6 months!

 

Happy half birthday to my big boy!  How these 6 months have gone by so incredibly fast is beyond me.  I seriously can't believe it.  I also can't believe that he is 23.5 lbs and 29.5"! He is in 12-18 month clothes... my SIX month old.  I love every ounce of him.  All the chubby goodness.

 

 Lets see... he's doing better in the car these days, but needs to be bummed up to a convertible seat very soon.  He is teething again and about to get his top 2 teeth.  Soon I hope. His bottom 2 teeth are super cute and also sharp as razors.  He loves to practice standing up. I love it when he really gets "talking" and we can go back and forth and have a little conversation.  He got a bunch of new toys over the holidays and he loves to play! He is still a great sleeper.  He still loves bath time and is still a super happy dude.  He has yet to have any food.  Still just on the one boob.  He is very interested in food, and likes to sit in his booster seat at the table with us.  He practices chewing and watches our every movement.  I think it's time, but I am just putting it off as long as I can. 

He isn't crawling yet, but we've been working on making him a playroom so the baby gates are in place for whenever he gets moving.  I totally love our new playroom and when it's done I can't wait to share it with you. 

 His legs just kill me.  I could just squeeze, kiss and tickle them all day every day.  Oh wait.  I DO get to do that all day every day.  Best thing ever.

Christmas in VA

It was Paxton's FIRST EVER Christmas.  Super big deal. 

A week before Christmas we hopped on a plane and headed up to my parents house in Northern VA.  It was so special to be able to spend this special holiday with my parents and sister (who flew home from Germany!) and extra special to have my baby spend his first Christmas in the same house and in the same place that I celebrated my first Christmas.  

Pax loved all of the lights, ornaments, wrapping paper, new toys and loved all of the people around him to love and spoil him!

 

Hand made hat made by Grandma C.

My favorite present under the tree, EVER! 

 

When we got to VA of course Pax had a huge present that he got to open early.  He got to enjoy his new jump-jump the whole week.  He totally loves it.

My parents threw a fantastic wine and cheese holiday party.  We all had a great time!  We snagged a couple pictures in the few minutes right before guests started to arrive. 

Paxton, the life of the party :)

 

I am not a crafty person, but I couldn't resist trying some Pinterest inspired crafts to document my little's first Christmas.  We also made salt dough ornaments with his little hand prints and made a boat load of Christmas cookies.   

 

Christmas Eve is full of traditions and the we always open our stocking presents and Dad writes up the most amazing, clever poems that are clues for our Stocking Quest and sends us around the house and outside looking for presents.  It's incredible how creative he is!

Paxton opening his first stocking.

My sister, Mary, and Brad reading a clue.

Me searching the attic for presents.  We were actually totally off on this one and were in the wrong attic.  We had to go to the outside attic to get our prizes.

Christmas Eve includes other traditions like getting weepy while my Dad reads aloud The Christmas Memory.  Mom makes one of her masterpiece dinners and we go to our neighbors house for champagne and dessert.  

 

Christmas morning!  I love Christmas morning and that time before we open all the presents and it's all over.  The baby slept in until 9am or something amazing, so I was able to get up and have coffee and relax in front of the fire with my family for an hour or so, but I was so excited when he finally woke up and we could share our Christmas excitement with him.

First Christmas morning as a family of 3!

Paxton loved presents way more than I thought he would.  He loved the paper and the ripping sound and of course loved playing with his mountain of new things!

My incredible parents.  The most generous and loving people on the planet.

Wouldn't be Christmas morning without mimosas!

I love this picture.  They have the same expression!

Paxton's first ever shoulder ride!

Hurray for another incredible, extravagant Christmas!

This sweet, angel baby had a fantastic holiday (and we did too!) and I hope you all did as well! 

Merry Christmas!!!

My Other Love

Horses are one of those things in life I would never want to live without.  They are that ever constant thing that my soul needs to be whole, happy, balanced and at my best. (Read my previous post on horses here.)  Before having a baby I would have said that they were my favorite thing ever.  While I was in Okinawa horses were my job, my life.  Now my baby is my job and my life, but I still make a huge effort to make it out riding whenever I can.  It's not every day like it once was, and sometimes it's not even every week. But, it's something that I love to do whenever I get the chance... ie whenever Brad gets off work early enough for me to escape to the barn for a couple hours.  

When we moved back to Pensacola I hooked back up with a wonderful rider and friend that has a beautiful barn and horses and she has a wonderful, generous heart and lets me ride her horse, Dublin, whenever I can. 

 

Last month she invited me to go with her to a dressage show and I got to go to my first horse show since 2007! It was wonderful to be at and in a real show.  In Okinawa I coordinated our barn's schooling shows and loved doing that, but it was nice not to be in charge at this show, and just get to go and have fun.

 The Blue Angel Dressage Show was all weekend and at a beautiful equestrian center in Pensacola.

   

 I was thrilled to just be there, to see all the beautiful horses and riders, and getting to compete again was so much fun!

 

The same horse beat us out of every class, dang it.  We'll get em next time!  So, we ended up with 4 2nd place ribbons, but for our first time out we got good scores and great feedback from the judge and like I said I was just happy to be there.

Louise, Dublin's owner, riding her horse Emi.

Brad and Paxton were such troopers the whole weekend.  It was great to have them there! 

 Paxton got to meet his first horse.  Dubbie is the most extremely chill and reliable horse.  I mean, I rode him 7 months pregnant.  He's the nicest, sweetest horse ever, so he was the perfect horse for Paxton's first horse encounter. 

 I can't wait to get Pax up on a fat, fluffy pony when he's big enough!!