The Thumb:

A friend that sticks closer than a pacifier. We are all about learning to self-soothe in this house.

Destin Pictures

My brother-in-law was kind enough to uplaod all the pictures they took of the boys on to Shutterfly for me. So if you are so inclined, you may scroll down the side bar to the link to our Shutterfly site and browse through them at your leisure.

The family ones aren't too cute because Kris and I were not planning on being photographed. It was morning and we just got the boys dressed and headed down to the beach. And I had just taken my sunglasses off so I'm all squinty. And did I mention I just had a baby. Yeah. That's when you want to take a lot a lot of pictures of yourself :(

But enjoy the little boy cuteness. It is readily available.

Just in Time for Reformation Day

I made these onesies last year for Asher and his buddy, Josiah. I had several people afterwards tell me that they would like one and with Reformation Day approaching, I have decided to make a few more up. Here is the design since the picture above is a little blurry.



I can make them as a onesie or a t-shirt, so if you are interested, email me at jamierives at hotmail dot com. If you are local, we can arrange a pick-up and if not, I can mail it to you.

I really would like the price to be $15.17 but that seems a bit exorbitant for a t-shirt. So let's say $8 (tee or onesie.)

I'll take orders until October 17.

Judelicious

I'm not sure if you can tell how awesome his hair is, but trust me, he has got some verticalness happening. And it is really light on top and dark along the sides. Quite the 'do!

He will be 2 months old on Sunday! I should really think about getting his birth announcemetns completed and mailed.



I hesitate to even write this, but he is actually sleeping really well now. He takes about a 1-2 hour nap after each feeding and he goes to bed around 7:30, I give him a "dream-feed" about 10:30 and then he sleeps til around 4:15. I feed him again and then he sleeps til around 7:45. This has happened several days in a row so I am praying he keeps it up! I think the main reason is that I put him on his tummy and he turns his head to the side and sucks on his fist all night. If he wakes up, he just sucks for a while and is right back to sleep. He has been taking a paci but is finding his fist much more convenient these days.

I love this boy--so Judelicious!

Never leave your kid unattended in the laundry room

We had a stern talk about how dryers are not toys...after I took a picture, of course.

A Few Pictures

To begin, a sweet smile from the little man. They are more and more frequent, I am pleased to report. I attribute it to his new-found love of his fist which makes getting to sleep and staying that way oh so easy. Rested Jude=Happy Jude.

The really great beach pictures are still on my sister-in-law's memory card, so you'll have to wait on those, but here are a few that I took over the past few weeks.

This was Asher's first time on the beach. He loves sandboxes so you can only imagine his delight with a whole beach!




He loved the water, too. The waves were really big our first day there. I think there was a hurricane or something in the Gulf... Anyway, he would have run headlong into the ocean if we would have let him. Fearless, that little one is.



Jude and his cute daddy as we were out shopping.



Thankfully, Asher will still fall asleep anywhere. He had his fill of shopping.




Asher riding a shark at the play area at the shopping center.



He enjoyed the splashpad, too. He would stand over the jets in the ground that shoot up water and call out, "Waa-waa! Waa-waa!" as if he was calling the water forth. Then he would jump back and grin when the water came out, as if he caused it to happen.



Asher's favorite thing to do was to sit in the water and feel the tide draw the water backk all around him.



This is our "manny." Actually, it's my brother who we allowed to ride home with us on the condition that we would take care of the kids for me. That lasted about 30 minutes.



More pictures to come!

My Day

1. I started back on the South Beach Diet. Evacu-cation is over so I must resume operation "No More Elastic Waistbands."

2. Asher went to bed early tonight because one of us would not have survived the evening had that not occurred. It wasn't looking too good for me so off he went. He's mad.

3. I tried to clean but things kept getting uncleaned somehow. Two steps forward, one step back. I did get a stain out of the carpet though.

4. Jude vascilated between sweet smiles and forceful crying all day. Now he is chilled out on the playmat looking at his blinking star. Bless that star.

5. Kris went to help out his fam as they clean up the Ike trash. He's a good boy.

6. I am about to go hardboil a dozen eggs for my snacks this week. You eat a heck of a lot of eggs on Phase I.

Ok, now you're caught up :)

We're Baaaa-ack

It was sad to leave the beautiful beach and sand, but very nice to be home. Thanks to my in-laws (aka Grandpa and Grandmommy), we enjoyed a full week in Destin and we had such a great time with our families.

