More Milestones and Mom's New Toy

So, first the new milestone. Brayden has put himself to sleep the past two nights in a row! This is really exciting for us. Especially if he can keep it up. I still have to be there for half an hour or so to help him wind down, but that's fine with me. We can just sit in his crib and play or read until he's ready to go to sleep. It's really good quality time. But I cannot tell you how excited I am to not have to stand there leaning over his crib while he drifts off. In fact, night before last, I went in there to check on him expecting him to still be awake, only to find that he'd pulled the blanket up over himself and fallen asleep! It was too cute. The night before that he would have fallen asleep on his own, but when I walked in there he had the pillow over his head and it just made me too nervous to leave him like that.

I'm finishing up Brayden's room this week! I have the chair rail hung and caulked. I'm going in there in a little bit to sand everything down and touch up the walls where the caulk smeared. Later I'll go get some painter's tape so I can paint the rail and the baseboards. Then all that's left is the border and the carpet! Yay! The end is in sight.

So, Mom's new toy. My FIL has been in Florida for over a week and is on his way home today. On his way through Mobile, he stopped and dropped this off for me.



He bought me a camera! I'm going to sit down with the manual tonight after baby's in bed and learn how to use the thing. I'm really excited. It'll be a while before I can start using it to make any money, but it's a big step in that direction!

Another Milestone!

I know I've posted more in the last week than I have in the last month, but so much has been happening. I went to the bookstore last Thursday night and, on a whim, bought a book on Baby Sign Language. After reading through it I realized what a wonderful thing this would be for us. So Friday we started working on about a dozen signs. They say that a baby his age just starting to learn will sign their first sign in a week or two. Sure enough, tonight he made his first sign! I am so proud of him! We were at my mother's house and he grabbed Clint's vitamin water. He tried to take the cap off to drink it, and when that didn't work, he made the sign for MORE. I wasn't too sure at first that it wasn't a coincidence. So I gave him a sip and put the lid back on. Immediately he said MORE. And he kept doing it each time he wanted another sip. Yay Brayden! I'm so excited. Hopefully more signs will follow soon. I'll be sure to keep you all updated!

~Liz

Little man is walking!

I know it's a little after the fact, but he officially started walking on Monday. Not that he hasn't been taking steps for some time -- since November to be exact. But it's always a couple steps here, a few steps there. Usually between the couch and coffee table. Sometimes he'll start off into the middle of the room only to realize, three or four steps in, that he'd get there faster crawling and that would be that. But no, Monday he let loose and walked! He was standing at the coffee table and headed for his little house. He just let go and toddled on over. It was probably a good ten to fifteen steps. He was so focused on his destination that he never realized he wasn't using his preferred method of travel. So there it is, my baby is walking! Heaven help me when he gives up crawling. Note to self: must buy more baby gates.

So, fun stuff happening over here. First off, I've decided to take care of my friend Christy's two kids during the day. She just moved back to Mobile and is still looking for a job. But once she starts work, I'll have her 4-year-old Andrew and her 20-month-old Ginger most days. She said she couldn't afford to pay a day care, but she could afford a babysitter, and I'm only too happy to help out. They're really sweet kids and it will be really good for Brayden to start learning to be around other little ones. Which means I have to finish the nursery so I have a playroom for them. You can tell how upset I am that I finally have a reason to get my nursery finished NOW! It's about time and I'm really excited.

Oh, and Clint got Brayden carpet for his room! Yay! The carpet in there now is this horrid maroon, tight weave, office carpet. And it hasn't been replaced in forever. And the last tenant had dogs, which I understand she let go to the potty inside on the carpet. Totally gross! And I can tell you for sure that my landlord did not have the carpets cleaned. So, anyway, Clint's working on a job painting a room for some [wealthy] people. They put new carpet in he room he's painting and they said Clint could have the old carpet. It's beautiful! It's a soft green and it's nice and plush. And it was just made in March of last year, so it still looks brand new! I'm really excited that he'll have nice carpet to crawl around and play on.

