Mother's Day

Wow, I don't even know where to start.  I am so emotional today.  Just now holding Holden in my arms, I felt so protective, overjoyed and so much love for this little angel.  He depends on ME for so much.  I think sometimes how will I ever be able to give him everything he needs, will I be able to do that.  But then I think back......

Last Mother's Day was a day that I celebrated my mom, mother-in-law, Grandmother, Mimi, Brenda, my sisters, sister-in-laws, cousins, aunts, etc.  I remember thinking, will I ever be a mom?  Will I ever know what my mom went through to make sure my brother and I were taken care of, the worry and love that she has for us, will I ever know that feeling?  As many of you know, it took Chuck and I almost a year to get pregnant, there were so many ups and downs, so many emotions during that time.  But today, too look back, everything that we went through to get to where we are today is nothing short of grace. Our God is amazing, he works in miraculous ways.  He DOES answers our prayers and my prayers were big!  I wanted to be a mommy so bad.  And now, I have so much love for my son, MY SON.  My angel, my tiny gift from God.

Today means so much to me, in this short time that I have been his mommy, I understand how my mom and many other mom's feel about their children.  You will do anything for them, you shed many tears of joy and some of sorrow. Your heart breaks when they are sick, when they cry you almost cry yourself.  And to know that they depend solely on you at this young age gives me such an overwhelming feeling of pride and accomplishment.  I love my baby boy so much and I am so thankful to share this day with so many other wonderful mommy's and mommy's to be.

I thank God and my husband for this day to celebrate me, a mommy.  I thank Holden for being everything I ever wanted, he is the ultimate symbol of mine and Chuck's love.  The love that we brought before God on our wedding day.  Holden, I love you so much.  I promise to always protect you, to provide for you, to care for you and above all, I promise to love you forever.  One day, I pray that you will get to experience this love, the love that a parent has for their child.

I love you son,

Just for Debbie

So, a good friend of mine is home on maternity leave and I guess it getting a little stir crazy, looking for a little less talk and a lot more action.  So, this is for her.  Man, it seems like time is flying by so quickly.  Things at work have been really crazy, which is good when all you can think about is getting off work to go and pick up your little man, get him home so that you can play and just love on him.  But bad in the sense that its work and work will always be work. Especially in my line of work, storms are not our friend needless to say.

Holden is the most amazing little thing.  I never knew how much love I could have for someone.  Every morning I drop him off at Ms. Linda's just gets harder and harder.  He is such as morning baby.  Loves to smile and talk to you.  I nurse him every morning before we leave, it seems he does more flirting with Momma than drinking, but I'm not complaining.  I just love the way he looks at me, little twinkle in his pretty blue eyes.

Definitely a Mommy's boy.  See even the clothes he picks out tell of his abounding love for me.

Right down to his camo green crocks, he is absolutely the most precious baby in the whole wide word.

Now, on to adventures of mommyhood.  I read that breastfed babies don't have as many dirty diapers as formula fed babies.  This has NOT been the case with my little man. From day one, I have never seen or been around a baby that had gas like Holden does.  He will kill me one day for this, but its the truth.  Anyway, Saturday I took note that he was unusually quite in that department and hadn't had a dirty diaper all day.  Again, very unusual for him.  So, low and behold, on Sunday, in church mind you, he decided to make up for his lack of dirty diapers on Saturday.  And of course, we weren't sitting in the "quite" room because they were doing their make up Easter service (long story, but basically the church was without power on Easter Sunday, so all service were lakeside and so they decided to do their Easter service this past weekend).  So, we were sitting towards the back of the sanctuary, good thing. I had noticed that Holden was a little more squirmy than normal, so I knew he was working on something.  I just happen to think to myself that I better get him out of the carseat, so it has somewhere to go but up his backside.  Good thing, I barely got him out in time.  Made it to the bathroom, but it was too late.  Outfit #1.

After church we went to lunch with some friends, then headed over to Holden's first birthday party to be invited to.  It was a circus theme, but given the lovely cold and rainy weather we had, he didn't partake in any of the activities.  He was actually sleeping when we arrived, so I just left him in his carseat.  I checked on him about 30 minutes after we got there, as soon as I lifted the blanket, I KNEW he had left me another surprise.  Outfit #2 and his carseat!  Man, how exciting my day was.  Chuck came in the bathroom to check on us, it must have been the look on my face cause all he did was say "I love you," and turned and walked away.  I told him later that I only had 1 outfit left in his bag to change him into and that I had used all the wipes I had just put in the case that morning.  I had also added an extra onesie, just in case.  Good thing, little man would have been naked.  If he would have had another incident, he would have been in the shower.

And of course, the entire time I'm going through 500 wipes to clean him up, he's just looking at me with those adoring eyes.  Can't get upset, he's just too cute!  These are the "Days of My Life........"