We came home to power, no damage, and even a working dish and internet access. Even my little Southern Living front door basket thing was still there. The primary reason is the providence of God, but the means He used was the fact that our house is in the very center of the neighborhood. So the bigger houses on the perimeter took the hit for the other ones in the center.

So any friends nearby that read this and need to wash some clothes or check some email, feel free to stop by.

I'll put up some pictures soon from our evacu-cation. 2 boys + 2 matching shirts + gorgeous beach = adorable pictures!

Guess what else! Jude slept 6 hours in a row for the second night! Please join me in a very joyful "WOO-HOO!" Keep it up, little buddy!

Evacu-cation

This is the term my husband has coined to describe what we are currently doing. With Ike looming in the Gulf, we decided to take my in-laws up on their offer to evacuate with them to Destin. So here we are--enjoying the beach and time with family. I now know what it is like to have a nanny! All this family makes caring for the little guys so much easier. Kris and I even went out on a date last night. That hasn't happened in many, many moons. So even though the circumstances are less than desirable, it has been a very nice "surprise vacation." Asher LOVES the beach and having both sets of grandparents here to dote on him. Jude is just hanging out--he can do his thing anywhere.

Kris' school district is out until Thursday so we will mosey our way back to Houston sometime between now and then. My parent's are here with us and they are facing several weeks without power (they live further east of Houston where the hit was much more direct) so their plans are still up in the air.

We are pretty sure that no major damage was done to any of our homes, but we won't be sure until we get back to inspect from the inside. Until then, we will continue to rough it here at the condo and figure out what our plans are. Hey--if ya gotta evacuate, might as well go somewhere pretty.

And in case you were wondering (and I'm sure you are,) an evacu-cation triggers an automatic suspension of all South Beach Diet activity. There are crabcakes here, people. What was I supposed to do?

Long Time, No Blog

Blogging seems to be a little harder to do these days...anyone know why?

Oh, yeah--maybe it's those two little boys pictured above. Asher loves to hold Jude. Jude does not enjoy being held by Asher.

They are both doing good. Asher turned 19 months on Sunday and Jude turned 6 weeks on Monday. Asher has started putting together 2-3 word sentences. He is quite talkative these days. He has started saying "2" and "10" when we count instead of just "1." He loves the letter "W" because he and Kris practice saying letters while Kris is bathing him and he calls it "double-buh." He now says "me-me, Mama" which means "hold me, Mama," especially at moments when he knows I can't.

Jude is holding up his head more while he is on his tummy. He weighs 12 lb. 11 oz. as of yesterday. He is having some feeding issues so we have switched to the milk-free/soy-free crazy expensive formula and that seems to be helping him so much. He goes down around 9 or 10 and then wakes around 2 or 3 to eat and then wakes again around 6 or 7. I'm SO ready for that sleeping through the night thing to kick in!

In other news, week 1 of Phase I of the South Beach Diet is over. I'm down 5.5 lbs. I hate how slow weight loss has to be, but at least I'm making progress. One more week of the really restrictive phase and then the plan gets much easier.

Here's a few pictures from our week...

Asher is obsessed with taking a picture with someone and then looking at it immediately in the camera.



Asher loves listening to music. He's listening to Fiona Apple here because I didn't realize Elizabeth Mitchell was over. Hope he's not too messed up now.



I know, I know...not supposed to put them on their tummy! But he picks up his head really well so I feel fine with it. And he sleeps just like I do. I only put him on our bed for naps when I am right there. He sleeps in this pack-n-play at night and for most naps.

So It Begins

Ugh. It's that time again, kids. Time to take off baby weight. This is not my favorite thing to do, but I'm really tired of wearing the same 3 maternity shirts mixed and matched with the same 2 maternity pants. It's just not cute.

So I kick of Phase I of the South Beach Diet tomorrow. I had a lot of success with it when I had to lose the weight from Asher so I know it will work. And I am highly motivated because, let me say it again, all that fits is maternity clothing!

I look forward to reporting about my amazing progress and astounding weight loss results in the weeks and months to come.