~ Ella Bear ~

A few weeks ago we got the chance to spend some time with Matt's sister and husband and their sweet little Ella. Deals was so cute with her, holding her hand and drooling on her! He's usually fairly indifferent with babies (as we've seen with some of our friends kids) but with Ella Bear he was all smiles and very interested in playing. The future is going to be full of laughs and good fun as we get to watch our Dealey Bear & Ella Bear grow up together, oh and get in loads of trouble together as well!

My Little Hat Man...We got a few more pics of Dealey in his blue toboggan as I would have called it back in the day but apparently that's just a sled and not a form of hat like I thought...whatever Deals is wearing a blue thing on his head and looks darn cute.....

: lemon love :

My friend Gloria did a post a while ago with a pic of her little girl Aliza tasting a lemon and it was too cute. But as soon as i saw it i knew i had the perfect picture to compliment it. I also knew that Aliza's and Dealey's love is really meant to be. She'll be taking the lemon off the rim of her glass and putting it on D's glass! aahhh.....Lemon love, my lemon love, I need you oh how I need you love......

What Time Are YOU?

My friend Patti posted this on her blog, I of course was totally curious about what time I was so I took the test and I'm pretty impressed. I've always said unless necessary I'd prefer to not do anything before 10 am of course Dealey seems to love about 7:30 am I've told him over and over sleeping is fun and we should sleep later but he'd rather get the day going, who's kid is this? Here's what the site said about me:



You are breakfasty, like a pile of pancakes on a Sunday morning that have just the right amount of syrup, so every bite is sweet perfection and not a soppy mess. You are a glass of orange juice that's cool, refreshing, and not overly pulpy. You are the time of day that's just right for turning the pages of a newspaper, flipping through channels, or clicking around online to get a sense of how the world changed during the night. You don't want to stumble sleepily through life, so you make a real effort to wake your brain up and get it thinking. You feel inspired to accomplish things (whether it's checking something off your to-do list or changing the world), but there's plenty of time for making things happen later in the day. First, pancakes.

Hey who doesn't love pancakes?

[ fEELiNG thE hEAt ]

Okay so life's been a little nuts lately, we're slowly and I mean slower than snails pace getting settled in the house. I wake each morning to see the mess that was there the night before. Where have cleaning fairies all gone? I must have left them in NY I'm sure they're just sitting in the basement wondering where the hell we are. But to add to the crazies we've had to wait forever to get our internet set up we've been quietly stealing internet from several of our neighbors but I tell you nothing frustrates me more than when someone is using their internet and it impedes on the speed at which my internet runs. How dare they use their internet while I am, jerks!

But as if that wasn't stupid enough a week ago today we lost 1/2 power in our house. Of course our first thought crap something has already gone wrong, as I'm sure most people think when they buy an older home. But after two days of 1/2 power we finally got an electrician out there just to tell us oh, TXU put a boot on your meter. What???? Okay let me explain 1/2 power so you understand this....We lost our heat, hot water and appliances, so basically everything thing that makes life seem livable. We had our televisions so we didn't go completely insane seeing that we are t.v. junkies and working hard to make Deals one too. Most of the lights in the house worked and about half the plugs. So that's what I mean by 1/2 power. The electrician said we shouldn't have power at all but the "technician" who put it on didn't do it properly so we were still receiving power from that leg of our electricity. To move the story along, I'll just say the 3rd-7th day of this ordeal weren't as pleasant although we did realize on day 6 we are stupid, both Matt and I. By day 4 the house temperature had dropped to 49 degrees, I like it cool but it was rough, we did get space heaters for D's room and our room. D's room never left the 70's thanks to the space heater so he was good our room on the other hand didn't get quite as warm....anyways it finally got fixed today.

See the whole mix up was with our new provider. I signed up for service in December just before Christmas and for some reason they set our connect date at Jan. 31..What? I argued with them but apparently in the world of electricity everything takes 3 business days no matter who's fault it is.... So now that the crazies are subsiding maybe we can get on track again. I'm so ready for some sort of a schedule especially with D. I'm anxious for him to have a place to play and I'm really anxious to get him in his room. He did turn 7 months old during all this craziness and the slacker mom in me hasn't posted pics and I'm still not but I will soon, very very soon, unless I decide life just wouldn't be the same without the verbal beatings by my fellow bloggers and friends...

