Christmas

*For you, Jenna. :)

I feel like I never have the time to sit down and really write out what's been going on with us. Honestly, it's usually the same ole' stuff: work, play with Blake, try to get some sleep, take Blake to the doctor (because we can't go an entire month - er, two weeks - without seeing Dr. Edralin), work, visit with family, repeat. Over the last month we have conquered RSV (or so I hope), celebrated the wonderful Christmas holiday (Blake's first) with family and friends, and just returned from a quick road trip to Burkburnett, TX to visit my Granny & Grandad. Lance and I have both been sick as well, so I've been slacking on my blogging duties (among others). I guess the most important thing is Christmas :)

Blake's first Christmas was a success. We attended the Roth Family Christmas on the 18th and enjoyed time with the Roth cousins. On Christmas Eve we headed over to Kingwood for church with my mom, dad and brother. Blake did really well throughout the service. He is so inquisitive. He just looks around and takes it all in. He sat for about half of the service in his uncle Chad's lap, chewed on some prayer request cards, listened to mommy sign the Christmas hymns, had a bottle and overall was mesmerized by all that was going on around him. He did break out into his cute babbling of "da-daaaa-da-da-da" once during a prayer, but I thought it was super cute :) We opened some presents and played a bit and then he was out for the night. He was a good sport. We didn't get home until late and then had to hit the ground running to get over to Nana's house (Lance's mom) for lunch. We spent some time with the Hileman's and then headed over to Grandma & Grandpa's (Lance's dad) for dinner. He loved playing with his Aunt Sarah, Aunt Katelyn and Uncle Luke. He's such a little charmer. He was worn out and went to sleep before too long. We weren't able to stay as late as we would have liked, but we really enjoyed spending time with our family. Blake is so fortunate to have so many people in his life that love, adore and spoil him.

I am really looking forward to Christmas next year. I think every year is going to get more fun and exciting around our house as Blake learns more about the true meaning of Christmas as well as all of the fun and magic of the holiday season. My girlfriends and I are also going to start a new Advent tradition next year that I am SO looking forward to. Stay tuned for posts on that later.

Right now I am watching Blake on the monitor ( side note: I LOVE our video monitor! What did people do without these?!). He is so sleepy. We have been working on getting on a better night time sleep schedule and are making good progress, but we just got back from my grandparents and he's a little 'off'. It doesn't help that the poor baby has another ear infection. While we were visiting Granny & Grandad we also had the opportunity to visit the local doctor's office. We had suspected that he might have an ear infection because he had been pulling at it a bit (but not fever and not too fussy). I tried to get him in to see his doctor before we left but they were closed. I then tried the Redi Clinic at the local HEB, but they do not see children under 18 months. SO, I opted to try to make it through the trip and not visit the Urgent Care place here. Well, we didn't make it and he did have an ear infection starting. I really think it's just a carry over from the last one, but what do I know. I'm just the mom :) Anyway, we got some meds but I can tell he's just uneasy tonight. I hope that being back in his own bed will help. We'll see.

I will post some pictures of our Christmas adventures in a separate post. It seems to be easier to do that than to try to get the pictures in the right spot in the written post. Maybe I'm doing it wrong?! Who knows. Until next time...