Happy Birthday Mim!

Happy Birthday Emily! (Raughley's grandmother).  And Happy Anniversary too!

Well, happy birthday from me too!

Below:  Raughley is waving.  I know what you're thinking, no he's not. But really, when you wave at him, his fingers start to open and close just a little bit.

Tailgate time!

Saturday was a day spent soaking up time with family, and soaking wet.  We went to Tuscaloosa to tailgate  for the Alabama Arkansas game, and guess who got to go!  The weather was beautiful, except for two very unfortunate spots of rain- torrential rain that is.  Since little man got to attend the tailgating festivities, mom and I sat with him inside Patrick's house during the game.  Patrick's house is so close to the stadium that you could hear the roar of the crowd from inside his house.  Man were our fans loud!  He was a very good participant, so I'm thinking he may be back for more when we play UT!

Not sure where Chase was for this one.

Raughley's newest trick is learning to hold the bottle by himself!

We swear Raughley will wave at you when you wave at him.  Even if it means just opening and closing his hands, it still seems to be a reaction he has to seeing someone wave.  I say it counts!

Jeris thinks something is funny, perhaps it's Chase hanging out in the downpour!

Patrick and Elizabeth; William and R

Mary Poppins?  I think we were just all trying to have a sense of humour about the whole day.

On Sunday Raughley went to see his cousin Jackson play football at Mountain Brook High School.  I say "see" but it looks like he slept through much of the game!  That's a lot of football in one weekend for such a little person!

Raughley and Cody

Yesterday I went walking with my friend Ellen from high school and her puppy Cody.  He is so precious!  Afterwards we had a small photo shoot with the two of them.  They seemed to really hit it off!

Photo Shoot

Finally we had a pretty day outside and I took these pics of Raughley and our backyard.

Go Bananas!

The introduction of solid food continued yesterday with the banana.  This meaty little fruit has sparked a wave of love in little Raughley.  He loves them... I mean LOVES them.  Like he wont eat anything else but them right now. If I try to offer him milk he screams until I give him more nanners.  Normally he eats one or maybe two ice cube size amounts of a fruit or vegetable but with "nanners"  he ate FOUR.   He gobbles them as if he hasn't eaten in weeks.  AND, for the first time, moans during meals.  Like its so good he has to vocalize it to you.  Here is a video of his newest obsession.  Notice how he leans forward towards Chase begging for more.  


** I cant seem to get the video to load using the new blogspot editing format...any suggestions?

Learning to Crawl.

We had an impromptu crawling session last night.  Bryant had some really good pointers for Raughley.


Raughley's latest acheivement is kissing.  He grabs your face and smooshes his open mouth against your cheek.  I just love how he seems to know it is a sign of affection.  His little face always smiles after he gives you a big wet one!

alfalfa sprout

As we enter month five of R's life, I have been thinking about what a good natured little guy he has been throughout, well, his whole life I guess.  He came into this world and quickly put himself on a schedule.  He has been eating five times a day since he was about 2 months old.  That would be breakfast when he wakes up, followed by brunch 3 hours later, then lunch, dunch (dinner and lunch in case you were wondering) and then dinner.  Each feeding is followed by a nap of some sorts, which in most cases lasts only 20 minutes or so.  He takes after his mother I guess, and doesn't like to nap.  Every couple of days he will get really cranky and need a 2 hour snooze thrown in for good measure.  Now that we have introduced fruits and vegetables, he is slowly working his way up to a 4 meal a day schedule, which is even more mommy friendly.  I guess we cut out dunch, since it is the weirdest of them all.  (Most people would call that "afternoon snack".)  Life at this point in his life, is really good.  Now once he starts crawling, all things will turn upside down and we will have to get readjusted again, but I guess that is what having a baby is all about, constantly readjusting your lifestyle and daily routine.  It is worth every second.

Another memory I had was thinking about when Raughley's hair fell out.   Well, all the hairs but one.  We called it the "antenna" or "Who hair"  (as in Dr. Suess's Who's down in Who-ville).  Guess what- the hair is still there, it has not fallen out yet.  At some point I guess I will have to cut it, as it will be inches longer than the rest of his hair.  But for now, it is so funny to look at- his own little alfalfa sprout!

  

All in a day's work.

I am sitting in my bed a little wary of going to sleep because there is a yellow jacket in our bedroom.  Kill it you say?  I wish I could, but now I can't find it, so I feel like it is just hovering somewhere waiting for me to go to bed so it can attack me in my sleep.

So while I wait for it to come out, like some kind of insect stand off, I have to tell you about the second major poop incident of my baby raising career.  First of all, how do these things always happen when Jeris is around?  She must think I have no idea how to put on a diaper correctly.

