Prestyn's 10th Month

Whoa! That feels so weird to write! I can't believe we're in the double digit months! :( Here's what P has been up to the past month!

She sleeps at least (most of the time) 7 hours before waking to nurse. She nurses then goes right back to sleep until I wake her in the morning...if it was up to her she would sleep in every day! Which is fine with me since she sleeps in on the weekends. :) It's nice when Ryan's home, and P can sleep in. :)

She is such a happy baby! She wakes up happy! We know she's ready to get up when she starts talking & laughing in her crib. It's so sweet to walk in to get her & she smiles & claps! Prestyn also claps when we pick her up from Mrs. Amber's house...so sweet!

Prestyn is now eating pretty much anything we eat! She likes: waffles, yogurt, blueberries, bananas, peaches, peas, cheese, green beans, and tuna with ranch! We're working on: eggs, pears, spinach, pasta dishes, chicken, and sweet potatoes. It's weird because she liked all these things in baby food jars...

Prestyn still takes a morning & afternoon nap when she's home with us. She's so busy at Mrs. Amber's house that she just takes an afternoon nap, but it usually last 3 hours! She really only takes her paci when she's sleeping. Sometimes we give it to her if she's in an unfamiliar place or with unfamiliar people. It's her comfort piece. We're working on getting her to attach to something else. We got her a stuffed giraffe when we went to Jefferson, and she loves it!

She pretty much walks everywhere now! She still crawls, but prefers to walk! She'll start off walking, but if she loses her balance & falls she just continues going where she wants to go by crawling! Prestyn enjoys going for walks & swinging! She also likes going bye bye & will wave bye bye & hi to people! I'm pretty sure she says bye bye now. I think she says papa too as well as dada & momma.

Prestyn still loves bath time! She loves reading in the bath, and playing with bubbles! We usually let her sit in the bath tub as long as she likes...until she starts standing in the tub! Then it's time to get out! We started brushing her teeth every night too. She loves it! The toothpaste tastes like fruit so I think that's why, but she loves it!

I'm sure there's so much more I could write, but P is napping now with 4 top teeth trying to make their way through. :( I doubt she'll be napping for long since she's in so much pain! Thankfully she was quite happy during our photo session on the 21st when she turned 10 months old! You can see 1 of her top teeth coming in in one of the pics. :)

We are so in love with our sweet girl, and can't believe how big she's getting! OMG how could I forget! That's something else...when we ask her to show us how big she is she raises her hands up high! She also hides when we tell her too....with anything she can find! Then plays peek-a-boo! So much fun! She is also working on blowing kisses! She makes the mmmm sound & puts her hand somewhere on her face...sometimes it makes it on her mouth! Oh! And Prestyn also does lots of mimicing now! It's cute. She has always mimiced a lot, but now she does it & laughs...she coughs when she hears others coughing, she sighs, and even tries to make the sound I make when I'm scratching my throat! ;)

Cheers! XOXO

Memories, Memories

A week ago today Ryan and I were on the road to Jefferson, TX for our 1st time away from P! Ryan is of course away from her when he goes to the fire station, but since she's been born we've never left her over night...

I was quite nervous! I knew she was in good hands with my mom keeping her, but I was nervous about her waking in the middle of the night to nurse...Mom can't quite do that so I wasn't sure how P would take a bottle...but she did great! And so did we!

Ryan's family is from Hughes Spring so he remembered that out that way was a sweet town called Jefferson that had bed and breakfast places! So he booked it! On our way out there Ryan just kept talking about "memories, memories" from his childhood. We made a stop by his great grandmother's house on our way to Jefferson...we called her Moose. :) And her house looks great! The family who bought it after she passed (2 years ago the weekend we were there) is taking great care of it! That was great to see!

When we got to the bed and breakfast we were greeted by the owner Valerie who was so friendly! She was so friendly that she just started telling us all about Jefferson as soon as we walked in! She told us about their restaraunts, shops, and ghost tours! Once she showed us to our room we learned about the history of the "Perry" room. It was very interesting! We looked around the property & found a bike for 2! We took a stroll through the streets around the bed & breakfast! It was fun!! Once we got back to the room we decided to go into town.

We shopped & got P some souvenirs and my mom some gifts for keeping P. :) We didn't get much for ourselves, but it was such a nice afternoon to walk around on a beautiful day with my love hand-in-hand. Ryan's grandmother, Nanny, told us about a pie place that had the best pies! So we stopped into House of Pies for a delicious piece of chocolate pie! Next time we go to Jefferson I'd like to have lunch there...the menu looked delish! Since this was a small town most of the shops closed at 5 so we went back to the bed & breakfast to take a nap!

It was so nice to sleep without worrying about P. I feel a little guilty saying that, but that was one of the best naps I've had in 10 months! We got ready for dinner, and we're out again! We had dinner at a very nice restaraunt called Memories & More. We thought the name was fitting since we were making memories & re-living Ryan's childhood memories of being on that side of the state. ;) The restaraunt was beautiful! They had a pianist there playing & singing. It was such a nice romantic dinner!

The Azalea Inn has about 1 million DVDs so we thought it'd be fun to watch a movie & enjoy some popcorn! We watched the Prisoners....really good movie!!! Breakfast was delivered to our room the next morning....SO DELICIOUS!!!! OMG it was so good! During breakfast I told Ryan that I had a nice time, but I was ready to get home to P! :) We stopped by to see Moose and Poose at the cemetary on our way home. Prestyn was excited to see us when we got home! And Ricky was too...that meant my mom didn't have to share her time between him & P! haha!

We will definitely go back to Jefferson & stay at the Azalea Inn!

Cheers!

