January 1-2, 2014:

Where did the year go!!! The older I get the fast time flies by. Wow.... What a year 2013 has been. You all know the joys and hardships we've experienced. I can't believe that our lil boy is almost a year old!!! He decided to start off the new year by waking up at 2am for some food and then went back to sleep till about 7am. Silly boy. He finally got tired enough again about 10am for a nap and is still sleeping!! As I'm writing this blog, he's been asleep for about 1 hr 20 min!! That's a record for the past few months!! His sleeping through the night and naps are still all over the map and not dependable. His bedtime is the only dependable time we have. Maybe he's turning a new leaf today for the new year. :) Here's hoping!!

RJ had a fantastic first Christmas and made out great with cute new clothes and some fun noisy toys. :) He did pretty good taking hold of the paper and pulling it with our assistance. :) He was adorable. We got some pics to remember it by.

... Once again I was interrupted by our sweet lil monkey and ran out of time in the day. So here we are on the 2nd of January 2014 and it's currently snowing!! RJ is down for his second nap of the day all by himself!!! I guess the sleep training I was attempting before Christmas break worked along w/ totally changing up his schedule while at Grandma and Grandpa's house. RJ surprised us by sleeping for 12hrs straight last night!!! It was fantastic!! I believe that's about twice in the past month that he's done that. I hope the trend continues!! I was so surprised that RJ took 3 naps by himself yesterday and has gone down for 2 today without much of a fuss today so far. I like the new leaf he's turing over. I hope it sticks!!

Yesterday RJ was much more mellow than I've seen in a few months. I was worried that he might be getting sick since he had a lil cough, but he seems to be fine today. He gives me smiles, yet is still mellow. I am relishing the non-whiney baby!! I'm afraid his current nap has quickly come to an end of only 30 min. He's wiggling all around playing w/ his blanket in his bed.

I've been making a list on my phone like before to keep track of special moments or exhausting ones. Here it goes:

Week of Dec 8th: Had a rough time getting RJ down for naps. He woke up two nights around 2-3am to eat. Two evenings he drank 6oz before going to bed, then started eating less during the day. He started some extreme lip licking. I tried to see if it was related to hunger, but wasn't able to find a direct relation.

Dec 14th: RJ sat in SS in his own chair for the first time!! He was adorable!! He sat in the pew and played w/ his activity book for awhile. We were able to keep him in church the whole time. A friend took him in the back for awhile and he almost fell asleep. The clapping woke him up. He fell asleep on the ride home. :)

Dec 17th: RJ's 11 months old!!! He's been grumpy. I tried feeding him applesauce w/ blueberries and he promptly took the spoon and smeared it in his perfectly styled hair! Now it's sticky. He has a lil plastic seahorse w/ a ball at the end that rotates. He was holding it w/ one hand and making the ball twirl on the other end!! Very impressive!! RJ was super whiney today. He gave us some laughs at the end of the day. He also started doing this purring thing randomly.

Dec 18th: RJ slept for 12hrs!!! It's been awhile since he did that!!!
Dec 21st: RJ was going crazy w/ his spit cloth, pulling it over his face. It was funny to watch on the baby monitor.

Dec 22nd: I made RJ really giggle when saying "Say excuse me mama, I burped." I said that repeatedly and he kept laughing. --- I kept saying it over Christmas break and since we've been home. He will smile, but not giggle like he did the first time. :)

Dec 21-22: RJ was tricky to get to bed. We went to bed about 10:30pm. I woke up around 11:45am because of the heavy winds and rain. RJ woke up at 3:30am crying. Diaper change wasn't enough, so I ended up feeding him 4oz. I was back in bed about 4am. Then Roberts phone rang about 5am calling him into work. RJ woke up about 5:15am crying. Rocking was enough. I got back in bed about 5:30am and slept till he officially woke up about 7am. Whew... It was a tricky rest of the day w/ him fighting naps. He was whiney off and on all day. Robert came home mid afternoon. I was about to loose it. I quickly asked him to take care of RJ and I left the house crying. I had to leave to power walk/jog to clear my head. In the midst of all that I was packing off and on for our trip to Roanoke the 23rd.

