Memorial Day Weekend!

What a great weekend we all had!

We went down to Wilmington on Thursday morning, so I could go to a mediation in Jacksonville that afternoon. Jeff stayed at my mom's with Jacob and Jacob truly wore him out! He's into everything! We semi-babyproofed mom's house using pillows to block off the dangers. On Friday morning, I had a mediation in Wilmington, and Jeff took Jacob down to see his mom in Ocean Isle Beach. Jacob had a lot of fun with his Grandma and Jeff reports he liked riding their black lab, Sissy. Jacob was so dirty, Jeff had to give him a bath before he brought him home! I had to put stain stick all over his outfit before we washed it!

On Saturday, Jeff and I went over to my dad's pool and swam for a bit. It was a nice and relaxing afternoon. That evening, we went to Heather & Jed's for a cookout. We had some wonderful steaks and baked potatoes! It was like eating at a steakhouse, but better! Thanks guys!

On Sunday, Jeff and I had planned to meet some friends at dad's pool, but Jacob had other plans to nap during that time. He slept the morning away, and finally we went over to dad's for around an hour to let Jacob swim a little bit. He loved it. We'll post those pictures soon!

Sunday night, Jeff and I checked into the Wilmingtonian. It's a quaint all-suite hotel in downtown Wilmington. We last stayed there on our wedding night. We didn't have the exact same room (it was booked), but we did have the room right below it! We did some walking around downtown that afternoon, and to our surprise, Front Street Brewery had reopened. This is one of our favorite places to grab a beer, and we haven't been in two years. In the meantime, they had closed for 8 months and just reopened last September! We love the Raspberry Wheat ale! After a little browsing around downtown, we found the Little Dipper, where I REALLY wanted to eat dinner. It's a fondue restaurant, and the menu looked wonderful! We made a reservation, and went back to our suite to rest up and shower. We went back for dinner around 8 p.m. and started with wine on the deck overlooking the river. Then, our table was ready, so we moved inside. We had a Tuscan Sun-Dried Tomato cheese fondue, which our waiter aptly described as "pizza-dip." It was very good. We both had the chef-salad, also very good and rather big! For dinner, we shared the Dinner for Two - Surf N Turf, with filet mignon, shrimp, and lobster-stuffed ravioli. It was so much food, we could not finish the filet mignon! For dessert, we had the "Half-N-Half" - one half smooth peanut butter and one half dark chocolate. This was the best chocolate fondue I've EVER had. They even give you a cinnamon-sugar-graham cracker mixture to dip your dippers in after dipping in chocolate. Delicious!!!! I can't wait to go back!

On Monday, we leisurely slept in until 8 a.m. How wonderful! We went back to mom's, and had planned to meet the Prince William Tall Ship. My dad is the President of WHET in Wilmington. He and other WHET members have been working for a couple of months on getting the ship to stop in Wilmington. About a week ago, the captain of the boat invited my dad and other WHET members, as well as the media to board the ship in Morehead City on Friday and to sail around for the weekend, arriving in Wilmington on Monday. The ship arrived around 12:30 p.m. We made it downtown a little after 1 p.m. and met my dad and his wife. After spending a little time with them, we headed on home.

It was a great weekend all-around. The best part is, we kept Jacob on a great "sleeping schedule". He slept great at my mom's in the pack-n-play. Jeff gets a lot of credit too for putting Jacob down for naps in the pack n play right away on Thursday! Her house is just two bedrooms, so Jeff and I actually set up camp in the living room, so as not to disturb Jacob's slumber! It worked though!!! For several weeks now, he's been sleeping 10-11 hours a night! Knock on wood!

Jacob's first pool pictures!

Pool Pictures from this past weekend at my Dad's house!

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Mother's Day Weekend

First, some pictures!

Jacob Napping

Making a mess at dinnertime!

New use for the pacifier he doesn't like?

He prefers boxes to his toys!

He likes boxes!


We all had a good Mother's Day weekend. Jacob is still fighting off this cold. He had his 9 month (well) check up on Friday. He was about 18 lbs, 2 oz and 28.5 inches long. I'm not sure the weight is quite right because he was squirming and the scale they use is too small for him now. He did drop down a few notches on the growth charts, but this was to be expected since he is so much more active now. He pulls up all the time and is crawling everywhere!

