A little pre-planning

Tuff will be 2 in less than 2 months. Oh my, where did by newborn baby go?

[minutes old]

It's hard to believe I'm already in planning mode for a 2nd Birthday party for our first sweet boy. He is getting so big, almost a little too fast. He's smarter than a whip and he's my WHOLE entire world. Not just a little bit, a piece, or most, he's ALL of it. I love him more and more with every day that passes. And my very most favorite thing about this sweet little boy of mine... He LOVES his mama. He loves his daddy and the rest of his family too but there's just something about Mama to him. :) And that my friends, is the best feeling in the world. :)

I am planning on doing a Blue's Clue's theme this year for baby boy. He's really into a few different shows right now but for the past few months his favorite has been "Blue's Blue's" (that's what he calls it). Since I know he's only going to be turning 2 and will probably never remember any of his 2nd birthday, I've decided not to "go all out" on a theme for a few different reasons. 1 being just as I said, he'll never remember it anyway. 2 being that I'm not a big fan of "themed" parties. I never really have been. Not sure why. I'd rather color coordinate some stuff and have a party. Which leads me to 3. being that I know in a few years, maybe even next year, he'll be requesting "themed" parties for every birthday until he's old enough to be out of that phase. Which is probably several years, if I had to guess. :) So.... I only plan on doing a few things in an actual Blue's Clue's theme, 3 to be exact. And the rest, I will color coordinate with. Here are a few peaks at what I'm leaning towards for my only 3 items that will be themed....

1. The Invitation- I don't want to ruin the suprise, so I'm not going to show any peaks of our invitation that we've decided on.

2. The Cake-

This is what I'm hoping for it to look like. I know things don't always turn out EXACTLY how the picture looks, but I'm hoping for something pretty close to this. I just LOVED it when I found it and I thought it was definitely not TOO much "themed" looking. It just looks like a little puppy dog to me. :)

3. Tuff's shirt for his party-

Last year, I bought 2 different shirts. One to coordinate with his actual birthday party and one for him to wear on his actual birthday (which was a different day than his party) that had a "1" on it. I ended up loving both. And since I liked the idea so much, I will probably do the same again this year. But here is a sneak peak of the applique for his birthday party shirt.

[of course it will have the #2 and Tuff on it]

So, not too much theme. Just a little. :) I have been looking around and starting my planning a little earlier this year. For a few different reasons as well. Last year I waited a little too long and stressed about everything at the last minute. I really wanted to avoid that this year. Especially since I'll be BIG and pregnant right around birthday party time this year. (9 months pregnant to be exact) :)

Still can't believe I'm planning for a 2nd birthday party. My baby is officially NOT a baby anymore. The good thing is, he'll always be a baby in mommy's eyes. Mommy's baby!



It's a good time for a new blog design...

Don't you agree?

If so, head on over to Purrfect Blog Designs and check it out. She is running a sale through Saturday.

Here is what she's offering...

Starting yesterday, Purrfect Blog Designs are $25 off!

ALSO, For the first 10 people that e-mail Patrice, she will take an
additional $10 off!  So you could give your blog a total makeover for $65
or $40…that’s a great deal!!

That’s not all.  During this sale, if 10 or more people sign up for a blog
makeover she will draw for a free blog design!!  You might be the lucky
winner and not have to pay at all except for the digital kit.

This sale began yesterday (tuesday) and will run through Saturday.

Email Patrice at jpdbj (at) dtccom (dot) net for more details.

26 weeks & an official END to the Name Game

I AM

26 weeks

[and a new hair cut, 5 in. GONE!]

[and here is the comparison of my 26 wks picture while pregnant w/ Tuff]

PREGNANCY HIGHLIGHTS:

How Far Along: 26 weeks

Size of baby: The website I googled said baby boy is currently the size of an English hothouse cucumber. He is also weighing in around 2 pounds and is close to 14 inches long.

 Total Weight Gain/Loss: My last appt still showed +3. I'm almost sure I've gained about 2 or 3 pounds since then. I don't like to use my scale at home because it's always off from the one at my Dr. office so I'm just guessing on the extra pounds.

Maternity Clothes: Almost everything is maternity except a few things.

Gender: It's a BOY!!!

Movement: Moving, Moving, Moving. Thats all this sweet boy wants to do. I wonder when he ever sleeps. And when I start wondering that, I start to get a little worried. :)

What I miss: I miss my wardrobe (haha), energy and sleep. I've come to realize how much the Unisom does help the past few nights. I ran out Sunday night and I haven't slept a wink the past 2 nights. Where as usually I don't sleep good, but without the Unisom, I'm not sleeping AT ALL.

Cravings: Haven't really been having any specific cravings lately.

Symptoms: Physical exhaustion. My doctor's office called last week and said my iron was REALLY low. So I think this may have been my problem with the exhaustion. They started me on iron pills and so far I'm feeling a tad bit better. But still tired. Maybe they'll kick in full force soon!