I've started myself a neat little project. I read all these baby magazines each month and I always see some neat product or a cool craft idea or just a really great article I want to hold on to. So I've been saving all the magazines to reference. But I read 3 a month, times the last 18 months, and my stack of magazines is rather big. Not to mention I have no idea what is in each that I might want to see again. So, thus my project. I'm going back through each magazine and cutting out anything I want to keep and I'm putting the pages in a binder in those clear page protectors. And I've organized the binder into different sections. So now I have a nifty little reference guide and I'll clear up that floor space in my little storage area. When I get finished, I'll post pictures. It's really very neat.

Eli had drill this past weekend. We were really excited that he was nearing the end of his commitment to the Air Force. His unit has gotten so bad that he just hates to have to go anymore. He swore in in May of 2004, so this May will mark his four year anniversary and mean his status would change to inactive reserve meaning he would no longer have to go one weekend a month and two weeks a year. If he had signed a four-year contract like we thought. Unfortunately he found out yesterday that he signed a six-year contract. He is devastated. He was so close to the end and now he's looking down two more years of misery. I feel so bad for him. It wouldn't be so bad if his NCOIC hadn't transferred into another AFSC and left TSgt Parker to become the new NCOIC. Parker doesn't think very highly of Eli. And on top of that, Parker and Eli are the only 2E2s in the unit. Which makes Eli second NCO in command by default even though he's only a Sr Airman. Which means he will likely have to go through NCO training sometime in the next year. It all just kind of bites monkey butt.

Well, anyway, I need to go do the dishes and laundry, of which I have a massive pile (laundry, not dishes).

~Liz

I *heart* my Swiffer!

So this was one of my Christmas presents from my Mom. I love it!



I loathe using a broom. I can just see it sending up dirt and dust into the air to land back on my clean floor. And vacuuming hard floors just doesn't get up the fine grit that later gets my feet dirty. Enter the Sweep & Vac. I love it! (Have I said that yet?) It's great at getting up small pieces of things and leaves my floors feeling all nice and clean. And I love that it can get under furniture where the vacuum can't reach. This is my next purchase for myself.



In the mean time, I bought myself this.



The Libman Wonder Mop! I hate traditional mops. After a few uses the threads look so nasty I figure I'm putting as much dirt onto the floor as I'm mopping up. You just can't clean them well. At least this one I can toss in the washing machine every so often.

So, on another note, (and be prepared to laugh at me...it's okay) I've created a Mommy star chart. You know, like the ones you use on preschoolers and young kids to reward them for doing chores and stuff. Yeah, Eli laughed, too. You see, I'm terrible about keeping the baby on a schedule and keeping the house clean like I should. So I created a weekly schedule for myself. And every day I stay on schedule, I either get one or two stars depending on how well I did. And after so many stars I get to go buy myself something small. I like that it's going to give me an excuse to start pampering myself a little.

Well, I'm sure I have more to share, but I need to go tackle the dishes and some laundry. Love you all!

~Liz

Happy New Years!

Happy New Year to you all. We've had a lot of fun the past week. My uncle and his new wife and his two kids came down last Friday and were here until yesterday. It was a blast. Tyler is only six years younger than me and we were the best of friends growing up. He brought his new girlfriend Abbey with him. We played games and hung out all week. Brayden had an absolute blast with all the new people to play with.

I finally finished working on Gary and Sharon's wedding pictures and got to give them to her. That was really nice. I'm glad I got to help them out like that. They paid someone $300 to photograph their wedding and the girl did a terrible job. She shot the wedding on film and most of her shots were just unsalvagable. I only used her photos when I had no choice. But between my mother, my sister, and myself, I managed to get most of the pictures I needed. I had a lot of fun working on it. Here's some of what I did. I know I'm no professional, but I'm really proud of how they turned out. The words on the last photo are one of the Seven Hebrew Blessings and the glass is the one Gary smashed with his foot at the end of the Blessings. (Sharon is Jewish.)

