Busy bee... and a wedding!

Is it okay to come right out and say I'm a little overwhelmed?  I am.  It is true.  I know these blogs tend to be the "best versions of one's self" but I think that is fake so I'll just be honest.  I am in a constant state of exhaustion these days!

I am in full swing right now with recruiting season, my little turkey is all over the place (though I feel like lately I haven't seen much of him or J because I've been on the road so much) and my volunteer life is getting busier by the minute.  

I need a vacation - wait!  I have one scheduled!  Jason, T and I are heading down to Rockport on Friday to get to the beach and enjoy Seafair for a long weekend.  Boy will it be nice to have some family time.  I swear I'm turning off that darn phone. 

Now, since I know you all love hearing about my woes, I should share some cuteness.  My friend Ashley got married last weekend - wait, 2 weekends ago.  I'm a little behind!   Travis was the ring bearer and boy was he cute.  I think this blog is a shrine to my kid.  I'm sure that's annoying to anyone/everyone other than Jason, me and the grandparents, but I love it and can't help but smile when sharing.  

Not to mention, writing makes me happy.  Happy is good especially when stressed and overwhelmed :) 

Now, on to the Wedding!!

Ashley and John got married! 

But first... 

a little marriage advice from my niece Lauren "A marriege wife takes 3 husband" - she was so diligently copying the advice from someone else that says "A marriage takes 3.  Wife, husband and God" but she is learning how to write and

I thought it was just the SWEETEST thing. 

The ring bearer and his Bride. 

Here's a close up in his mini-tuxedo.

Ashey (bride), Keri (maid of honor) and Travis (ring bearer)

my boys - so handsome.

The wedding party

Jason's sister, Keri

The vows

The amazing cakes

Decorations

 

my homemade sangria :) 

Jason, Travis and Bill stopping to smell the roses...

baby races...

Congratulations Ashley and John!  It was a beautiful wedding!

xoxo, cb.

9 months old

Our baby boy turned 9 months old today!

Hot dog, he's cute. 

This is our life these days, a bit upside down! 

It is REALLY hard to get our wiggler to stay still for more than one or two photos at a time.  

Thank goodness I have super daddy to help with our little family photo shoots!

And, when he's not trying to crawl over the edge, he is cruising all over the house.  

Sweet little stinker is into everything :) 

After all that action, he was pooped.  

I can't believe he stayed still long enough for me to get this one. 

But it sure is sweet. 

Happy birthday baby.  We love you, love you, love you. 

xoxo, mom & dad

WARNING: This might make you tear up.

Kiddo is officially sick with the hand, foot and mouth virus and...

 with Jason out of town, I've had quite quite quite a long couple of days.  

End on end screaming followed by tylenol makes a smiley baby followed by end on end screaming.  

So I called for backup (grandma to the rescue!) and this is what I came home to today after a meeting: 

Thank God for moms. 

Thank you mama. You're a huge help - you probably don't even know. 

Bye bye from our buddy... hopefully this will pass soon. 

xoxo, cb.

pitiful.

It's getting hot in here...

Did I mention Travis got his first fever yesterday?  As a person that has never really been all that intelligent in the area of sickness and common sense type things this threw me into a frantic tailspin.  Thank heavens for older sisters. 

Let me digress. 

I got a call yesterday from T's school at 2:30 saying he was running a fever of 103.1.  HOLY COW.  In my mind this means my little man is cooking, so I drop everything I'm doing, throw on some shoes - the ones without socks, because they go on faster, find my keys, remember my wallet, haul butt into the car and instantly call the pediatrician.  They, of course, say "bring him in" and that makes me worry even more. 

Next call, Tammy.  She consults her favorite baby book, Baby 411, and it says, don't freak out - get the kid some Tylenol and it should drop. 

So, 25 minutes of a drive later toward his school and I screech into the Randall's parking lot, run to the pharmacy, frantically ask where the baby Tylenol is, bairly smile at the little checkout lady, hop back in the car and make a sprint into school to get him.  

And what is he doing? Sleeping, peacefully.

The good news is, once he got a little Tylenol in him, that fever broke and he started feeling a lot better.  He was a complete wet noodle - very little energy and super sleepy, but all-in-all he was fine.   And today?  Like normal. Amazing how kids bounce back.  He started to get a little fussy again tonight, and a bit warm, but he's been - for all intensive purposes - just fine.  We're going to keep him home tomorrow (because Jason's staying home!!) so it'll be good to be able to watch him. 

Ohhh that little boy.  Sometimes I wonder if there is anything else in my life and then I think, YES, YES THERE IS!!

Fun stuff: I bought a road bike.  I've been wanting to do it since college.  There was this fellow named Wes that I used to work with at Sam's Club in the Membership Department, and he would tell us these stories of how Austin is just the most amazing town to cycle in - it's so pretty and the hills are amazing and you can go out on your bike and just pick up a ride with other cyclists that are on the road.  The sound of that was so cool to me that I've wanted to it ever since.  THEN, I was in Colorado Springs a couple weeks ago and I got to cycle down Pike's Peak and I got the bug.  So after spending 5 hours in a bike shop, learning about all the gear, I finally took my new little bike out for our first ride and it was GREAT.  I love going fast and it was a lot of fun.  I only rode for about 15 minutes but managed to burn nearly 200 calories in that time!  If you want to go for a leisurly ride with me, let me know! 

8 months

We've been a bit quiet over here in blog land, but it's not for lack of being busy, quite the contrary - so busy, I haven't had a chance to say HELLO to all of y'all.  

Wanna see our cutie pie?  He turned 8 months old Monday!

my little sugar bug.

xoxo, cb.