Best Moment this week: Coming up with an OFFICIAL name for our sweet baby boy!!! Finally!

Well, the name game has officially ended for us. I went home yesterday afternoon and told Jordan "I want a name for this child and I want it by the end of the night!" Haha. I've just been dying to call him by his name, rather than baby boy. Anyways, after about an hour and a half to 2 hours of going back and forth and debating.... we finally decided on.......

GUNNER

BLAKE

ALFORD

We will call him Gunner!!! And we went back to our original plan to go with Jordan's middle name (Blake) for his middle name. I am SUPER pleased with our decision! Especially since we decided to go with Blake as the middle name. You ALL know that's what I originally wanted from the beginning! :) I know you all probably thought Brooks would be IT, as did I.... But, Jordan just really didn't like Brooks. And even though he said we could name/call him that because it's what I wanted, I just couldn't settle with that. I wanted it to be something we BOTH liked. Afterall, he is the dad. It should be something we both agree on together. This has definitely been EXTREMELY hard. A whole lot harder than it was when we were expecting Tuff because we already had his name set in stone before we even knew he was a boy. I guess that's just the way it goes sometimes. But I'm proud to say our sweet little baby boy now has a name and can finally be called by it. Thanks for everyone's suggestions/support as we've tried to come to an final decision. We really have appreciated hearing everyone's ideas. It's definitely helped us during our whole deciding process.

I'll leave you all with some pictures of our sweet boy!

Loving his new bed and super cool bedding :)

Walking with Chopper

And cheesin for the camera as we head to MeMe & PaPa's house!

Happy Tuesday!!!

A little catching up

I feel like I'm completely off after all the issues with Blogger last week...

Our weekend was VERY low key. It rained all weekend and Tuff is dealing with sinuses/allergies that caused us to just stay in all weekend. Even though I was about to lose my ever living mind by about 3:30 yesterday afternoon, it was good for all of us, especially Tuff. Because he seems to be feeling much better today. :)

Since I never did my "Mini Vacay Part2" post, I thought I'd do that this morning.

I ended with Tuff getting some bonding time with his new cous! He did so well with Beau. It really gave me a good feeling about how he'll be with his little brother. It won't be long before we find out for sure!

Well Saturday was a long day. But an exciting day because it was Tuff's first trip to the beach. Ever. The beach has never really been that big of a deal to me since I grew up there but I know it'll be something fun for my kids to experience since they won't grow up around it like I did. We started the day with a little shopping at an Outlet mall close to the beach. There were lots of these rides at every corner and Tuff had to stop and sit in EVERY one of them. :)

Shopping was followed by lunch at Red Lobster. (My fav!) And then on to the beach....

We got there a little late and it was high tide. We got just a few minutes on the actual beach before Tuff got swept away by the swifty tide and he was DONE with the beach after that.

After Tuff's episode with the swifty tide, I tried to get a picture of me and him together but as you can see, he wasn't taking his eyes off of those tides. :)

A shot with MeMe.

And luckily, they had a near by play area for them to play in since it was not possible to play on the beach. It took Tuff a few minutes to warm up to the shooting waters but once he did he jumped right in with Harrison!!!

Then we had a little play time in the sand with mama before we cleaned up to go home.

Sunday was spent relaxing until lunch time. We grilled hamburgers and hot dogs for lunch that were delich. Once again, the kids played their hearts out while we got a little more family time in.

I LOVE this picture of my sweet 2nd cousin, Austin!

He is also getting a little brother/sister in late fall.

Buddy trying on uncle Jeremy's shoes.

Riding a bicycle for the first time.

But making Aunt Tori do all the work, of course!

A little more lovin from Beau-sy!

My Aunt Stacey/Beau's beautiful mommy/mine & Tuff's hostess for the wkend.

Cooling off in the AC with a little snack and book time

G.G. with all of her great-grand babies! :)

I love this picture!!!

(Even though mine didn't want to cooperate)

It was a wonderful trip filled with lots of needed family time! Can't wait to see them all again.

But next time, it is ya'lls turn to come up here! With a 2 year old and one who will soon be here, it will probably be a looong while before I make that dreaded 9 hour drive again! :)

And that my friends, is the end to our Mini Vacay for 2011.

Wednesday Sick Day

The night before last neither Tuff nor I slept well. Tuff is starting to fight some allergies along with cutting some more teeth and apparently my iron is "really" low. I say "really" that way because that's exactly the way the nurse said it when she called me to tell me this on Monday afternoon. Now I can officially blame my slowness/tiredness/non desire to go... on something other than just being pregnant. I knew something had been different the past couple weeks. But of course, I was just blaming it on the pregnancy. Anyways, she said the Doctor wanted to put me on some iron tablets. Well after a not-so-good night of sleep, I decided we better stay home for the day. Boy am I glad we did. Yesterday was the worst day I've had yet. I could barely pick myself up off the couch by 11 am to fix Tuff some lunch. Poor buddy. On top of me not feeling well, he was into everything!!!!!! I think it had something to do with his non-participant mother laying on the couch. Hehe. He tends to act worse when I'm busy/pre-occupied/being lazy. I finally got up and made us lunch and shortly after lunch we were down for a nap! All I could think was Wooo Hooo. Well, what's usually a 2 and 1/2 - 3 hour nap ended up only being a 1 and a 1/2 hour nap! Great! Right? :)

I did feel a little better after waking up from our nap. Enough that I didn't have to lay on the couch the rest of the afternoon. :) Tuff and I got out to run a couple errands and came home to start preparing dinner. We had a yummy meal of fried pork chops, garlic potatoes, mac n cheese and green peas. YUM.

