RODEO Time!!

It's Rodeo season in our neck of the woods!  Every year since I've lived in Houston I've attended the Rodeo.  This time of year means a few things....Tons of fun.  Lots of nights up too late.  Priceless memories. 

Here's a little bit of my Houston Rodeo history......The first few years I attended the rodeo I was a bit spoiled with suite tickets, thanks to a college friend.  I've been with my parents and brother to see Taylor Swift.  Gone while I was pregnant.  Seen George Strait in this arena twice.  Taken my 11 months old because the babysitter cancelled at the last minute.  Paid for too many bike cabs because my feet always hurt by the end of the night.  Stood in long lines for the light rail.  Gobbled down cotton candy with my nearly 2 year old.  Gone with a group of M.D. Anderson kids to see Rascal Flatts.  And I've had some of the best girls nights at the rodeo.  If you're ever in the area during Houston's rodeo season GOOOOO!  Don't let the traffic scare you.  It's well worth the memories.  

• Mommy and her little cowboy
• Lovin all the action
• Selfie with Parker (notice the two little mouths full of pizza!)
• Blake Shelton with Stacy
• Easton Corbin with my TCH girls
• With some of my favorite people!  Enjoying the Wine Garden before the concert.
• We braved the crowds with these three little things (they loved the bike cab ride).   

Last week I had two girls nights out in a row.  Obviously, that's unheard of these days.  I even got to hit up some of my favorite midtown spots before heading to the rodeo on Thursday and Friday night.  I had the best time but it definitely makes me appreciate my 10:00 bedtime.  :)
I was dying to see Blake Shelton but was never able to find good tickets.  I made Gordon promise he'd take me to one of his concerts in the near future.  And then the NIGHT BEFORE the concert my sweet sister in law called to say she had two tickets for me!  YIPPEE!!!  He was fabulous (and Miranda even came out to sing Home with him).  The next night I saw Easton Corbin with a bunch of my best girl friends.  I have to say I was super impressed.  He put on a wonderful show.  It was a night full of singing, laughing and story telling.  I sure do love my girls and country music!

It's simply amazing how much he's changed in 12 months!  At this rate, he's going to be bull riding before I can blink. 

William's Rodeo Art Work From School

I've enjoyed going to the rodeo since I was just a little girl.  We would go to the Big Spring rodeo with my grandparents every year growing up.  I'm so glad I get to share the same stuff with William!! 



23 months old

I get teary eyed when I think about William turning 2 next month.  I mean, how in the world has time gone by so quickly?  He is still such a sweet little boy (well...he does have his "moments" when he's tired!).  Regardless, we are loving every minute with him!  Here are a few pictures we took yesterday while Daddy was doing yard work.
I'll do all his "stats" next month.  I will say that baby boy finally has teeth.  They are coming in kinda out of order....but they work and that's all that matters.  He got his first bottom tooth in November and he now has 6 or 7!  More details later. :)

• Such a little boy now.  This makes me happy and sad all at the same time. 
• When he's being silly he smiles really big and closes his eyes!
• WOW!!
• Outside watching daddy plant stuff.
• Looking at a picture of himself and his daddy at the beach (can you tell he loves his daddy).

Dinner with Friends

A couple of weeks ago we had the best Saturday night with some of our friends and their kids!  Alison and Lindsey came over with their husbands/kids AND Anna even drove out to Katy for dinner with little JB.  Our dinner with friends night started off with 3 trees.  Gordon has been a busy bee working on our yard these days.  He had just bought 3 trees for the backyard and needed a guy friend to help get them into the ground....I guess I'm not strong enough. :)  So, he invited a couple buddies, Cesar and Brett, over to help him (with the promise of cooking them a steak).  Being the party planner I am, I saw a perfect opportunity for a dinner/playdate night!  :)  Even the Barteaus stopped by with their new baby boy! 

The kids have so much fun together....which means the moms have a lot of fun together laughing and catching up with each other.  I'll admit there are some days I miss living in Houston.  But, on nights like this that all disappears.  I'm so happy to have more space for the kids (and all the adults)!  Everyone is happy, happy, happy!   