I would not change one second that I get to spend with him.  Holden is everything to us.  Chuck and I look at him every night before bed and tell him just how much we love and adore him.  Our little Tooter, or more recently Doodle Bug.  Seems more appropriate after the past few days.

Baby Talk

I LOVE my evenings with my little man.  Each night when we get home from work and Ms. Linda's we spend the evening talking.  He tells mommy how much he loves me and he tells Daddy all Mommy's secrets.  At least that's what Daddy thinks.

Happy Easter and 3 Month Birthday Little Man

What a wonderful and blessed day to turn 3 months old!  Holden is definitely very special.  He got to celebrate his very first Easter with so many loving family members.  He was a good boy so the Easter bunny came to visit him.  He got one basket full of books and another basket with some new outfits, bath toys and beanie baby chickens!

Then we went to church.  The storm that blew through last night took all the power out at the church, so they moved everything outside by the lake.  It was really nice, little windy, but tooter slept through most of it.

So handsome.

Mommy and her favorite little man.

After church we went to Grammy and G-Pa's house for lunch.  All the kids hunted for Easter eggs while I took a nice comfy nap.  Next year, they better look out, cause I'll be ready to get the "prize Easter egg."

First "real" Night Out

Chuck and I had our first real day/night away from Holden.  Our friends Alex and Zeydi got married yesterday, it was an ALL day affair.  The wedding was at 1:00, but the reception didn't start until 6.  So Grammy came over around 10:30 to help with Holden while I got ready, cause daddy had to be at the hotel by 11 to take pictures.  The wedding was really beautiful.  Since there was such a time gap between the wedding and the reception I decided to come home and just make sure that Grammy and Holden were OK.  Grammy did great!  And so did Holden.  I guess it helps that me and Grammy have a very similar voice, Grammy knows all the songs that mommy sings cause she's the one who used to sing them to me AND she listens to everything mommy says so she remembers the little tricks that mommy uses when I get fussy or sleepy.

Needless to say, Chuck and I had a really good time.  I only called and checked on Holden and Grammy twice during the reception.  The first time was shortly after his "grip water" time and Grammy held the phone up to Holden's ear and I could him coo as I talked to him.  The second time was shortly after I thought he had gone to bed.  Both times Grammy had everything under control.  Not that I knew she wouldn't, but it makes it so much easier to leave him for a period of time when you know that he is happy.

I'm not so sure that mommy will be letting daddy get out as often though, or maybe I should let him out MORE often.  He are just a few pics of our evening, for some reason I think our friends might leave us at home next time, or at least Chuck.

This was obviously taken at the BEGINNING of the reception.

And this one was taken towards the END.

Such a Big Boy

So I've really been weary of the bumbo chair.  Holden has done really well since he was born at holding his little head up, but I wasn't sure he was ready to try out the bumbo.  But recently he loves to sit up in your lap and coo and talk.  I think its because he can see you better.  He has really been capturing our attention.  He locks eyes with you now and can just carry on a conversation for a while.  We just love it!  It's the best part of our days.  I need to get him on video.

So anyway, we got the bumbo out last week and Holden loves it.  He thinks he's big sitting up.  He still can't hold his head up really well, so we just prop a pillow up behind him.

You can see here that he doesn't quite have the whole "how to I keep my head from falling back" down yet, but he'll get there.  Of course it doesn't help when I'm standing over him with the camera.

Such a happy boy.  Just melts my heart when he smiles.

 He has discovered his tongue the past few weeks.  So he constantly sticks it out at us.  It's really funny when him and daddy sit and do it back and forth with each other.

That's better, thanks for holding my head up mommy.

Now, that's better, I think I can get the hang of this.  Such a cool little dude.  Got the whole swagger going on, leaning back, just chillin'.

I love this little baby so much.  He has my whole heart!

Big Brother......

Scared ya'll for a minute didn't I.  No, we're not pregnant.  Come on, Holden is only 2.5 months old.  This post is about Zeus.  He is such a good zuppy when he wants to be.  He loves Holden's bath time.  I honestly think he would jump right in and bathe with him if we'd let him.

Chuck took these pics last week.  I LOVE how serious Holden looks when he focuses on Zeus.  I always wonder what he's thinking as he looks at him.  I guess, Zeus is probably thinking the same thing, "What is this thing????"

Zeus also makes a really good pillow.  Normally we don't let Zeus get too close to Holden, not because we think he'll hurt him or anything, but Zeus has an obsession with licking kids.  He doesn't do it so much with adults but I guess kids always have that sweet taste that he can't get enough of.  So we try to avoid putting Holden is the "slobber" zone, we figure he'll get plenty of zuppy baths when he's a little more mobile and Zeus is chasing him around the house.

But when we're there to keep an eye on them, we like capturing sweet moments of Holden and is puppy dog.

Holden loves his puppy dog and his puppy sure does love him to......