On the Wagon

I have to admit I had a really hard time coming back to Fort Worth. Well, we all did. We love our home, but being in Amarillo for a couple days for Noah's party really affected us more than we thought it would. It almost felt like we were home, and that we had only been on a 3 month vacation. But Sunday came along, and we had to get in the car and go back to Fort Worth. I think I told Josh a hundred times on Sunday, "I don't want to leave Amarillo; I miss living here." It was hard leaving, but now that we are settled back in we feel at home here in Fort Worth again. Both Josh and I know God has us here for a specific purpose, and we are excited to see His work in our lives here.

We had a great time in Amarillo! It was so so nice to be back, and to spend time with our family and friends. And Noah's party was so much fun! I will go into more detail later. Thank you everyone who came to help us celebrate Noah turning one!

The "Weekend in Amarillo" post will probably be a long one, so I am going to save that for another night because tonight Josh is home with me! Yay! So instead of sitting here on the computer, I would rather be snuggled up next to him on the couch.

What a sweet husband I have! Listen to this:

He went to Walmart to buy groceries, cooked dinner, and even got us a movie to watch together. And to make this evening even better all of us sat down together as a family and had a rare dinner at the table. Sometimes it feels like we don't ever get to sit down together at the dinner table because our schedules are completely opposite. And most of the time, if we do actually have a night to eat together, Noah has already eaten or gone to bed. It sure helps that Noah can eat table foods and is now beginning to feed himself. It was wonderful to sit down and share that intimate family time.

---------

So guess who's on the wagon? Or is it off the wagon? Either way, tonight we began the bottle weaning process with Noah. Fun. We have been putting it off for a while now but decided it was time to start. Noah loves the bottle. He took to the bottle like a champ when I stopped nursing him at about five months. Tonight Noah did not have his bottle to go night-night with, and well, you could say he was not very happy about it. I had to listen to my poor little baby cry himself to sleep. Breaking a routine we have been doing for seven months is not going to be an easy task, I'm afraid.

Here is a picture of Noah drinking his milk from a sippy cup before we put him in bed. He kept pulling the cup out of his mouth like, "This is not my bottle." We have been dreading this night, and poor Noah had no idea that he should have been dreading this night too. Look at that sweet smile behind the sippy cup. {Insert sad mommy face here}

I think the first night of weaning was successful. It was hard for me to listen to Noah cry in his room, but he really did fall asleep within 15 minutes of laying him down. Hopefully we will have him weaned from the bottle in no time!

Well I better go! It's movie time!

Goodnight!

P.S. Here's a sneak peak of the next post. I'm sooo excited about it!

More of Our New Home!

Moving in was definitely a lot of work, but it has been a lot of fun starting fresh in our new home. And... we love it and I couldn't be more happy with the way it turned out. I love to decorate and that is something my mother and I have in common. When we get together Josh knows it's trouble and some money is gonna be spent. Haha But really the great thing about our new apartment was we were able to use pretty much everything we had in our old apartment. It was amazing how everything had a perfect spot here. When my mother and I get together to decorate, it's amazing how quick we can turn a boring four walled room into a warm, inviting home. Anyway. I know some of you have been waiting a long time for some pictures of where we actually live, so here it is!

Walking in through the front door.
You see the white doors to the right?
Well those doors hide the...

Washer and Dryer!

And right across from the Washer and Dryer is

Josh's favorite spot in the house: the computer cubby

hole. Actually I have to admit I love this area too.

It's such a comfortable area to sit down
and blog or surf the internet.

It's still a work in progress, but it is coming along.

As soon as you come through the front door
this is the hallway to the living room. I
LOVE the hardwood floors!

Our living room. Just like in Noah's room
we had a little big problem with the curtains being
too short. The ceilings are pretty high, which I
love, but just made it a little difficult figuring out
how to get our curtains longer without having
to buy a bunch of new ones. They are expensive!!

Anyway, since we had less windows in this
apartment than the last apartment we lived
in, we just decided to cut the extra curtains
to make the other ones longer.
And they look wonderful thanks to my
mother's fabulous sewing skills.

And here some different angles of the living room.

The picture below is the hallway with the two
white doors next to the entertainment
center you see in the picture above.
The first door closest to the t.v. is the bathroom,
and the next door is Noah's room.

The guest bathroom. It's a little small,
so it was kinda difficult taking pictures of it.
I had to get a bunch of different angles.

Both bathrooms have garden tubs. They are
wonderful to take baths in, and Noah especially loves
all the extra room when it's bathtime.

And here are some pictures of the dining room.
I just love the layout of this apartment.
The living room, dining room,
and kitchen are all open to each other.

And I saved the best for last. My new kitchen!
I absolutely love it!

I have one more room to show you: our bedroom. But you are going to have to wait to see it. I have no idea why, but I have always neglected our bedroom in every single apartment we have been in, and I decided this time my room was going to have a complete makeover. It is still a work in progress, so I will just have to save it for another day.

Hope you enjoyed the pictures of our new home!

