Best. Easter. Ever.

This was our first holiday as parents. We got to play Easter bunny. It was super fun. We took Preston to church for the first time (7:30 a.m. Mass), visited both families, and in total, Preston received 5 Easter baskets. Spoiled much?

Special thanks to my kind and loving brother Joe for putting on that ridiculous Easter bunny costume for Preston. It was a really fun day.

His basket from the Easter bunny. It had a Dr. Seuss book, University of Memphis pajamas, stuffed bunny, chocolate bunny, a tummy time floor/crib mirror and candy.

HIs smocked outfit was so cute. My mom made it for my little brother Joe when he was a baby.

Joe as the Easter bunny. Ha!

Preston is as sober as a judge.

Family picture in my parents backyard. We had beautiful weather for Easter.

Sock monkey Easter basket from Mimi and Mook.

Preston with Mimzie, Brian's mom.

He fell asleep on Robo, Brian's dad. He had to change out of the smocked outfit, because of course, he spit up all over it.

Brittany and Ashby hanging out with Preston.

It was a great day!

Bedtime

Now that I'm a mom, I have to say that my favorite part of the day is bedtime. There is just nothing sweeter on this earth than a clean baby in clean pajamas, lullabies playing, bedtime stories being told, and "I Love You, Sleep Tight." Brian and I love this family time with Preston. I wanted to document it, because it just so precious.

So around 8 p.m. we start getting ready for bed. Which means I get his bottle ready for the last feed of the night (I nurse him during the day, so this gives me a break!) and all three of us head upstairs.

First up is bath time. After trying several different ways to do bath time, we finally figured out a way that Preston tolerates. I say tolerates because before this, he would scream so loud and hard his whole body was red. Tears would stream. This broke my heart, so thanks to an episode of Bethenny Ever After (I LOVE this show) we decided to try this and it worked!

I put my bathing suit on and get in our bath tub with him and he likes it! Brian sits on the edge of the bath tub and cleans his body while I wash his hair.

After the bath, Brian takes him to his room and puts his pajamas on. He always sleeps in gowns, because it makes it easy. Then he brushes his hair, picks him up and takes him to the rocker. I get the iPod, put the Pandora channel Children's Lullabies on, or sometimes we listen to Preston's iPod. It has all the Rock-a-Bye Baby soundtracks on it, and a few classical soundtracks. Then I go and pick a book from his little collection and sit on the floor and read it. After we read the book, we read the Jesus Calling devotion for that day (thanks Mimzie!) Even Brother gets in on the action.

He sits on the floor next to me while I read. While the music is playing and I'm reading the book, Brian gives Preston his last bottle before going to bed. He usually takes anywhere from 3 to 5 ounces.

After his bottle, we take him over to his crib, wrap him up in his swaddle, and kiss him goodnight. We tell him we love him and Brian does the sign of the cross over his little body. In Baptism class, Deacon Jack asked us to do this, so Brian started it at night.

We do this routine every night. Then Brian and I get the video monitor set up and go hang out in our room. We watch him fall asleep on the monitor and talk about how perfect and sweet he is and how we can't believe we have a baby for like an hour. FAVORITE part of the day :)

Friday Thankfulness

I had a rough day with Preston yesterday. He didn't get much sleep the night before and was Mr. Cranky all.day.long. Also, this is probably more than you want to know, but he also had an insanely disgusting diaper that required both of us to remove all clothing, take immediate baths, and do immediate laundry to save our clothes. However, I woke up this morning knowing it was a new day, and I have a renewed sense of thankfulness for my little boy.