Oh gosh I almost forgot to tell you all why Matt and I are so stupid. It took us until day 6 to think about starting a fire in the fireplace...duh, right? Fire...sigh we laughed about it but really I think we were both a bit embarrassed....So I don't have D's 7 month pic ready yet but here's some new pics of D and just so you guys know I already have my next 2 post written and ready to post! Hello organization!

My Gma made a hat to match D's blue sweater, how cute is this, we put it on him with the rim rolled up and he immediately pulled down and just left it.....

Just a fun bath time shot!

We got a new stroller and Deals absolutely LOVES it, he loves facing forward and we figure no new stroller ride wouldn't be complete with out his first Chick-fil-a drink! He really just loves the straws but he does love drinking from them, he's becoming such a big boy, I love it! Oh and his little personality is starting to shine, you can see it in the pics.

Here's to.....

The past year has been moderately crazy, okay it's been down right hysterically insane....Normally I enjoy recapping the year and thinking back over the events that got us to today but other than the birth of Dealey, the birth of Ella and finding out Ross & Thea were having a baby boy it's been one crazy stupid year not worthy of the heartache and energy it would take to re-cap. However despite my frustration with life and all it's craziness I wanted to wish everyone a Wonderfully Happy New Year even though it is 7 days late but that is a testament to the stressfully busy and internet challenged world I am currently being held hostage by. So to each of you I raise my bottle of Shiraz and wish you well followed with a heartfelt, love, hugs & skittles......

Okay, okay, I know I've been a slacker at getting these Christmas pics up it's been busy but honestly I don't have a great excuse just hadn't gotten around to it, but I figured since my sweet friend Celeste dropped the hint that I was behind schedule and tomorrow is New Year's Eve I better get with it. I have a few pics I want to make some notes about and then I'll finish the post with a whole mess of random photos from the holidays. We had a wonderful time but are looking forward to hosting Christmas for all our families next year in our new home! Oh and this post wouldn't be complete without letting everybody know the best part of this years Christmas, we found out my brother Ross and his wife Thea are having a BOY! Yeah Deals will have a boy cousin to play in the dirt with, we're so excited!

Mimi (Matt's mom) gave Deals his first Christmas ornament and it was too cute. How appropriate it was an orange m&m....hee...

I don't know if you can tell but this cute little fleece suit is about to fly off D's body, it was so tight, I bought it last Christmas trying to guess his size and I was WAY OFF...he was busting at the seems, but hey who doesn't love fleece spandex!

This present was the best my sweet Gma knitted this sweater for D she's in her late 80's and was so proud to have made this for him...doesn't it look sweet with his blue eyes...

This picture depresses me even now...Yes you are seeing correctly it was 60 FREAKING degrees on Christmas day....ahh isn't Texas wonderful...sigh...

Here's more pics from the holidays lots of D opening presents, he LOVED the paper, bows & ribbon! Next year he'll love the boxes too!

:6 MONTH UPDATE: We went to the doctor today and I wasn't far off on my estimates of D's height and weight. D weighed in at 17 1/2 lbs and he's 27 1/2" long! Our big boy, he's in the 75th percentile on height and 60th on weight and his head was in the 75th percentile as well. He's growing good and strong the doc was very happy with how he sits up on his own and how strong he is when he stands. He switches object from hand to hand which she said was awesome! So I guess we've all survived the first 6 months, they say it's a milestone, I guess it's because it's amazing the kid is still alive although I think it's a miracle I'm still alive....