Dec 23rd: RJ woke up at 5:40am ready to take off for gma/gpa's house!! It was a long day since we had to make multiple stops to change RJ's diaper and feed him. It took about 7hrs.

Week of Dec 22nd: Gave RJ a bath in GG's Jacuzzi tub and put him on his belly for the first time. He seemed to like it. He did some flips to his back too. I lowered the water level and let him lay on his back too. I think he's going to be a water lover. He's giving these really big grins that show his gums. So cute!! Really moves when he's eating his bottle. He can't hold still!! Gma did a good job trying to feed him pears. He's still not opening his mouth wide to eat. You have to trick him and shove it in. I'm not sold that's the best approach. He did well taking naps, but was mostly taking them while being held. He started screaming when we tried changing him or after baths when lying him down to dry off. It's really weird. He's still waking up randomly at night to feed.

Dec 25th: RJ's first Christmas!!! He had fun opening presents. HE got some neat noise toys that seem to entertain him. It was the longest Christmas ever b/c we had to stop for RJ's feedings and naps. We also made food for a refugee family and took that to them. They were very appreciative!! RJ was of course a big hit. We ended up finishing up Christmas after RJ went to bed. :)

Dec 29th: It was the first time our driving home fell into the hours of RJ's bedtime. He ended up falling asleep around 7:30pm like he would if at home. He woke up a few times. When getting home I promptly got him upstairs, changed, fed, and rocked to sleep. He then woke up around 4am just to be held. No long later about 5:40am he woke up to eat. Grrrr.

Dec: I can't remember the exact day when he started giving kisses. Well they are a lil prompted, but kisses none the less. :) He also will give "high fives" when you prompt him. He gets a big smile on his face.

Jan 1st: RJ started the new year by waking up at 2am to eat! He then slept till about 7am. I took him to see dada in our room. I was doing a lot of holding him up in the air over my head. I guess it got his stomach upset b/c when I handed him to dada who held him in the air, RJ's spit up fell all over dada's face, chest, and the bed. Oh bother. Happy New Year!! I wondered when that was going to happen. Anyways, I needed to change the sheets. :) RJ and I watched some of the Rose Parade. RJ was very mellow and did a lot of snuggling. He was such a good boy. Quite the contrast from the whiney baby before Christmas. He even took 3 naps by himself!! First was 1 hr 20 min, then 40 min, and finally 30 min

Jan 2nd- RJ slept for 12 hrs straight again!!!! Boy and I lucky!!! I could get used to this!! I can get much more accomplished and get my day started out right. :) He has been clingy today and mellow. His head felt a lil warm, so I took his temp. It's just 99.4. This afternoon he's been eating more frequently. We will keep a watch on it. I really hope he's not getting sick. His lil cough is random and not wet sounding. He's still been giving me smiles today and doing some funny baby talk. Right now he's having the best time w/ the empty wipe bag. Who knew that could be such a great form of entertainment!

I guess that's about it for now. I downloaded all the pics from Christmas and need to go through them and hopefully post some to the blog. It's really incredible where we started off just almost a year ago and where we are now. This exact time a year ago I was pregnant and feeling RJ kick, not in a million years expecting him to come in a couple weeks. It's hard to even imagine how this whole journey even happened to us. It seems so unreal. Our lives have been so drastically changed in the past 12 months. We have to remind ourselves daily to stop and remember how  blessed we are. We have a miracle in front of us every day and he's growing into such a sweet boy. I hope we have the chance to show him off to each one of you who still read this blog. :) I hope 2014 is filled with way more laughs and smiles than tears.

Thanks again to all our family and friends who've supported us over this past year. We greatly appreciate all the love, prayers, and support. Keep em' coming!!