• They loved playing with JB (note the other tiny baby at the back of the picture).  It's so great having all the baby toys around still.  They sure do come in handy on nights like this!
•  Silly kids!  Both the boys in this photo had ear infections.  Sure didn't stop them from having a great night. 
• Taking JB on a ride. 

We sure are thankful to have such wonderful friends.  I hope these kiddos are friends with each other for a very long time!

Busy Weekends

We had a weekend full of fun with friends 2 weeks ago.  I told Gordon to not make any plans since we'd be running all over Houston for different events....what'd he do.....bought 100+ plants that needed to "get into the ground" that weekend.  Men.  So, during the day Gordon did his yard work and every 30 minutes I went outside to remind him of how of much time he had left.  (More on the master landscaper later)
Saturday evening we drove out to the Woodlands for John Davis and Kendall's Gender Reveal Party!  The Gooding's voted that baby #2 would be another girl.  We were wrong!!!!  They are having a BOY!  Yippppeeeee.  A buddy for William.  :)  Kendall's mother did a great job decorating, the food was yummy and William loved playing with Piper.  I'm pretty sure he freaked John Davis out when he started trying to kiss her!  Little love birds already.  LOL. 
On Sunday afternoon we had Perry's baptism in downtown Houston.  Gordon and I are so excited to officially be able to call her our Goddaughter!  After the baptism we all went to an early dinner in Midtown.  You can't beat hanging out with your best friends, having a new Goddaughter and drinking a margarita at one of your favorite restaurants.  I forgot to bring my camera, but thankfully Cristin took a bunch of pictures.  Hopefully I'll be able to do a post with more pictures soon.

It was a happy, fun filled weekend!  We got to see lots of friends and our front yard is looking great thanks to Gordon's hard work. 



Sick Baby 101

Every baby gets sick.  No matter how careful you are it's going to happen.....and to an extent it's a good thing.  I'd rather William get sick now versus his first years of school.  Missing a day of daycare is no big deal but missing kindergarten and 1st grade would be (I think they are allowed 12 days of absences).  Over the past 23 months William's had 2 ear infections, 2 cases of hand, foot and mouth, had pneumonia and been on antibiotics 3 times (not too bad if you ask me).  Luckily, William's first fever didn't occur until he was 9 months old.  Since then he's had something come up every 3 months or so.  There was a cluster of sickness when we moved daycares and he got exposed to a whole new "batch of germs" this past November. 

Here are some of the "life savings" things we use when baby boy is sick.  Having a little one that doesn't feel good can be so heart breaking.  Sleep is hard to come by and the snot is plentiful.  :)      

Our ear infections usually start off as a runny nose (yucky green snot).  The first two ear infections gave him 103 fever.  This time around he had low grade fever (100-101) for 8 days!!!! 

• Simply Saline Gel is great for their little dry nose.  We use this even when he's not sick.  I put it inside his nose to help reduce nose bleeds due to the crazy weather changes we've had lately (we also run a cool mist humidifier).  
• I spray a little bit of Saline in his nose before suctioning. 
• Nose Frida.  This thing is a life safer.  Every parent should have one!!!  It gets all the yucky stuff right out.  Thankfully, they now carry it at places like Babies R Us.
• Aquaphor is great for dry, sensitive skin.  Since William is allergic to a couple of other lotions we just stick to this.  He got a little rash under his right eye because of all the eye drainage and rubbing he was doing recently.  Aquaphor to the rescue!   
• I didn't put it in the picture but we also rub Vicks Vapor Rub on his chest and little feet at bedtime.    

HAND, FOOT, MOUTH:

The first time William got hand, foot, mouth we thought he may have the chicken pox!  He hadn't been vaccinated yet, he had a high fever and started getting bumps all over his legs.  The bumps pretty much stayed on his thighs.  He had a few on his hands but luckily nothing in his mouth.  His pour little legs looked awful.  The sores oozed, eventually scabbed over and when the scabs came off more than a week later his skin was discolored (a lighter color) for about a month.  AND THEN some of his toe nails fell off.  Yep, it's a yucky virus that you just have to let run its course.  No medication will get rid of HFM.  :(  Click here for more info on HFM. 

We just tried our best to keep William comfortable!