Charlotte Mae Smith

Miss Charlotte Mae Smith finally arrived on August 1, 2012 at 8:54am!

She is 7 pounds, 14 ounces and is 19.5 inches long. 

Could she be any cuter?

Here is Drake's first look at his new little sister...

Drake giving Charlotte her first hug.

The grandparents got to give her lots of sugars!

 The Smith-Schwartz cousins came to welcome her home...

Drake, Charlotte, Jack and Harper

Harper

... and Travis was excited to see Charlotte after a quick hospital cat-nap!

Charlotte cuddled with mommy...

and we took their first family photos.

Drake and Charlotte have had a chance to get acquainted...

... and both Tammy and Charlotte are doing very well!

Welcome to the family, miss Charlotte.  

We couldn't be more excited to finally meet you! 

xoxo, Aunt Cyndy

7 months

Where does the time go?  

I blinked and somehow we have a 7 month old already!  

Travis is doing GREAT.

He's chewing on everything...

he's having a lot of fun learning how to crawl everywhere... 

he's pulling himself up and we officially got rid of the binky last month... 

and still no teeth! 

I love him to pieces...

Happy 7 months, little man of mine. 

xoxo, mama

A Run for the Money.

Kid is giving me a run for my money.

I honestly feel like I just starred in an episode of "Super Nanny."  Remember the one where there is a SCREAMING child and the parent is sitting outside the room cowering and hoping that they will just give in and fall asleep?  That was me.  10 minutes ago.  And you know what, he gave in.

*Can you see me doing my little happy dance now?*

Travis is obviously going through a big change in his little world now - he is crawling and is SO freaking strong... he planks, not just crawls, but he plank crawls.  This means he has man-arms of steel.  Which means he can pull himself up at a freakishly far distance.  Exhibit A.

What I'm trying to say is that now, he wants to stand and look around at night, and last night he fell backwards nearly giving me a heart attack with worry that he would break his skull.  Luckily, after much reading, prompted by my amazing husband, I have come to learn that there really shouldn't be enough inertia to have him do too much damage if he's only falling down (versus falling off, say, a table).

So tonight, I toughed it out.  I did not give in. I did not take him out of his crib to rock him. I sat in a chair next to him and I didn't say a word except "it's time to go nite-nite."  After 5 minutes of monitored whaling (and by the way, it felt like an hour), I would take his little hands and work them down the side of the crib rails and then help him bend his knees so he could learn how to get himself down.

Repeat.
Repeat.  

Repeat.   

Then I left the room and sat in the hallway as he cried.  If I ever thought I was a good mom, this really made me think twice.  Who lets their kid cry like that? But, I stuck to my guns and peeked around the corner of his door to check to make sure he was okay and after about 10 minutes of being alone he finally widdled himself down and slinked into a peaceful sleep.

I'm a little baffled it worked.

I have read oodles and oodles of parenting books and many of them say "you just have to let them cry" - not ignore or neglect them, but let them figure it out.  It is the hardest thing to do - that's your baby and hearing them that upset... well, it's difficult not to swoop in and save the day with a little mommy sugar.

Are the books right?  Who knows, but I'll let you know if he's still mad at me in the morning ;)

xoxo, cb.  

Holy shit.

Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

Travis' first fight

Travis got in his first fight tonight...
With the bathtub.

The bathtub won.

Poor kid was trying to stand up during bath time and went tumbling down the side of the tub. I was holding one of his arms, but he managed to swing around and clipped his little right eye on the edge of the tub. A couple very loud huffing screams later, some baby tylenol, a soapy wet kid, a bag of frozen peas and all is well. We'll see if he's got a shiner (or worse, a swollen shut eye!) tomorrow.

Poor little guy. I promise I don't beat my kid.

Jason was reassuring and said:
"Well, get used to it, he's a boy and he's mobile."

(Did I mention he's crawling!?)

He bonked his forehead in the tile floor this morning. It was a bit of a rough day.

Ugh. My heart. I just held and rocked him until he fell asleep and even now I just want to snuggle with him. And its just his first bump.

How do parents do this?

Trying not to drive myself crazy with worry... Its just a bump.

Bon nuit - cb.

happiest hippies on the block

What? Hippies you say? Jason - absolutely not.  Me, well maybe a little.  But we're embracing our hippie side (at least when it comes to our kid!) WHY?? We cloth diaper (yup, not as bad as you'd think... though sometimes, it is JUST as bad as you think) and I just started making our own baby food.  

I love both.  

Healthy non-preservative food for my kid (oh and the colors of mush... avocado, carrots, green peas... are so pretty!) and I can't help but smile when I put those cloth diapers on.  Not only are they super cute, but I'm not putting more trash into this small earth.  I love it.  

My boys are in the bathtub now splashing like crazy... and I'm typing as fast as I can so I don't miss too much.  Travis is just giddy in the water.  He shrieks with little man laughter.  

Life is delightful and we are blessed. 

xoxo, cyndy

6 months

No matter how hard I try, this kid keeps on growing...

I made a "half cake" for his "half-birthday!" 

(because I just-can't-help-myself)

It was a yummmmy carrot cake (my favorite!) - he had a tiny little taste of the icing... but since he still doesn't have teeth, he'll just have to wait to have the cake on his whole-birthday!

Keri, Ashley, Shannon, Chris, Kyle, Kaylee, Jennie, Jonathan, Koralie and Max all came over for a super fancy frozen lasagne, salad and bread half-birthday dinner.  It was loud and full of silly-ness... Travis even had his first bath with a GIRL! Kaylee and he got all bubbly in the bath before everyone tucked away to bed. 

I love you little mister!

xoxo, your mama.