Chase turned 27 on November 28th and boy am I lucky that my husband is very easily entertained. Cruz and I woke up on Sunday morning and made him waffles and coffee. Then we watched Red Zone ALL day, and had some friends over for carnitas tacos, beer and the Chargers. Even though it was a very simple birthday, Chase seemed to have had a good time:) Here are some pics...
On Wednesday, before all of the Thanksgiving festivities started, we had a chance to get the Davies' family over for a baby play date and a doggy play date. Barron is exactly 14 weeks older than Cruz and is such a handsome little guy. It gets more and more fun to see them interact and I can't wait until they're a little older and can actually play! Not only are Cruz and Barron buds but Zeke has made a new best friend... maybe more than a friend (see pics below... and yes that is also a male dog). Him and Charger played in our front yard for a while before going to dog beach for a couple of hours with the dads. They came back exhausted and and ingested a little too much salt water... which, let me tell you, gets a little messy on the way out:)
On Thanksgiving day, we went up to my family's house and had a great feast with a house full of fun! There were 6 kids, 3 daughters, 2 son-in-laws, a Poppy, a Nana, a Papa, and 4 dogs! Cruz is used to his peace and quiet for naps, so he had a hard time and mama ended up sitting upstairs for 3 hours holding him. Not exactly what I planned for Thanksgiving but it was still great to see my beautiful family:). Friday we spent the day at Uncle Marc and Aunt Marsha's house and had the rest of the McBride fam and the Zarda fam (from Kansas!) over for an incredible meal. They oven roasted 1 turkey and fried 2 turkeys and 3 chickens and it was all delicious!!
Here are some pics from the last few days (I totally forgot to take pics at the McBride Thanksgiving:( )
checking each other out
i'm wondering when cruz is going to make any other face for the camera??
giving the lady killer smirk:)
and again:)
when zeke's love started...
and grew...
and grew...
the women of the family
1st Thanksgiving!
"A cheerful heart is good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones." Proverbs 17:22
Maybe every mama thinks her baby is joyful and happy and wonderful, but I can't seem to say it enough and I don't think I'm entirely delusional either. Not that I'm negative Nancy or anything, but I do have a hard time seeing the light in certain circumstances. My default is to be "realistic", which is negative a lot of the time because it overwhelms the ability for optimism and hope to shine through. God has been speaking to me a lot through your spirit. Day in and day out, I see how you rejoice in the little things and it makes my heart yearn to feel that joy. You wake up in the morning doing your high pitched happy scream and cracking yourself up. Even if you're starving or have a wet/dirty diaper you're still joyful, it seems, just to be alive. I want to wake up in the morning excited just to be alive. I want to be joyful because I am saved and am able to live this life with Christ. I want to face suffering, persevere, and rejoice because I have faith that I can lay my burdens down at His feet and He will restore, renew, and heal the broken places in my heart. Thank you for continuously reminding me to choose joy:) "This is the day the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it." Psalm 118:24
I know you're not always going to be in the "happy baby" stage because the circumstances of life will get tougher and tougher as you get to be more independent. Even still, I pray that your spirit would continue to be a testimony of joy to all who know you and you would touch people's spirits as you've touched your mama's...
Love you, Cruzer.
A success! Cruz graduated from good baby to great baby this trip. He slept the entire flight there and the entire flight back. Both times he ate about 10 minutes before boarding and again when we started our descent. He fussed for about 2 minutes on our way down because his ears were hurting but besides that he did great. While we were there he somehow stayed right on schedule, taking great naps and sleeping through the night. Most days we just hung around the beautiful house but we did take him in the pool a few times and let him put his feet in the sand on the beach. Chase played golf a few of the days and we had a date night which was awesome. We are so thankful to have escaped to Cabo for a few days and so thankful to Jefe and Dona (sounds like Donya) to have let us come along. (Just fyi: Mike and Sharon's grandparent names got nixed... we decided we needed to spice up Gamy and Pops and changed their names to something with a Spanish flare... Jefe means "the boss" in spanish and Dona means "Mrs":). Here are some pictures from our trip:
first time in the big boy pool
daddy and cruz
mama and cruz at the beach
daddy and cruz at the beach
daddy, cruz and jefe
first golf cart ride (don't worry, we were safe... it was only about 100 yards)
even in cabo, the guys couldn't miss a sunday filled with football:)
having fun at the beach
walk on the beach
daddy and cruz
No doctor appointment at 3 months, so we'll have to wait another month to find out Cruz's measurements. He is already in 6-12 month clothing and size 2 diapers are getting snug, so I know he's getting bigger by the day. His coordination is definitely getting better. He has discovered how delicious his hands are so those are pretty much constantly in his mouth at this point accompanied by some serious lip smacking. He is also batting/grabbing at hanging toys and talking a ton. He has this extremely high pitched happy scream that he likes to do and we get to wake up to it every morning... it's the best to wake up to a happy baby! Mama sucked it up and finally put him in his own crib to go to bed at night and he's doing great. He has been napping in there for weeks now and I finally got the courage to do it overnight and he's still sleeping through the night. I put him to bed around 7pm, wake him up at 9pm to feed him again, and then he wakes up between 6:30-7. He is such a joy! Here are some pictures I took last week...
We spent the day at the Riechers house watching football, eating great food, and hanging with our fun group of friends. Due to overlapping nap times and fussiness we didn't get Cruz and Evy in costume together but we got a couple priceless pictures of them interacting. The pictures will explain it all but just a heads up that Cruz's costume didn't fit that well (how ironic that I got him the hulk bc he's a big baby and he doesn't even fit in the costume!). I snapped a few pictures of the Hulk in the 5 minutes I actually had him in the costume, so here they are (please note that the hat can actually double as a yamika on this kid! HUGE dome!)