My good friend and sorority sis Candice took some beautiful pics of Preston when he was just one month old. Here are a few... so enjoy! You can look at more of her photos on her brand new Web site, www.candicelynnphotography.com. So proud of her! And so proud of the sweet little boy in these pics. :)

Just as an aside - I laugh at the newborn pics I see now of sleeping babies, put in various poses, outfits, etc. Ummm yea right. First of all, my child is obviously ALL boy, because even as a newborn, he was super squirmy. To this day, he doesn't stay still... even when he is sleeping! He also NEVER slept - was wide awake all the time from day 1. It was a MIRACLE from GOD he was not crying for these pictures. Don't misunderstand though, Candice did get multiple pics of him crying. With that said, I am by no means complaining. I love my little boy and I love how busy he is already... what a handful! :) Everything about him melts my heart.

Scheduled

Ever since I had a baby, my type-A personality has been craving a schedule for baby P. I knew it was going to take time (2 months in fact!) and work to make it happen. Just thought I would share how we got the little guy on a schedule and what a typical day and night for him is like (plus, I use this as my scrapbook and I just want to look back and remember what our time was like when I was on maternity leave).

A few weeks ago, I began tracking a normal day for Preston using a super cool baby app on my iPhone. I wanted to see what his body naturally did, and much to my surprise, he kind of had his own little flow of the day. So I worked with that, and added real big boy naps into the picture around times when he would naturally doze off in my arms. He adapted to it pretty well. The only time we still struggle a little is during the afternoon nap - he still isn't the biggest fan of that, but it makes him so much easier to be around at night :)

First, he normally wakes up around 7 a.m. I feed him, Brian changes his diaper, then gets ready for work. I get up and get Preston changed into his clothes for the day, then I change into my clothes for the day. (For all you moms-to-be, it's amazing how quickly you are put LAST on the list when baby comes!)

After this, we go on a little walk around the neighborhood. We have been walking every single day, and Preston really loves it. He stays awake for the entire walk. When I see him starting to nod off (which is usually about an hour into the walk) I walk back home, put him in his swing and he sleeps for a while. This is also when I run any errands I need to, because he is kind of used to napping during this time on-the-go... either in the swing, the car, the grocery cart... you name it.

Usually around 10:30 or 11, he wakes up and wants to eat again. I feed him, then hold him, walk around the house with him, or play with him.

Brian comes home for lunch everyday around noon. We eat lunch together, Brian holds Preston for a little while, then has to go back to work. Brian kind of stopped changing diapers on his lunch break because we had one bad experience and Brian had to change clothes again before going to back.. haha! Welcome to my life, Brian :)

Around 1:30 or so, he eats again, then it's work out time for Preston! We go upstairs to his room, and play on the playmat, sit in the Bumbo seat, and have tummy time. After about an hour an playing, Preston usually starts yawning and I swaddle him and lay him in his crib for a nap.

His morning naps are usually longer than his afternoon ones. In the afternoon, he usually sleeps about 45 minutes to an hour. When he sleeps, I'll shower, do laundry, etc.) When he wakes up, we watch Oprah while I am feeding and burping him.

Brian gets home from work around 5:30 and takes Preston for some Daddy/Son time while I get dinner ready, unload the dishwasher (one of those loud chores I don't do when he is napping) and have a little alone time.

Really, Brian spends a lot of time with him at night. We just have family time, I feed him one more time around 6:30 or so, then we start getting ready for bedtime. I'll do a post dedicated to that soon. We try to get him in bed and asleep by 9. Then he sleeps until 4:30 a.m., he wakes up, I go get him out of his crib and feed him, then he sleeps until 7.

After figuring out a schedule for him, he is such a happier baby... see?

His great-grandmother was holding him in this picture! So neat that Preston has a great-grandmother (Nannie) and great-grandfather (Gramps). Anyway, the schedule makes it a million times easier to plan the day. I know we will have to tweak it some when I go back to work, but at least this makes it manageable for another few weeks.

Sweet Weekend

Preston is sleeping in his swing, so I have a few minutes to update the blog - yay!

