Getting Stronger

I'm proud

There are a few things that I'm proud of. For one, I'm very proud to say that I have the most handsome 3 month old boy a mom could ask for. I'm proud of my husband for working hard (as I type). I'm proud of my family and friends. I'm also proud of MSU as well as Loewenberg School of Nursing and Children's Hospital in Birmingham. Tonight, though, I have to say that I'm super proud of my Sour Cream Pound Cake Cupcakes (thank you, Southern Living). It's a temporary little pride thing but, I must say, I loved making these little cakes of joy and I loved decorating them. And how-come I keep thinking of Julie and Julia as I made these as if Julia Child was in my kitchen talking of butter (thank you for the movie, Lindsey. Can you tell I loved it?). Anyway, I made so many of these for no darn reason at all so I will be delivering these to my neighbors and friends but I wanted to share my pictures.


Hope you enjoy.

p. 87 from Feb. 2010 SOUTHERN LIVING



Better quality photo. Yumminess!

...and a little photo from today with baby James... we spent a lot of time chilaxin today. It was great visiting with Michelle Macdonald as well! I hope the traveling to Atlanta and whatnots were fun!! For those of you who don't know, Michelle is moving to New York next year for some time with Crusade up there! I am so proud of her!

THANK YOU, MISS MICHELLE, FOR THE POLKA DOT PAPER...AND THE ORNAMENT!

now if only i can find my camera cord.. i have some more videos to post... still have remains of placenta brain (or nappy brain as new zealanders call it) and can't remember where i left things... though, i've always been that way... can't tell you how many retainers, glasses and watches i lost as a kid... betcha my mom and dad can!

until next time.. or until i find my video cord and come back and edit this post...


Found it!



Love!

Melissa G.

Basement halfway done!

We are getting it done over here! This basement is almost ready for visitors. I expect you all to come over here and stay! It's such a blessing and so fun to pick out stuff for it!

Happy birthday (late) to Michelle Boals and Jennifer Boudreaux! These rooms are for a visit from you guys as well (and Mel!). I miss you girls and am looking forward to some hang time. We need to plan that soon!

No real special updates. James has been sleeping great.. usually only wakes up once at night during his 12 hour stretch of sleep so I can't complain. I guess it's true that most babies sleep pretty well by month 3... there are some exceptions (of those, I think will be athletes and go-getters, Char).

Love you all!

Melissa

Today in the basement

12 1/2 weeks old

Baby James,

I can't believe it. I can't believe you've grown to be 15 pounds and the most precious smiling face a mom could look upon. I can't believe you're such a handsome growing boy. You surprise me every day with new discoveries. I can't believe that in just a few short years you not only will be a young man, but you will probably tower over me. I can't believe that I didn't know you or of you just a year ago. Your dad and I have grown to experience emotions we didn't know existed. I love you more and more with every day. Tomorrow you will be 13 weeks old and, in two days, you will be 3 months old. I can't believe it. Cheers to my baby boy! May your life be blessed with so much faith, love, joy, happiness, health, hope, and much more. As your grandmother Sandra would probably tell you: "I hope you dance"

I love you with my whole heart,
Your Mom

Pictures from today

Project Basement Renovation

We "broke ground" for our basement renovations on Monday! I wanted to put pictures up as I go along. Enjoy!

Happy Birthday, Jim!

A note to Jim, the love of my life and wonderful father! I can't believe what the past four and a half years has brought us! We always have said that there is so much we haven't done that we have to look forward to and I still feel that way. It's fun to think about the now and the future with you. You mean so very much to me. I hope your birthday is relaxing and stress-free!

Love,
Melissa


Just a note: all of my videos are being saved in youtube.

here is alink to one of them and, from there, you can go to the right hand side of the youtube screen and click "more from lilsheltn". all of the videos are there. some of you have told me that the videos wont play so maybe this will help.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xzikAv6LtLA

More videos

I have found that I love looking back on the videos and remembering him at every size, so I decided to keep putting up more videos that I took. Baby James is getting a lot of video time!

We went to church today for the first time which was nice. We didn't use the nursery and sat in the baby room off to the side of the sanctuary but we were there! Yeah! Today, James had three long naps (1 hr to almost 2hr long) and he went down for bed at 6:30pm. We'll see how he does tonight!

Been a long time

So, it's been a while but I have excuses. The holidays were crazy and we've been super busy since we got back. I finally have time to sit down and write a little. The last week in December, we were able to make a trip over to Dallas which was really great and then head through Fighting Bayou for a hunting trip with three other couples. By the time we got back, I was ready to sleep for two days straight. However, I had the best time and would do it all over again next week if we could.

James is now 11 weeks old and pushing 15 pounds!! Oh my oh my! That boy really loves to eat! We are starting to work on a schedule throughout the day to regulate both of our sleeping and "normal" feeling. To be honest, I haven't felt like I could do this until now. I just really didn't see the light of this happening until we left for Dallas. I know James can sleep up to 7 hours straight because he did it on the trip twice so... we are fighting to find the right "formula". I'm working on implementing a little bit of "baby wise" and a little bit of "healthy sleep habits" and a touch of whispering to the baby (lol) which all are somewhat similar. The only thing I cannot do as of yet is to let him cry it out. I'm pretty convinced it is way to early for that. The past two or three nights, we get him down by 7ish and he'll wake up around 11pm-12am, between 3-4am, and then around 7am. I'm wanting him to drop the 11p-12p feed... GOALS!

James has really grown. He is able to focus on things for longer periods of time and I can tell he's putting some things together in his head. For example, today he was swinging his hand hitting the purple elephant hanging on his jungle gym floor mat... he kept hitting it over and over and over as if to be saying "wow.. that's MY hand and I'M doing that!". He smiles after every meal for longer periods of time now. I wish the weather was warmer because I would love to see him out more but that will come soon enough. It snowed for two days here but really didn't stick well.

Here is a video and pics. Sorry my voice is annoying!