What happened was that Raughley was hanging out in his bumbo, minding his own business, when we notice him straining and turning bright red all over his face, including his eyeballs- poor little dude, to have to poop in public!  Anyway, after waiting on him to finish his business, I picked him up to carry him to the changing table when poop starts draining out of the sides of his diaper, ending up on the bumbo, the rattle, his outfit, the counter, ME.  Yikes, such a mess to clean up, and I ended up folding in the midst of the crisis and just standing there holding him, dripping, while Jeris ran around my house gathering baby tubs, towels, soap, and wipes.  We ended up having an impromptu bathing session while lysoling everything in a six foot radius of the poor little naked baby.  He made it through, and so did we, and headed straight for zona rosa to de-stress over margaritas.

In spite of these lovely experiences, I find myself laughing at how concerned I am with someone else's bathroom schedule.  I am keeping a daily mental checklist-

"how many? what time?  what color? " (eeeewww)  All in a days work.

R post poop cleaning party.  "Why do they do this to me?"

The next day, (today), was spend watching football and hanging out with my parents.  (Chase is in Nashville for the Titans game having a guy weekend.)

Yay Alabama!

Watching the game with Pop, such a proper baby, notice how he folds his hands.

High School Visits

Last week my old friend Jane came in town before her big move to LA (read more about it in her blog, city mouse in a country house)  We had lots of catching up to do, and she got to meet R for the first time!   Thursday night, her parents had us over for dinner to grill out, and we got to see their new gorgeous home.  Here we are before dinner.  

Rachel, Jane and I went to La Paz Wednesday night for some cheese dip, yum!

What has been so great about the past couple of weeks is that I have gotten to spend time with each of my best friends from High School.  They were all in my wedding (pic below) and over the past month each of them has come home to visit.  (Except Rach, she lives here).  It may be a long time before we see each other again, as they live so far away, so I feel blessed to have had this time with them.  

Mason (LA) Chandler (LA)

Jane (NY, then LA) Susan (St Louis) me, Rach (here, but has lived in NY and Paris).  

5 months old!

Raughley with Mr. Vince, his "Poppy"

Monday Raughley was officially five months old.  I cannot believe how fast time has gone by!  This time last year I was sick as a dog, crawling into my house with a hankie over my nose to avoid the smells.  (I thought my house smelled horrible for the first 4 months of the pregnancy.  No one else could smell it but me.  The ironic part about it is that in my non pregnant life, I have an unusually absent sense of smell.)  I would lie outside in the grass to get some fresh air, until my parents brought me a lounge chair for the yard so I didn't have to be on the ground.  It was all worth it, because now Chase and I have our sweet little Raughley!

the gown

Here are some pics of the gown my mom made:

Raughley's initials and the date of his baptism are embroidered on the slip of the gown.

You can't really see it but there is a W monogrammed on the "yoke" or the top front of the gown.  

A good view of the whole thing.  It's really long.    The following three pics show the three panels with embroidery representing God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit on them.  

 

 

Baptism

Sunday was Raughley's big day! He was baptized at Saint Luke's Episcopal Church at 10:30 in the morning. I had no idea what a big day it was going to turn out to be! We had both of our family's present, as well as friends and extended relatives. Raughley had his two godparents in attendance as well, Lindsay and Carl. I was hoping Rich Webster would baptize him, but because of a sinus infection and the present hysteria of swine flu (he wasn't contagious) he did everything but the actual blessing of the children. Raughley was perfect. He slept through most of the liturgy, only waking up when I passed him to the priest, where he opened his eyes so wide to look around. Then he kept trying to grab the priest's nose, which is his latest obsession. After the ceremony we had a brunch at Emily and Howard's house, which was so beautiful. They had different breakfast stations set up with omelets and waffles... yum! She had set up pictures of R all over the house, it was so cute to see him as the star of the party!

My mom made R's gown, which had embroidery of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit on each of the panels. The pictures don't even do the gown justice, it was really beautiful. What was even more amazing about it was that she finished it while my dad was in the hospital with pneumonia. He recovered and was able to come to the church service and the party. We were very thankful to have him there.

The gown, there's a bib over the front though, covering up the embroidered W on the front.

Elizabeth, me, Lindsay and Frances Ellen

The proud grandparents!

Emily, Howard and Raughley

Cute cousin Callie- R wants her nose, or hair, real bad!

Cathy, R and Claudia

It was so funny putting him in his carseat with all that fabric!

Proud Mama!

There's a better view

Raughley with his parents and godparents

With his B

... and GG