Goodnight!

Our New Home

Since we have been in our new apartment for about two months already, I think it's about time to share a few pictures with you. Don't you think? My plan was to completely finish decorating before I posted pictures, but decorating is expensive, so we are finishing one thing at a time. But everything is pretty much in its place, so I thought I'd go ahead and show you our new home!

Let's start with Noah's room tonight. His room was the easiest to decorate out of all of them. I don't know why, but everything just fell into place. The theme for his room is the jungle and I just love it!

Welcome to Noah's jungle!

When you first walk into the room this is what you see:

Close up of the Hutch:

The door to the very left is Noah's closet and the door on the right closest to the hanging quilt goes into the guest bathroom. The door to the far right is the main door which leads to Noah's (and my) favorite place in the house: the Kitchen!


View into Noah's closet.

It is HUGE! Thank goodness because we have a LOT of stuff.


Noah's little cubby hole with his crib


The ceilings in our new apartment are SO high, which I love, but we had a little bit of a problem. Our curtains were waaaaay too short. So my mom and I found some adorable fabric that matched Noah's room perfectly, and she sewed it onto the curtains. Ta Da! Don't they look great!

Noah loves his room too!

I wish I would have thought to take a picture of the view he has from his room. It is beautiful! I will post a picture of his view along with more pics of the rest of our home. To be continued tomorrow!

Have a great day!

Back to the Grind

Blog-Nazi? Are you beginning to see the trend? Ha. And for the record I did not give Josh a three-day deadline to post about his Father's Day. I asked him kindly if he would write a blog, and he willingly agreed to it. One day passed, no post. A second and third day went on by, still no post. It's not that he didn't want to sit down and write, but if you know my husband at all you know he is a procrastinator! A hORRible procrastinator. So a Blog-Nazi? Well by the end of the week I probably was. The whole week passed by without a single blog post. Unacceptable! Anyway, I thought you needed my side of the story.

Today was my first day of Orientation for my new job at North Hills for newborn nursery, and I am plum worn out. For the past month I have been a stay at home mommy with Noah; taking care of him and the household is certainly a lot of work, but I totally forgot how exhausting work is at the hospital. Hopefully it won't take me long before I get back into the routine of things, but whoa, I'm tired today.

This job is such a blessing from God. I have heard and continue to hear how so many hospitals are not hiring, but God provided me a job. The director who hired me told me she had an employee who had just had a baby, and she was not able to come back because of certain reasons unknown to me. But isn't it neat how God opened up this opportunity for me? I am so excited and believe God has a specific plan for me here. Let me explain a little to you about how perfect this job is.

I will be working PRN, which means I basically set my schedule when I can work (in medical lingo, PRN means "as needed"). It was important for me to find something flexible so I could work around both Josh's work and school schedules. I only have to work two days out of a four week schedule, but can grab pretty much anything available. I plan to work about one to two days a week and be home with Noah the rest of the time, but what a relief to know I am not bound to anything more than two days a month. In addition to that, I don't have to work weekends, and the best part: NO holidays! It's a pretty big deal to be employed at the hospital and not have to work holidays. Sounds pretty good, huh?

I will be working with newborn infants, as well as infants who need antibiotics, oxygen, and other areas of care that can be managed at North Hills without having to send the baby off to another hospital with a full Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. I love working with healthy newborns, but I am so excited to be able to care for the infants who need a little help getting to a complete state of wellness. I am also going to be trained to do post-partum nursing, so if they need help in that area I can also help out there. Most of you know my heart is with the babies, but I look at this as a great opportunity to grow and learn and become an even better nurse.

As much as I dread the long days of Orientation and learning the ins and outs of a new hospital, I left with a much clearer picture of what North Hills Hospital is all about. There are so many hospitals that are just a building with no heart. Today it was completely evident to me that North Hills is not one of those types of hospitals. North Hills is about serving and caring, and that is the type of hospital I want to be a part of. God knew exactly this when he provided this job for me. I am so thankful!

You know I can't leave you without a picture. Noah will probably kill me someday when he sees this, but it's just too funny not to post. Of course, as soon as I put the sunglasses on him, he pulled them right off. Do babies actually keep sunglasses on?

The Week of Family! (Part 1)

I don't know how we got so lucky to have both sets of grandparents + Uncle Joseph come visit us last week. I got a text message Monday evening from Gay Lynn saying, "surprise! we're coming!" Of course we didn't have anything going on and were thrilled to have them come visit. That weekend, my parents had a wedding to attend 45 minutes outside of Fort Worth, so of course, there was no question Granddad and Mimi would come see us too! We loved the time we got to spend with both our families; we had so much fun together!

I originally wrote this as one long post, but it was rather lengthy, so I decided to split it up into Part 1 and Part 2. (Click here for Part 2)

Papa, Grammy, and Joseph got here Tuesday evening, and none of us had eaten anything, so we decided we must take them to eat at Genghis Grill. It is some good eatin', and if you haven't eaten there, you must!