On Saturday, we went to a birthday party for our friend's Chris & Nicole's 2 year old daughter, Devyn. She is so cute! They put the cake in front of her to blow out her candles, and she said "Where's a fork?!!"

For Mother's Day, I got a lovely card from Jacob and another one from Jeff. I also got a Mother & Son keepsake box by Willow Tree and a necklace to wear my Mama-Baby charm on that Jeff gave me when Jacob was born. (My other necklace broke in February!)

Later, we drove to Wilmington for the day to see my Grandma Elsa who is visiting from Florida. Odd, since it was Mother's Day that we were with my Dad! But, our moms understood. My mom was here the previous weekend, and Jeff's mom will be here this weekend. We let Jake swim for about 10-15 minutes in Dad's pool with his new baby float.

This thing works GREAT! He loved, loved, loved it!

I don't want to jinx us, but Jacob has been sleeping soooo good for about 2-3 weeks now. He's going to bed at 6:30p to 7:00p, and he sleeps until the next morning around 6:30a. He did wake up at 9:30p last night, crying, but I went and checked on him and no fever, no wet bed or anything. He settled back down and stopped crying. I don't think he ever actually woke up though. Maybe he had a bad dream?

And I think we have an answer....

Last night, more of the same... but first, Jacob did eat really well - an entire 4 oz jar of Vegetables & Turkey plus a 4 oz jar of bananas and most of his bottle. He has a lot of formula during the day too. I'm glad he's eating more because he needs to fill out a little!


Anyway, he went to bed okay according to Jeff. But at 11:00 p.m., he started with his little whimpers. Those progressed and we finally went in and gave him a bottle (water again... no more formula in the middle of the night... bottle cavities and all); changed his diaper, etc. I actually got him back to sleep on 3 different occasions between 11:00 and 11:20 p.m., but within a minute of me stopping the back-patting, he'd wake up and whimper. Back to patting, stop, whimper. Finally at 11:20 p.m., I returned to the bed to find Jeff snoring. At 11:22 p.m. he was whimpering again. Then, it stopped. Started again about 11:30 p.m. Stopped again. Started again at 11:40 p.m. Got progressively louder and was now full out crying. Jeff and I got up again about 11:45 p.m. Gave him teething gel. (He had Ibuprofen before bed, so couldn't have more until 2 a.m.) Jeff spent another 10-15 minutes getting him settled and asleep. Finally sleeping and it's 11:55 p.m. But no. More whimpering by 12:01 p.m. Now that this had been going on an hour, I told Jeff I was going to just put Jacob in bed with us because I could not stay up any longer. We put him in between us, got him settled and he was sound asleep within minutes. He then slept 6 straight hours and did not awake until 6 a.m. This is particularly impressive since he is usually up like clockwork at 5:00 a.m. So, now the theory we have is:


Teething pain from the molars/sleeplessness + Separation anxiety/sleeplessness + crawling/developmental milestone sleeplessness = two sleepy parents and one happy infant sleeping between them!


It's not that we ever wanted to be "co-sleepers" but I'm just not going to try to beat all those problems on a Tuesday night!



*****


The rest of the Easter wrap-up is that Saturday Jeff and I went shopping in the morning. Later that afternoon, we went to visit my dad. My dad got Jacob a baby float for the pool for Easter. Nancy (a.k.a. Nana) got Jacob a singing bunny rabbit. He sings "Bunny Rock Hop," and his ears flap up and down.... so cute!

Sunday, we went to Dad's for a breakfast of Shrimp & Grits.... Dad is a REALLY good cook too! Then, we went to church and introduced Jacob to Bob, the pastor who married us and who had been very nice to check on us several times when Jacob was at Duke. This church, Grace UMC, prayed for Jacob and had him on the prayer list for several months, so it was very special to be able to take him there and have the congregation see him in person finally! Jacob did fairly well in church. He got a little excited with bouncing in his dad's lap and giggling during the sermon, but that sure beats crying! After church, we went back to my Dad's for Easter dinner of pork tenderloin and other yummies! We finally made it home by about 4:30 p.m.