First of all, today he turns 10 weeks old. Double digits! Time is just flying. Preston's sleep routine is going GREAT! He has been going down for naps twice a day and going to bed around 9. He barely makes a peep and drifts off to sleep. One day I will blog about our little bedtime routine because it is just so sweet. I probably cherish that time the most with Brian, Preston and me.

This weekend, we had summer weather, which was sooo nice. We went to a wedding Saturday night downtown and saw lots of our friends. It's hard to get out now that Preston is here, so we kind of lived it up and stayed out until 11:30. Big night for us!! :)

Sunday, my friends Ashlea, Michelle and Robyn hosted a Sip & See for Preston. So many of my mom and mother-in-law's friends got to come meet Preston, which was great. We were also thankful for a few of our friends and family that came. It's neat to get people's reactions the first time they meet Preston. To hear who they think he looks like is a lot of fun!

Thank you so much Ashlea, Michelle and Robyn - especially for hosting it at your house! - for putting on such a sweet little party for him!

Little man was all dressed up for his coming out party. His outfit was his daddy's when he was a baby.

Nice little snacks and flower arrangement!

We got some great pics of Preston with his aunts! At one point, he fell asleep on Brittany and it was the sweetest thing.

Preston got held and walked around a lot by his Mimzie... my mother-in-law. Don't worry... Aunt Mallory was closely monitoring it all! :)

Love this picture of Preston and his godmother Robyn.

And of course, had to get a picture of family at the party...

Robyn's yard looked so pretty! All her azaleas were in bloom and her hostas are already huge. I am super jealous of her hostas... we have several at our new house, but they need to be divided and replanted. I was also super jealous of her confederate jasmine that just appeared in her backyard. It really looks great. One of these days, we'll get around to that. Speaking of the yard, we were over at Robyn's from 2 until about 6, and Brian worked in the yard the entire time we were gone. The amount of gumballs our trees drop is ridiculous. His work paid off though because the yard looks MUCH better.

The weekend must have worn Preston out because he fell asleep as soon as we laid him in his crib Sunday night and he slept 7 hours! Thank the Lord for sleep! :)

Gotta Brag, House Update & Pampers

Not to be one of those moms, but my baby rolled over today! From his tummy to his back. It surprised him as much as it surprised me. After he rolled, he looked at me like, "What the heck just happened!?" and then burst into tears. Ha!

Lifting that head! He pushed with his right arm and rolled to his left. Guess that means he's right handed? Little video of my little man:

On the home front, I should have an update of the living and dining rooms soon. Extreme home makeover takes a little longer when you have a 2-month-old and you're doing the work yourselves. Quick update:

- My 84-year-old grandfather who can do anything is in the midst of rewiring the original chandelier in the dining room. We've had some issues with it, but he is coming over today to install what we hope is the completed fixture. It's solid brass and came from Germany. I am more of a nickel/silver girl, but the brass fixture has grown on me and I like it!

- The formal living room is complete and my favorite part is the updated fireplace mantel - it's gorgeous! We just bought a barely used, neutral couch for the room on Craigslist for $100 (score!) and are slowly putting it together. Right now, all the dining room stuff is in the living room, so no "after" pictures just yet.

- We've mostly prepped the dining room to paint. We are for sure painting over the wallpaper. My dad patched most of the seams with joint compound and you can't even see them. Brian has Killz-ed all the trim, and we'll eventually Killz the whole room.

Hoping to make more progress this weekend!

Oh, and one more thing for my mom friends. We use Pampers diapers over here.. not out of choice, but basically, they are the only ones that Preston doesn't soak through. I found out about the Gifts to Grow program today. It's actually pretty cool. There are 15-digit codes inside Pampers boxes and if you enter them online, you can use them to get free diapers, toys and other stuff. Here is a link with coupon codes to get you started. I entered those and a few of my own today and already have 600 points!

Anyway, that's enough for today. My child is calling me!

Baby Love

The only rock I know that stays steady...

The only institution I know that works...

is family.

- Lee Iacocca