Winter blues... watch this!

Snow Days

Either LJ is learning how to give kisses or he has found his reflection, but I catch him doing this all the time. First Snow Day was spent in the Meek sled

Catch up!!

Well, the Little Man.... excuse me... the Big Man is about 8 1/2 months old and weighing in at about 27 1/2 lbs-- yah, probably didn't help that Dad gave him his first ice cream cone last week!!!!! GEEEZE! We continue to work on crawling (maybe due to his size, ya think?). He gets up on all fours and rocks back and forth, but he'd rather log roll to the next room. Big Man is sleeping 10 hours straight, but we're working on 12 hours-- these early, early mornings are killing us. I know, I know you're saying "Isn't that what you signed up for?" Yes, but sometimes 5:00 and 5:15 am is just a bit early for our taste. We had Sloane, Joey's cousin, 1st birthday party last weekend. Nana had a crew over-some of the Meek cousins even came over. Nana and Brooke decided to go with a Hello Kitty theme with an Old McDonald cake since Sloanie loves her farm animals. Although hectic at times, like any 1st birthday party, it was a fun day!! Big Man will be turning 1 before we know it- maybe we'll go with a Cowboy theme???

The Birthday Princess

Playing toys with Nana, Bryson, Sloane and Ella

Getting help around the house....

Got milk??

Garage freezer


We're done! As of 2009, I wanted to be done with breastfeeding. Although, I'm not excited about the idea of using stinky formula, I wanted my body back, and Little Man eats mainly from the bottle and is getting a lot of his nutrition from food now. Moreover, I think I have quite a bit of breastmilk saved up for the next couple of months... so much I actually donated about 100 ounces to the Indiana Mothers' Milk Bank http://www.immilkbank.org/ last week. It was one of the neatest things I've ever experienced. When I went there to drop off my milk, they showed me pictures of some of the people that will get my milk. A woman recently had premature quintuplets, who really need the immunities from breastmilk. She obviously is having a hard time keeping up with 5 babies, so my milk will go toward her. They also showed me a picture of a little 4 year old girl who lives in Illinois. She has Spinal Muscular Atrophy (Type 1), which causes her to metabolize fatty acids abnormally. She will never be able to walk and she wasn't supposed to live past age 2, and she's almost 5!!! I don't completely understand everything, however, she needs breastmilk to survive. She gets it through a GI tube. The milk bank overnights breastmilk on dry ice to her in Illinois. It was an amazing experience I'll never forget.

Garage freezer door

House freezer

My besties!!

This pic is before we made our rounds on NYE. We weren't planning on doing anything but lounging in front of our big screen with a bottle of gin and champagne, then last minute Grandpa and Grandma Matis swooped in for the ultimate surprise. What better gift than a call from them around 3pm on NYE with them saying, "Hey, we aren't doing much tonight... would you want us to come over so you guys can head out for a bit??"

A-W-E-S-O-M-E!!!!

Nothing crazy like the ol' days, but a great time at the Stephenson boys place and Dog and Cathy's house for a few drinks!! Why is it that I always make friends with other moms and I feel that by the end of the night all we had talked about was sleep, poop, and breastmilk??? Hey, it's what I signed up for and I wouldn't change a thing!

My besties, who both coincidentally live in Los Angeles, were in town over break!!YAAAAAAAAAAAAHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!! I have known Allison and Tiffany since I was three. I look to both of them for so much- advice, calmer downers, and comedy. Although I only see them a few times a year, I never feel very far away from them. I typically stalk Tiffy at work (unless her boss is around- which we have code words so she can still answer the phone and let me know she'll have to call me back) and Alli Walli calls me on her way to work. I couldn't ask for better friends.

Post Christmas

Here are a couple of pics I couldn't resist putting on the blog. He'll be eight months on January 13th. LJ still is not interested in crawling one bit. He prefers sitting up and playing toys, and if he needs to get somewhere he'll do log rolls. I think he's just a big boy- probably between 25 and 26 lbs.

People say he has "man boobs"... never heard of those before, but I think I understand what they're talking about- ha!!!!

Aunt Brooke, Uncle Jason, and Sloanie bought LJ a tent with the Showbiz balls in it. Aunt Jules (yes, Aunt Jules- yay!!) and Uncle Beau bought LJ a tractor and a drum. LJ got quite an array of farm equipment for Christmas. I think it has something to do with our 2 acres of corn we just purchased :)

Joey and I didn't buy LJ one single present for Christmas. I know, how sad. We opened him a 529 account instead. I'm really excited about this. We practically earn points everyday by spending on our credit cards (justifies all of our purchases), Kroger card, CVS card, etc. We can even sign our parents' cards up too. It's amazing! I can't believe how many toys he got for Christmas. I don't recall ever having this many toys. Is it legal to hide some away and bring them out in a few months like they're new???