 

• To help with his itchy/irritated little legs we did Oatmeal Baths (fragrance free).  You just add a package to warm bath water.  We kept William in footed PJs for a week during all of this.  We didn't want him to scratch at his legs and/or contaminate everything. :)
• We used the Coconut Oil on his legs once the sores scabbed over.  I had read a lot about coconut oil's benefits so we gave it a shot.  It was a great moisturizer that smelled great too.  Here's a couple of links with more uses of coconut oil at Wellness Mama and Doctor OZ. 

The second time William got HFM it presented much differently  He had a high fever, his eating decreased and I noticed him drooling more.  At first I thought the drooling was related to teething.  NOPE.  He got fever on Sunday and on Tuesday the mouth sores reared their ugly head.  Weirdest thing, he only got a couple of sores on his hands and no where else!  Luckily, my mom was able to fly into town and stay home with William the rest of the week.  He didn't eat much for 4 days but was able to drink milk.  Thankfully, we were able to avoid an ER visit.  We offered him every type of food constantly throughout the day.....mac n cheese, yogurt, push pops, ice cream, mashed potatoes, soggy cheerios, noodles with butter....anything soft, easy to swallow and not spicy!  It was a rough week but we all survived.  :)



Our pediatrician gave us instruction on how to make a mouth wash using Maalox and Benadryl to help with the pain.  We found that the Orajel swabs worked well too.  I would swab one around the inside of his mouth 15 minutes before meals and bedtime.  Poor William would just cry and hold his mouth.  Broke. My. Heart.  We did around the clock, alternating Motrin/Tylenol. 

Since baby boy doesn't eat much when he's sick and antibiotics can be so hard on the tummy, I decided to make him a yummy smoothie!  Over the last week he lost 1 pound so I added ice cream to it for extra calories.  YUMMY and super easy.

• 8-10 oz frozen fruit (we used a berry blend)
• 2 containers of vanilla yogurt (~10 oz)
• A few scoops of ice cream (~3 oz)
• Splash of milk

Leave the rest up to your blender!  Daddy and baby loved the smoothie.  William eats yogurt most days but we really try to increase how much he has while on antibiotics.  The live, active cultures, help your body to restore a healthy and balanced intestinal tract (that can be disrupted while on antibiotics).  The smoothie is a WIN WIN!

Wedding Weekend in Georgetown

Good news, I got my camera back from my mom!!!  That means WEDDING weekend pictures from the first week of February.  :) 

My cousin, Ross, got married in the Austin area on February 1st.  Ross was my first cousin born on my mom's side of the family.  I can still remember the day he was born!  I was in the first grade and so excited to have a baby in the family.  Now, 26 years later, he's graduated from Baylor after playing baseball for them and is now a married man.   

We had a great weekend visiting with family.  The guys did their usual shooting day while Nana and William spent some quality time together so Skye and I could go into Austin for a girls day.  The wedding ceremony was beautiful and everyone had a blast at the reception.  So many parts of their wedding reminded me of ours!  Similar flowers, similar table arrangements, the bridesmaids dresses were nearly identical to mine, the lace straps on the bride's dress and they danced to the song that was second on our list, Feet Don't Touch The Ground by Stoney LaRue.  We ended up picking a Pat Green song because the weekend Gordon moved to Houston we attended a wedding in Texarkana and Pat Green was the band.  Yep, that's right (thanks Haven for getting married that weekend)!  Gordon and I both knew that by him moving to Houston we were saying we were committed = marriage.  :)  So, Pat Green it was.   

• My sweet cousin, Jenna.  Only 21 years old :)  oh to be that young again!
• Shy little William doesn't know who to go to.
• The groom's mom and my aunt Lisa.
• Dustin and Skye
• The happy bride and groom (isn't Callie stunning!)
• Dancing the night away!
• Dustin hanging with Davis and his GF.
• My grandma and Fred...who is, by the way, the best swingset builder around!  

It was so great to hang out with all the cousins.  There is a fourteen year age gap between myself and the youngest cousin, Ali.  I have always been in a "different" stage of life than the others.....but this weekend we were all able to have fun together.  I got to talk to Claire about graduating from nursing school, Alison about her college degree, Taylor about her new job and boys and as you can see in the picture above Jenna and I had a fabulous time DANCING!  I wish someone could get married every month.  :)

Cheers to the handsome groom and his fabulous new wife!