Christmas Celebrations

My oh my! Did we have a great Christmas, or what! It pretty much started before Thanksgiving this year! Usually we wait until after Thanksgiving to start decorating, but this year we had such nice weather before Thanksgiving. Ryan took full advantage of this, and started putting the lights on the outside of the house! Each year he said he wants to add at least 1 more thing than the year before...so this year he added an inflatable. Bleh! I've always been so against these...they look cool at night when they're up & going, but during the day I hate the way they're just flat on the ground. Well Ryan found one with Santa in a firetruck with a puppy on it that looked like Ryder Pup. So I said oooook...it's for Prestyn! And she did enjoy looking at it! Too bad I didn't get a picture of it!

I was a little nervous about putting all the decorations up...I wasn't sure what Prestyn would do. She actually did GREAT! Thankfully our big pretty tree has mostly shatter proof ornaments. I hung the Wizard of Oz and Waterford ones up higher to where she couldn't get them. But this tree is in the front room where we don't spend a lot of time. The other tree in the living room...she would try to get to, but I showed her 1 ornament that I didn't mind if she played with since it was a little stuffed bear from a student so that was the only one she wanted to play with. :)

So the big pretty tree is the one I put wrapped gifts under. The other one is the one for Santa to put his gifts under. This year I decided to do books for Prestyn as an advent calendar to countdown the days until Christmas. So I wrapped 25 books that were under this tree. She liked the glittery tags I had on each one. The plan was to unwrap a book each night, and this would be her bedtime story. Well we got behind many days, and still haven't read all the books! But they are all unwrapped! Next year we'll do a Christmas activity on each day. I didn't do that this year because I thought she was too little...really I think she was too little for anything, but next year...it's on!

I'm writing this almost 1 month after Christmas so it's hard to remember EVERYTHING we did over the Christmas holiday! Bad Mommy, I know! But at least I'm writing SOMETHING! A friend of mine had the Santa from Neiman Marcus at her house for pictures! So Prestyn got her 1st Santa picture with this fabulous Santa! We got some great pictures! Such good pictures that we didn't even go see the NorthPark Santa that we wanted to. That's ok though. :) We went to Bass Pro to see that Santa, but the wait was FOREVER! We had fun taking lots of pictures of P with the Winter Wonderland things they had!

Every year since Ryan and I started dating we have been going to the ICE exhibit at the Gaylord Texan. We bundled P up this year, and took her with us! I don't know if she liked it, or didn't like it...but she didn't cry going through it! She just looked at everything! I think she had a lot of fun walking around the Gaylord & taking pictures...so much to take in! Afterwards we saw Ryan's mom's side of the family for the annual Campo Verde Christmas dinner. P did so good! And we had so much fun!

We took Prestyn to my mom's cousin's Zina's annual family Christmas Party. The party started right at Prestyn's bed time so it was a little hard to stay too long, but we had a good time. Plus with her being so mobile (no complaints) it's hard to keep up with her!

We had Christmas with my best friend & her family at our home. :) They came, and went on the Polar Express train ride with us in our neighborhood. We saw another Santa & Mrs. Claus as well had hot chocolate & cookies! We had fun exchanging gifts with Prestyn & Dylan.

Our church holds Christmas services on Christmas Eve & even a couple days before! Which works well for us since we go to Arlington on Christmas Eve. So on Christmas Eve eve we went to Christmas Eve service at our church. Afterwards my little family of 3 enjoyed a hibachi dinner at Kyoto! Prestyn loved watching the chefs!

I'm sure I'm forgetting something we did before Christmas Eve, but on Christmas Eve we went to Nanny's house! We were the first there so Prestyn got to play for a while. Once everybody got there, and got their P fix we had dinner. :) We then opened gifts! It was so fun! So usually it goes youngest to oldest opens 1 gift then oldest to youngest. We repeat this until everybody has opened all their gifts. Well since Prestyn was the very youngest we let her open all her gifts first. It was so much fun! She really LOVES all the toys & clothes she got! It was funny though because Ryan's 4 younest girl cousins usually have all the attention on them...this year was a little different! Prestyn was most fascinated with the shiny wrapping paper...NOTE TO SELF FOR NEXT YEAR...buy shiny wrapping paper! Or don't...haha then maybe she won't try to get into them before Christmas!

After Nanny's house we went to Uncle David's house to have Christmas with Ryan's dad's side of the family. We had more present opening, and lots of play time! Prestyn had such a long day she was sleepy, but did so good...she had such a good time with her Paw-Paw & cousins!

Oh! Prestyn got a Christmas card from her Grammies. Inside it I got to write all the special presents she got. :) So exciting! I love for her to have things to look back on when she's older to help her remember her childhood. :) ...like this blog! :)

Christmas morning was exciting! Ryan and I got up & let Prestyn see all her presents from Santa! Including getting in her stocking. :) She really liked the giant sized Minnie Mouse and bath book! My family came over Christmas morning, and had a good yummy breakfast with us! We exchanged gifts with my nephews since they went to their mom's that afternoon. They both really liked their gifts from us, and Prestyn really liked her gifts from them! They got her a onesie with their picture on it! Too cute!!

After her 2 hour nap we went to my parent's house for Christmas dinner. Ryan and I opened gifts from my parents, and took Prestyn's gifts from us for her to open. We had so much fun! Prestyn was not at all intersted in sleeping over there so we didn't get to stay as late as we wanted, but that was ok. We made up for missing game time by having game time on New Year's Day.

It was an amazing 1st Christmas for Miss Prestyn Reese. I hope we do our job as parents as always reminding her, and telling her the story of Christmas...and the reason for the season! The birth of our savior...Jesus Christ! I love the feeling that Christmas time brings, and hope that it lasts in all of you all year long!

Cheers!