo- Sean, his daddy Mike, and his grandpa John, and his great grandma Bern

Unfortunately our vacation had to come to an end at some point. Our flight left Tucson at 8:15 AM, so we stayed up packing everything that night, and got up early the next morning to account for dropping off the rental and going through security, etc. I am happy to say that none of us received any pat downs or body imaging scans at the airport!! Our flight home went MUCH more smoothly than the flight there- we were home in Lafayette by 1:30 PM!! Here is a picture of Sean saying "bye-bye" on the Houston to Lafayette flight.

Now we are looking forward to our next trip- only 3 weeks from now, we will be getting on another plane to Portland, OR. We will be visiting my parents who live on the Oregon coast. Keep checking back for updates on that trip!!