Sunday, October 31, 2010

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies


I love this time of year as many of you know, and fall means all things pumpkin in my kitchen! I'm so bad about wearing Jared out on pumpkin recipes that by the time Thanksgiving rolls around I can't even get him to eat pumpkin pie! So here is my latest pumpkin experiment that turned out pretty well!

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies

Ingredients:
2 1/2 cups flour
1tsp baking powder
1 1/4 tsp salt
1 cup sugar
3/4 cup brown sugar
1 stick butter
1/4 cup crisco
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 tsp pumpkin pie spice
1/2 cup pumpkin (approx. half a can)
12 oz package white chocolate chips
1/2 cup walnuts

Directions: Preheat oven to 375. Sift together flour, salt, and baking powder and set aside. Cream sugars, butter and crisco. Add next 4 ingredients. Gradually add in flour mixture. Stir in chocolate chips and nuts. Spoon heaping tablespoons onto a lined cookie sheet and bake for 11-13 minutes. Enjoy!

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Monday, October 18, 2010

Go Rangers!


On Saturday, Jared and I went to the ALCS game between the Rangers and the Yankees! The weather was great and it was so nice to be able to relax! It was so fun!

GG and Pops kept Greyson, but he was cheering the Rangers on from home! :) We'll be watching again tonight in our Ranger gear, so hopefully they'll be able to win again! Go Rangers!


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Wednesday, October 13, 2010

Favorite part of my day...

I'm back at work this week, and it's been tough leaving my little guy (understatement of the year)! But, after school when I pull Greyson out of his car seat and into my arms, all is well with the world! This is my new favorite part of the day.


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Monday, October 11, 2010

Solo Road Trip!

Greyson and I survived our first solo trip to Wichita Falls this weekend! Jared went to the Ranger playoff game Saturday so he stayed home with Minnie.

On the way there I learned that I'm a real multi-tasker! I can drive and reach the backseat to replace a pacifier like a champ! They need a Mommy olympics where these awesome talents can be showcased! Haha don't freak out readers I was very careful!

While in the Falls, we celebrated Nanny's 77th birthday (sorry no pics) and went on our first WF mall trip with Nana and Blake's girlfriend, Katherine. He's such a good shopper so far! He sleeps the whole time. I'm not even sure if he knows he left the house...





In other news, today is my last day at home with Greyson :( I can barely type that sentence without tearing up! I know he'll be fine and this is so much harder on me than him, but I still can't keep from being all weepy! Geez! I seriously haven't put him down all day. I feel sorry for his daycare lady because he's going to want to be held all day tomorrow! I'll let you know how it goes!
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Tuesday, October 5, 2010

Hook 'em Horns!





Last Saturday was Greyson's first TX-OU game day! Unfortunately, the Horns lost this one, but we still had fun!




Monday, October 4, 2010

2 Months Old!

As of September 30th, Greyson is officially 2 months old! I'll probably say this every time I do one of these posts, but I truly cannot believe that he is 2 months old! With the exception of last week, it has been a great 2 months!

He has grown in so many ways just within the last few weeks! He smiles ALL THE TIME now! It is great to see that little face grinning up at you! As soon as he sees you, especially in the morning, he grins so big you can't help but laugh! Which, by the way, he is starting to do too! It's hilarious! We have actually dubbed 10-11 am the "Smiley Hour." There's something about that time of day. He is just so happy in the mornings!




He is also starting to make coos and gurgling sounds! We have whole "conversations" where he "talks" to me and I mimic back to him. I have no idea what we're discussing, but he goes from this serious face where I swear we must be talking about something extremely important like the economy to the big smiles after a little while which I decide means he thinks it's going to get better any day now.
His eyes are definitely no longer blue. They were so blue, then all of a sudden one day they were green! So now they go between green and brown, so maybe they'll be hazel? Who knows, but I'm betting on brown.
He can also pretty much hold his head up on his own now! He isn't all the way there yet, but he can do it just enough to be able to sit in his bumbo for a few minutes at a time. You can tell he really likes it! It really wears him out though because he is working so hard to sit up the whole time. Every once in a while we have to move his arms up and out so he can balance and he looks like he's kicked back old-man-style in a Lazy Boy! It's so funny! (And, yes, he is wearing a Halloween onesie in this picture! It's officially October and we have lots of Halloween gear to wear before the month is over! Thanks GG and Nana! We LOVE Halloween at this house! )

On his 2 month birthday his Great-Grandparents Nanny and Pappaw came to our new house for the first time! We are so happy that they were able to come see the house and Grey before our appointment. Grey is a little charmer and smiled the whole time they were here! He loves his Nanny! haha Minnie was also super excited to see them!