After dinner we went for a walk! It's been so nice in the afternoons so I decided Monday night we would try to walk every night we can. So far Monday and Tuesday afternoons have been a success. We even got Chopper (our dog) out to walk with us on Monday night. Tuff LOVES to sit in his stroller and go for walks. He just talks and talks about all the trees, dogs/other animals, etc. Not only is it good for me, it's good for Jordan, Chopper and Tuff too! :) Hopefully I can keep this up until it gets dreadfully hot and I get dreadfully too big. At that point, I will have to start using the treadmill in the A/C.

On to some BIGGER news...

We are officially in the process of transitioning Tuff from his crib to a BIG BOY bed. This past weekend we moved his crib into the spare room (baby boy #2 will be using it) and set up a full size bed in Tuff's room. He seemed to be REALLY excited about the new look. We haven't had a chance to get a safety rail yet so he isn't sleeping at night in it, just yet. But as soon as we get him a safety rail, it'll be GO time. :) His Ba-Ba (Jordan's mom) bought him some new BIG BOY bedding to go on his bed so we've been waiting on it to come in. It finally came in yesterday but I haven't had the chance to take pictures of it with my camera yet so I'm going to apologize ahead of time for the quality of the picture below. I took it with my cell.

The first few pictures are pictures I took before the bedding was on. I caught him enjoying his new bed while watching some toons....

Then he decided he really wanted to break it in by doing a little jumping...

And here is the picture of him posing with his new bedding....

His walls are painted all blue except the main wall which is green so I had to find something that matched both of those colors. I think this one turned out perfectly. Plus, it's good and boyish looking too. :) He'll be able to use this until he's old enough to request something hisself. Which will be here before we know it. It's hard to believe he's already transitioning from a crib to a bed. :(

Here is a better picture of the bedding from the website I ordered from.

What do ya'll think?

Hope you're all having a wonderful Thursday. Not too much longer until Friday!!!

25 weeks

I am

25 weeks



PREGNANCY HIGHLIGHTS:

How Far Along: 25 weeks

Size of baby: The website I googled said baby boy is currently the size of a rutabaga. About a pound and a half.

 

 Total Weight Gain/Loss: At my doctor's appointment Thursday she said NO weight gain from my last appointment which was a month ago! WOO HOO! I celebrated after my appointment with a nice & greasy fried lunch from Chick fil a. Haha. I figured I deserved it. My total weight gain so far (+3).

Maternity Clothes: Almost everything is maternity except a few things.

Gender: It's a BOY!!! And we couldn't be happier!
Movement: Moving, Moving, Moving. Thats all this sweet boy wants to do. I wonder when he ever sleeps. And when I start wondering that, I start to get a little worried. :)

What I miss: I miss my wardrobe (haha), energy and sleep. I'm not sleeping much, even with the Unisom.

Cravings: Still craving bbq. I tried something new last night. Pulled bbq chicken in the crock pot. I'm having it for lunch today so I'll let ya'll know how it turns out!

Symptoms: Physical exhaustion. I am still having to push myself to go, go, go.

Best Moment this week: Mother's Day with my boys, for sure! :)

 

Enjoy your Tuesday! :)

Mother's Day

BLESSED!!!

 That's how I was feeling this year on Mother's Day!

A couple reasons why...

 #1 reason being this.....

This picture absolutely takes my breath away!

It also makes me realize just how much I have to be thankful for!

#2 reason being this...

Tuff has always been a HUGE mama's boy but lately, he's been loving his daddy time.

As for Jordan, he's smitten! He LOVES any little bit of attention he gets from his first baby boy!

He's always craved more of his attention and I think the older Tuff gets, the more time he wants to spend with his daddy!

This picture makes me feel thankful not only for the love Tuff has for his daddy, but also for the love Daddy has for his Tuff! :) I love both of my sweet boys.

Speaking of sweet boys, I got surprised with a sweet card from them for Mother's Day. My favorite gift of all this Mother's Day!

See for yourselves...

Jordan said... and I quote... "He wasn't being very cooperative!"

Haha! I told him not to worry, I knew the feeling. :)

#3 reason being...

Another healthy baby boy.

See....

I could not be more blessed!!!!!!!

Happy Mother's Day to every mother out there!!! I hope you all had as many reasons to feel as blessed as I did this year!!!!