Merry Christmas!

Well, I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas. We did! It was so much fun. We got up and everyone gathered at my mother's to open presents. We decided not to do our own Christmas here since Eli and I already knew what Brayden was getting and he's just not old enough this year to be excited. Plus I love having a big get-together. It's tons of fun to pass out the presents one-by-one and watch everyone open things. By far my favorite part about Christmas is giving gifts. I really do love it. I spend a lot of time and thought on each present and I love watching people's faces as they open their gift. This year I made a recipe box for all the adult women (and by proxy, the men) complete with over 100 recipes. They all loved it. I knitted my brother a beanie in his high school's colors - blue and gold - and had it say Panthers across the front. I put bricks in the box with it to throw him off. It was really fun to watch his face when he went to pick it up! For my sister, I am arranging a Glamour Shots-style photo shoot with my father-in-law. She found the pictures from the Glamour Shots Mom and I did ten years ago and wanted her own.
My great-grandmother came back this year to give a gift from Beyond. She does that every few years. There is this beautiful, heavy glass unicorn bust nightlight that always sat on her nightstand when I was little. And all her kids and the grandkids and I slept over and fell asleep to its glow at some point when we were little. It was given to me at Christmas years ago when I was in high school. I found it in a box a few weeks ago and I don't really have anywhere to put it that's safe from destructo-baby, so I passed it on.
Brayden, of course, got positively showered with gifts, both from us and from my mother. There will be no bored baby in my house any longer! In fact, he got so many, I'm going to have to rotate them so I don't overwhelm him. But I'm really excited about all the things he got. Eli and I got some cool stuff, too. Eli got lots of books and book-related items. I guess everyone got the message he likes to read. :) I got a slowcooker and a cheese grater and a sweep & vac and a few other odds and ends. I'm really excited about the sweep & vac...now I can clean my floors while the baby is asleep! And I want to be buried with my cheese grater. Seriuosly. I'm telling you, there's a whole narrative about my trials and tribulations with cheese graters. I was given one when I got married, but I didn't really start to cook until we moved back to Mobile. Since then, I've made lots of things that required shredded cheddar cheese. This cheese grater bites. It's just a little flat grater on a handle and was really meant for harder cheeses...the holes are tiny! So grating cheese takes for bloody ever! I complain every time I use the dern thing. Well, my cousin got wind of my disgust for the cheese grater. She's a distributor for Pampered Chef, so she bought me their cheese grater for my last anniversary. You're thinking "how wonderful!" right? I thought so, too, until I used the thing. It's one of those kinds they use at Olive Garden to grate Parmesan onto your salad. Great for hard cheeses, but still, I complain every time I grate cheddar. It hurts your hand to use and the cheese gets stuck in the barrel and it's nigh on impossible to clean. I have grown to hate it. So I asked for a plain, old fashioned, four-sided, stand-up cheese grater. I know, it's like a $5 utensil, but you have to understand that it's just not an expense I could justify seeing as how I already had two cheese graters that by all accounts do the job necessary. (I really must get better at indulging myself in small items that will make my life easier and happier.) Anyway, long story short, I got one!!! YAY!!! I very nearly cried. Seriously. It's my favorite Christmas present! (Kind of pathetic, I know...but it makes me happy.) Erin told me that my Christmas list sucked, what with it all consisting of practical items and no fun stuff, but really, I'm just tickled pink with all my new practical gadgets. And next week, Mom is giving me the money to go out and buy my diaper bag that I've been eyeing for months! (Yet another $30 I couldn't justify spending on myself but that will make my life easier. Plus, it is too darn cute!!!)
After presents we all sat and chatted and played around until lunch was finished. My mother loves to cook and she always makes a huge Christmas dinner. This year was certainly no exception. We spent the whole day over there eating good food and goofing off. It was just a really nice day all around. I hope you all had a great day, and I was thinking about every one of you today. Merry Christmas!