It's hard to believe that Deals is 6 Months old....It was just before this time last year that we found out we were pregnant and from that point on it's been a world wind of a ride. Deals is doing great developmentally and health wise I'm not sure how much he's grown since his last dr. visit but I do know that even before he actually turned 6 months the little man is high watering in his 6/9 month clothes so we will soon be moving on to 9/12 month clothes at least in pants, onesies seem to fit a little longer but I bet by 7 months I'll be packing all the 6/9 away :oO

I'll make a guess on weight and height and I'll have to post an update after our appointment on Wednesday. I think he's about 28" tall and at times I think he must weigh 40 lbs but realistically I think he weighs about 17 lbs so I can't wait to see how close I am. Here's some other updates on him:

Has eaten all the stage one foods!
He liked: peaches, pears, apples, sweet potato, green beans,
banana & carrots
He didn't like: peas, pumpkin or squash
( I guess I can't say he tried all the stage one foods because I didn't give him prunes, but honestly why would you give your kids prunes if they weren't having any problems, knowing what it does, I think he poops plenty already, hee.)

He talks just about the entire time he's awake

He USUALLY takes 2, 2 hour naps a day (but with travel it's been a little inconsistent)

He sleeps 10 hours at night, we do miss the days of 11 hours in NY but hopefully he'll work back to that...we can dream huh?!

He's dying to crawl he works hard on it everyday and is so close I wouldn't be surprised if he was crawling by the end of the year!

His favorite position is still standing so my guess is as soon as he figure out how to crawl he'll start pulling up on stuff, I've tried to warn the furniture of this pending action so hopefully they're prepared.

He now loves the sound of his voice and screams just to see what happens. It's actually pretty cute.

Lots of other stuff I'm sure I'm forgetting but I'm sure after reading this long post your ready for the picture, so here it is, Deals @ 6 months....

Matt's sister Megan & her husband Chad had their baby Ella Grace Copeland on Tuesday evening and we are so freaking excited. It was a little sad because Meg had StrepB and spiked a 102 fever during labor so because of precautions Ella was taken to the NICU for 48 hours of antibiotic it's crazy to walk into the NICU and they had her hooked up to a few thing but unlike the other parents/families in there we were all still happy because Ella is healthy, she just wanted to be fashionably late like her momma and figured she should start life off that way and what little girl isn't a bit high maintenance huh?!

Welcome Ella your Uncle Matt, Aunt Rachel &
favorite Cousin Deals love you so much already!

This is proud dad Chad, he faked us out a few times before this during Meg's 2 hours of pushing just to be mean, we think, hee! But the final time he had too big of a smile on his face we knew our little Ella was here!

We weren't able to get pics from Ella's first minutes so these are
the day after, but Meg and Ella were bonding, the hat cracks me up,
one of the nurses made it for her so she could be all girled out!

Ella was all smiles when Uncle Matt first picked her up....

But then she wasn't sure who the heck the dude was and gave Matt a look that we know all too well. We get it from D regularly but I think he's thinking, crazy people can't you stay in one place for two seconds, it's nearly a look of disgust at times :oO

Matt and Meg must have gotten into a deep conversation and Ella had to let them know, hello crazies I'm still here"!

The whole day wasn't full of tears though, D spent almost the entire day at the hospital and was such a trooper, but the real excitement came when Matt's cousin Tabitha and Aunt Jeri showed up. They usually bring the party and they had D laughing hysterically. Who knew balloons could be so funny?! I think we'll get a room full of them!

And boy do balloons taste yummy! We are definitely at the see object open mouth stage!

: new things :

Most everyone knows we've put an offer on a house in Richardson, the offer was accepted and after the inspection we have about a dozen things they need to fix but over all it was good and we are excited about the idea of having a home again. We are scheduled to close Dec 28 right now but that may or may not change depending on the owners ability to get everything done and move out in 2 1/2 weeks, we'll see. Also it looks like we're going to have a new addition to our family however we have to wait and introduce Abby and see if she likes Sophie before we make our final decision, but Deals definitely likes Sophie A LOT! Here's a pic of Deals & Sophie and some pics of the new house!

The snow fell in NM last night and we woke to a beautiful powdery white landscape. So I had to take D out and let him touch snow for the first time. He touched a couple of times and decided he didn't love it, I think it was just too cold...I loved the idea of living in NY so much because of the seasons, so I'm so glad we have Angel Fire to bring Deals to so he can experience something some Texas children will never get to have, a true winter and a white Christmas! Our time here has been relaxing (mostly) and I've had a ton of time to think and reflect on all parts of my life. For better or worse I'm glad I got this chance to get away. Here's a few pics from today.