Hank at 2 months

 Your chunky thighs are to die for!

My Sweet Hank,

You have had such a great month!  Now that we are out of the true newborn stage, we've really hit a sweet spot.  You are really the best baby - so happy and easy - and I am so proud of you!

You have grown a ton over the last month.  Today, we went in for your two month check-up and you were 13 pounds even, at the 70th percentile, and your length was 23 3/4 inches long at the 80th percentile.  Your head circumference was 75th percentile, so you are right on track in every measurement and we were so proud of you!  You are officially wearing 3-6 month clothes (except pants and shorts are still 3 month size).  You are such a good sleeper - I am incredibly happy with you in this department.  Three times this week you slept 8 hours straight!!  But, even when you wake up around 2 or 3 am, you just eat and go right back to sleep - truly knowing what is day and what is night.  I love you for this!!

 

You are happiest when your dad is playing with you.  It is so funny to see your face light up with the biggest smile ever when Dad tickles you or plays peek-a-boo.  It is easy to see how much you love him, and he is definitely the best at getting you to smile.  He even gets a good chuckle out of you sometimes, and that is the most wonderful sound in the world to us.

 I know you love me too, Hankster.  When someone else is holding you, but you hear my voice in the room, you always turn to look my way.  You are so comforted when I pick you up in the middle of the night to feed you, and it is my biggest joy when you literally hug my neck when I'm holding you. You are really starting to "talk" to me in response when I am talking to you, and I just love it!

Your favorite place to be lately is your swing.  One day when I put you in there awake, I left the room and came back to find you laughing at yourself in the mirror.  I don't know what tickled you so much, but ever since then, you are always looking up at that mirror and smiling.  You love the swing awake and you love it asleep.  We are VERY thankful for that swing - mom gets to take showers and get ready on a much more consistent basis now.

 This crooked smile just slays me every time, Hankster.  You have so many funny facial expressions - you make everyone laugh with your judgmental looks.  One day at the grocery store, a lady thought you didn't like her because you were looking at her like she was crazy!  I call it your "Whatchu talkin' 'bout Willis" face.  And that is a reference that you will never even know of in your lifetime, but oh well!

You also still love to lay down on the changing table.  You do most of your laughing in that spot.  Right now, you think it is hilarious when I take off your clothes or diaper to change you.  We just sit and play there all the time because it makes you so happy.

 The things you love right now: Daddy, the swing and the mirror above it, the changing table, being swaddled in the miracle blanket, staring at your best friend the fan, peek-a-boo, and your mobile (and any soft music playing).

The things you don't so much love right now: loud, sudden noises (like Mom's sneezes or Nala barking), the nose sucker, dirty diapers, being hungry (no one does), getting shots (yowzers you can get loud), and when you go awhile without being held.

We are so in LOVE with you, little man.  We pray big things for you every day, but most importantly that you grow up to know Jesus.  Thank you for being the best thing that ever happened to your daddy and me (besides each other).

Love, Mom

Hank's Newborn Photos

Both of our desktop backgrounds - oh how I love this one.

Our incredible wedding photographer, Carter Rose from F8 Studio, came over last Saturday to take Henry's newborn photos.  We had to book him at the last minute for a few reasons - one, mom didn't get on the ball and figure it out ahead of time, and two, Henry had to get little earmuffs put on his ears at 6 days old and I vainly didn't want them in the pictures (more on that later - totally a minor deal in the grand scheme of things).  Carter doesn't shoot a ton of newborn photos, so we were really grateful that he could come over at the last minute to do these for us.  We think they turned out fantastic and really captured Hank's little personality.  We love Carter!  These are a few of our favorites.  Warning - motherhood has made me the cheesiest and sappiest person alive!

 This is his little personality exactly.  Such a sweet boy!

 Love his little baby toes!

 I hope I never forget what it's like just to hold him and snuggle while he sleeps.  It is my very favorite thing in this whole world.

 Always has his hands by his face.  He was even born that way (which didn't make delivery any easier, Hank - you owe me one)!

 Hank Stevens - our future Rangers second baseman.  Doesn't his name just sound like a baseball player?  This is one of my favorites because he is sitting in my catcher's mitt and is holding one of Aaron's game balls from his childhood.  Plus, I just love his smushed-up face.

 By far, this is the cutest thing I have ever seen.  I realize that I am super biased.

 My sister ordered his elephant hat on Etsy last Thanksgiving - the day our families found out we were pregnant.  I had told everyone that we wanted an elephant theme in the nursery.

 Love this shot of the three of us and his nursery in the background.

 Had to get a Longhorn pic.  Hook em!

 He has such beautiful hair. And amazing arm rolls.

These two guys are my absolute everything.  I just can't get enough of either of them.

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year!  I know it's been forever since the last post, but I wanted to come on here and wish everyone a wonderful year and great success on all the resolutions that are being set this year (more on mine later).

One resolution that I do have is to blog much more frequently.  In August and September, I changed jobs twice within two weeks and just never got quite caught up.  We spent the holidays giving our house a good ol' cleaning out and organizing, and though we are not done yet, I am finally feeling free to sit down at the computer and write a bit.  There will be plenty of reasons to blog this year, though.  One of them being this:

We are filled with such JOY over this baby, who we call Poppy for the time being.  Poppy is due July 22! How cute are the little arms and legs already at 10 weeks when this photo was taken??  (I am 12 weeks now).

The other (somewhat less important) reason that I am excited to start blogging again is that this is back:

And Jillian is back!  So, my BL blogging hiatus can be over now that I feel like it has returned to the real BL.  I plan on really keeping up with it this season, though I won't exactly be losing the weight that I usually hope to do while watching the show.  I'll just try to save the inspiration for after Poppy arrives.

I hope your holidays were as great as ours!

Proud

This morning, Aaron ran his first half marathon and I couldn't be more proud of him! He had an awesome time for his first one - 2:27 - narrowly beating my time last year of 2:42. Obviously we weren't that close! He did great and I am so proud of him for accomplishing his goal. If you know my husband, you know discipline is one of his many wonderful qualities - I need to pick up on that a little more. He's an inspiration to me! Congrats Aaron!

This is him at mile 9 - smiling away and doing great!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Happy Valentine's Day!

I have to admit - this holiday can be more exhausting than fun when you work in an elementary school. But, we're still celebrating with a casual night in. Cue the heart-shaped pizza from Picasso's, grape and goat cheese salad (my fave), and cheesy bread. And candy from my sweet students for dessert (choice of Laffy Taffy, Pixi Stix, Reese's, and chocolates - sorry, A, I already ate the KitKat bar).

I got all Pinterest-y, with my help from my dear friend Marlowe, and made the "52 Reasons I love you" deck of cards for Aaron this year. It was amazing how easy it was to think of 52 things. I am so in love with my husband.

And when he got home from work, this is the loot I got - all my favorites - Laughing Cow cheese, chocolate chip cookies, Cupcake Red Velvet wine ("the most Becky wine ever" according to him), and a great Valentine's movie - Moneyball on Blue-ray.

In my classroom, we played a cute Valentine's Minute to Win It game. It is played with candy and SO cute and fun. We also danced to the Cupid Shuffle. Without a room mom, it can be trying to plan the party and execute it without any help, all the while trying to be friendly and not grouchy with the mess and noise. Whew! Here is the link to the Minute to Win It game...it was awesome!
http://stacyjulian.com/blog/?p=6710

Hope everyone had a great Valentine's Day!