We went back to see the pediatrician for his 2 month checkup. By now all the nurses and doctors know us, so we feel quite at home there! haha He is perfectly within the 50th percentile on his weight, height, and head size. Some might say he is perfectly average, but we're going with just perfect! haha He weighs 11 lbs 9 oz, and measures 23 inches long.

At his appointment, he got the dreaded 2 month vaccinations :( He did not like it at all! He got one shot in each leg, and then some oral vaccines. (You can see his manly camo bandaids in his pictures up above) The nurse was a pro though, and it was over in no time! Unfortunately, his little legs were sore for a couple of days which meant he was pretty fussy. That night he needed a little extra lovin, so I made dinner, cleaned it up, etc. while holding him the whole time. The shots also disrupted his sleep a bit and Thursday and Friday night were a little rough.
Speaking of sleeping, we are doing a little bit better, but he is definitely NOT on a schedule. During the day he takes a morning nap for a couple of hours, and then he naps again in the afternoon. I think the afternoon nap is what we need to work on. On some days he will sleep from about 2-5, but then there are days where he sleeps from 12 or 1 to 5! On those days there is nothing I can do to get him to wake up, so I guess he needs it? At night he will sometimes (rarely) make it until 5 or 6 am after his last feeding at night, but usually we get up at least once during the night at around 2 or 3 am. I'm nervous about how tired I'm going to be when I go back to school, but everyone keeps telling me that we are close to the age where he starts to sleep more at night?!?! We'll see... Jared and I have started trying to create a routine where we feed him and then read a book and then go to bed, but he is SO our child because he is so stubborn! He will pass out while we read to him and the minute you put him in his crib it's like he just chugged a shot of espresso! Because of his lack of a schedule at night we still haven't put him in his room alone yet, but maybe we'll test it out to see if that helps...Who knows! Hopefully in his 3 month post I will brag on how well we are doing at night! Keep your fingers crossed!


Friday, October 1, 2010

Getting Ready to Hook'em!




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Feeling Much Better!

I am a little slow on the updates, but Greyson is feeling so much better! I think he is finally completely over the virus (knock on wood).

We ended up only having to stay for a day and a half thanks to the WONDERFUL doctor that saw us late Friday afternoon. And, thankfully all of Greyson's Grandparents, and Uncles were able to be with us so that Jared and I didn't completely lose it about the fact that our 8 week old was in the hospital! Jimmy and Di (Pops and GG) met us Thursday when we were admitted and my Mom (the newly named "Nana") came down the next morning and spent the weekend along with the Uncles and my Dad.


After spending an entire night and day being poked and prodded and sucked dry, the nurses and doctors couldn't figure out how to clear him up well enough to breathe through his nose. Apparently babies are "obligate nose breathers" which means that they don't understand that they can breathe through their mouths. So my poor baby felt like he was suffocating when he was asleep and when he was eating. They had done the deep suction so many times trying to clear him up that his little nose started bleeding!

To monitor is oxygen levels, Greyson was hooked up to a monitor that beeped ALL night long. Whenever his level would dip below 90--100 is optimal--the monitor would sound an alarm and the nurse would rush into our room to check on him. Well, since he was sucking in so much air trying to breathe, he was a bit gassy! haha I learned that whenever Grey is tooting, stretching, and filling his diaper, he holds his breath! So after the poor nurse had been in our room every 30 minutes for the first 3 hours of the night, we decided that it would be okay for me to push the button to end the alarm as long as he was okay. :) Needless to say it was a LONG night! Since there was only one little pull out chair bed, I stayed by myself, but Jared called to check on us so much that I think he probably slept less than I did.

Finally, Nancy the day nurse--who we really liked--said that we should call in an ENT to check him out to be on the safe side. He was amazing! If you live in the Lewisville/Flower Mound area, I highly recommend him! He was so informative and explained everything that was going on in such detail that we finally understood what was really going on. His name is Dr. Bramhall and he decided to give Grey some drops that would get rid of the inflammation in his nose, and I kid you not, within an hour he was like a new baby! He could breathe and started to act like he was just fine! So, luckily, Bramhall convinced the hospital to let us go home so that we could be more comfortable. After a few days at home it was like he had never been sick!

I was already a little weepy about going back to work before Grey was sick. I was supposed to go back to work the next week, but being the overprotective new Mom that I am, I started to panic about Grey being around other kids at daycare so soon after being sick, which made the weepiness even more pitiful. So, I took one more week off, and I will go back to work on October 12th. I think it's going to be a rough day on his poor Mom! He probably won't even notice I'm gone! haha But, I'm so glad that I found a great place for him to go during the day. It is an in-home teachers-kids-only daycare, so there are just a few kids and we really like Terri, who will be taking care of him. So, keep your fingers crossed that he stays well and that I can keep it together well enough to function at school! haha