After we finished eating, we decided to call it a night and get together early the next morning. Before Josh, Noah, and I got in the car to head home, Grammy came over to the car with a tray of our FAVORITE cookies: Ms. Piggy's cookies!! I hate to admit this, but between Josh and I a dozen of those cookies are gone easily within a week. They're amazing!

The next morning, we got together around 10 and hung around for a little bit until we decided to drive to Frisco. Why would we go to Frisco when there are a million things to do in Fort Worth? Well the reason is that Frisco is home to a little store called IKEA. Actually it's not little. It's huge. I'm not lying when I tell you that store has almost anything you could ever want for your home. I wish the only IKEA wasn't an hour away from us because I would go there all the time (I guess maybe it is a good thing it's an hour away.) Anyway, surprisingly Josh and I didn't leave with a single thing, but Noah did. Uncle Joseph got Noah a wrestling buddy.

After we got back home we decided to jump in the pool because it was SO hot. Of course, as always, we had a lot of fun swimming! And then after some fun in the sun, we decided to go downtown Fort Worth to eat dinner, and we went to Texas de Brazil Steakhouse. Oh my gosh. Amazing food! Anyway, here are some pics from our time together:



Thank you so much Darrell, Gay Lynn, and Joseph for making the drive to Fort Worth and coming to visit us. We loved every minute!

Don't forget to read Part 2! Have a great day!

Couldn't Pass It Up!

I can't believe today is July 1st, and that we've been here a month already. How is it possible? Seems like just the other day we were moving in. I am planning on posting pictures of our new home, but before I post, I have a few finishing touches.

I would like to show you my new awesome piece of furniture I found yesterday for an AMAzing $60! We have been looking for a coffee table (something safe for Noah too) and yippy I found the perfect one! I'm so excited!

Shake

Before we moved to Fort Worth, we had stuff packed up and scattered throughout the apartment. When it came time to feed Noah, rather than moving everything out of the way to get the high chair, I decided to just do it on the ground. So, of course, our little bottomless pit (no, I'm not talking about Noah) was begging for food. It doesn't matter what kind of food it is, Einstein wants it.

This is the lovely look we get from Einstein EVERY time we are eating something.

As much as we love this little pug, it gets quite annoying sometimes having two beady little eyes stare us down for food.

Now don't you start feeling sorry for him. He knows how to use those sad eyes to his advantage. He is definitely not underfed. Last time we took him to the vet for shots and a check up he weighed 40 lbs!! We were shocked. In fact, probably a month before his appointment we had started him on IAMS weight control food. So you can just imagine the look on our faces when they told us how much he weighed.

As I write this, Josh and Einstein are on their nightly walk. Eating healthy food just wasn't cutting it for Einstein. We had to incorporate some exercise into his daily routine.

Anyway, that night I was feeding Noah some baby food on the ground. Of course Einstein was right there by his side hoping he might get a little taste of the delicious goodness that is Gerber's baby food.

And then this happened:



It was SO funny! Noah would reach over and grab Einsteins hand to play with it, but Einstein thought, "Oh goody, he wants me to shake hands!" To Einstein, Shaking hands = FOOD!

I just love Noah's expressions too. He is like what ARE you doing Einstein??

And since Einstein DID shake hands with Noah, he got to do this:



Silly little pug!

Take Me Out to the Ballgame

Last week, Grammy (Gay Lynn) and Josh's grandparents Pa and Nanny were headed to a family reunion in Paris, Texas. Thankfully, Fort Worth is on the way, so they stopped by to visit us! We were so happy to see them, and all had so much fun together. Other than spending time with family, which is always the best, the big event of the weekend (well at least for us) was going to the Rangers game. Pa and Nanny were so sweet and bought all of us tickets to go to the game. And as you can see from the picture below, we had GOOD seats!!

Daddy and Noah excited to see the Rangers!

Noah at his very first pro baseball game! You can tell he is excited about it!

Layin' back and relaxing...



As much as he wanted to watch the whole game, he just couldn't help it.



Josh with Nanny and Pa



Noah with Daddy and Grammy after the game.



Noah worn out from all the fun, but still manages
a half smile for Mommy!



Our family at Noah's 1st Ranger's game!

The next day before Grammy, Pa, and Nanny left for the reunion we all went to eat at Mimi's Cafe where Noah had a taste of lemon. The funny thing is Noah loves anything that is sour.

Apparently this one was pretty sour!

Still a happy boy!

After we finished eating, we went to an outlet mall in Allen. Boy was it hot! We all looked like we had just been swimming. We forgot to bring a hat for Noah, so that is what we ended up looking for the whole time we were there. In fact, that is the only thing we bought. Noah has his daddy's fair skin, so even if we are out in the sun for even just a short time he starts to get red.

Here is the hat we found for Noah. Isn't he the cutest little cowboy you've ever seen?

Thank you so much Grammy, Pa, and Nanny for coming to visit us! What a fun time we had! Hope it's not too long before we can be together again. We love you!