Well here it is, the last blog post from 2012...eek! My resolution in 2012 was to this blog. Newly pregnant of course I couldn't make the typical, "I'm gonna lose weight and eat better" resolution. As a matter of fact, I actually was pretty excited to eat terrible and feel a little less guilty. No more hard nosed calorie counting for this girl....(by the way, wait till I tell you how well that worked out for me now ; ) At any rate, I made it my personal goal that I would get at least one post in a month. Wow, I really surprised myself. Throughout the whole pregnancy I managed to post at least once a week. Obviously since Presley has been here that has slacked to once a month and mainly just to record her milestones and growth. But I would really like to get into posting more, about more random things. The blog has pretty much been P-TV, all Presley, all the time, and while of course that is my most favorite subject ; ) I still love to write and feel like there is so much more I could share. Here's hoping I'll get down to business with that!
Now without further adieu, here is the real star, my big 5 month old!!
Oh holy cow...I'm not even gonna go on and on about how I can't believe it simply because I have mentally reserved that for next months. 6 months. The big half birthday. Let's just stop talking about it. SOOOO...5 months, well month 5 found us doing ALL things Christmas naturally! In the month of December we decked the halls of course, attended two birthdays in one weekend, one company Christmas party, threw our annual adult's Christmas party at our house, attended our niece's violin recital, Christmas shopped like crazy, planned for work potlucks, watched the Razorbacks play basketball at Verizon per Jason's bday gift, made it to 2 out of 3 family Christmas gatherings (due to snow and ice), celebrated our own little family Christmas at home Christmas morning, enjoyed a record breaking WHITE CHRISTMAS in Arkansas on Christmas Day with a final total of about 8 inches at our house....well, I say we enjoyed it, that is until Jason got the call Christmas night that he would be working like crazy the whole week to restore power to the 230 something thousand people that lost power. His week of vaca was no more. We also celebrated Christmas and Snowmageddon 2012 with the worst sinus infection I think we have ever had, little baby sick herself as well....In other words- we were BUSY!!!!!!!
I'm not even gonna lie, I LOVE Christmas and all the magic that comes along with it, and it was one million times more fun to share it with a little one, BUT, I am always pretty glad to see January come and take a big deep sigh of relief and relax. January usually doesn't hold too much so I tend to get more done, thank goodness for that.
The news of Baby P was my little Christmas present last year and I remember thinking one year from now we'll have a little one to spend this time with. It was, of course, just as special as I hoped it would be. I had the best time dressing her in all her Christmas garb as I bought an unreasonable amount of Christmas outfits and such for her. I just couldn't help it, I can't resist Christmas as it is, pair that with cute baby clothes= me an unstoppable shopping force. I'm sorry, adults definitely can't pull off Christmas apparel the way babies can! Too much fun! I'm pretty sad that next year she will be wearing big girl Christmas clothes and all these little tinys will be a thing of the past, so I tried to soak up every photo op possible...and am still disappointed I didn't capture some moments, you can't win 'em all!
Presley has really started turning on the personality in month 5. The smiles and grins get bigger and more frequent everyday. She JUST started really letting out big laughs to go along with it as well. She still LOVES to be naked on her changing pad, kicking her feet and flapping her arms like a chicken! Crack. Me. Up!! I usually try to antagonize her and get her going more which she loves! Right at Thanksgiving she started really babbling and that hasn't slowed down at all. She is learning to play with toys and is VERY interested in taking things to her mouth. I imagine we aren't too far away from teething. So for Christmas she got some teething toys she can really chomp on....funny how she prefers the seat belt in her bumbo above all of those little items! STILL not rolling over but we are making mad progress, and working on it every night. I'm really kinda sad to see it happen, that will be her first step toward mobility and I'm having trouble finding the want to to push her in that direction. All little birds gotta fly at some point! We are still drinking 6 oz of formula per feeding. Still sleeping through the night and starting to gradually push our bedtime up! She has been a 9-10 pm bedtime baby but anymore it's really hard to keep her up past 8. Naturally this means I won't get to see her as much at night : ( hmmmmm......I wonder what I will do to remedy that?) She is also sleeping through the night like a champ! Thank the lord! I pray she remains a good sleeper.
On to the "little pink hanger" reference. I'm sure that title sounds very elusive and quite frankly randomly off topic. But the reference is not so much of a topic as it was, a moment. I moment that hit me abruptly on New Year's Eve night. New Year's Eve I returned to work after being off with the weather for a little unplanned extended vaca (10 days to be exact). Still feeling TERRIBLY sick, the last thing I wanted to do after work is have to go home and get ready to go somewhere and celebrate New Year's. I thought about it all the way home, all I wanted to do was put on my pajamas, get in bed, and go right to sleep. Presley had gone to my mom's as originally planned since we were supposed to be going to a friends house for the evening. When I got home I could tell there was no changing Jason's mind. He had been cooped up with Entergy for DAYS. Even though he felt as bad as I, all he wanted to do was get out and visit with some friends. Somewhere different than home or work. My fate was imminent.. : ( I DRUG myself to the bathroom and reluctantly put on makeup, promptly found the comfiest clothes I could get away with in public, threw my hair in a pony tail, and called it New Year's 2012 party attire. As I walked to the laundry room to toss my work clothes into the laundry hamper I began thinking in my head: New Year's Eve again, what was I doing last year on this night? What memories sum up 2012 for me? And as I turned the corner I saw one tiny pink clothes hanger hanging on the rack....yep, that did it for me. That one tiny pink hanger was symbolic enough to wrap up the entire year of 2012. I smiled a little, thought about what an adventure we had been on in one years time, and all of a sudden I was energized. Ready to go celebrate 2012 and welcome 2013 and wherever else it will take us. I encourage anyone that reads this to think about their year in review. Did it make an impact on you? Did you make an impact on anyone else? How did you grow or change? Reflection really does bring things full circle for me, maybe I'm a little nostalgic ( I would say I am)....but that's why I have this blog, so that when I'm an old woman hollering at the grand-kids, complaining about the price of gas and groceries, all while still trying my best daily to drive my kids nuts, I'll still have a record of remembrance to share all these stories. In the meantime, here's some pictures of Pressy Pie in all her Christmas Cuteness!!
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| Taken when she was 3 months but a few Christmas photos for our Christmas card |
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| Our little present under the tree |
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| First Sunday in December headed to Church! |
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| Love this of all 3 of us! |
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| Another Sunday in Church in my pretty pink smocked dress |
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| With my cousin Allison at her Violin recital |
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| Christmas shopping with the family : ) |
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| Presley's daycare Christmas photo....AKA funniest picture I have ever seen of her! |
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| Who you callin' Elf? |
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| My first Christmas Dress : ) |
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| At my Cousin Brady's 6th birthday party! |
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| Then I went to Landrie's birthday party the same day! |
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| Playing with Trip |
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| Going to see Santa! |
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| Me and S.C., we're tight! |
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| Mommy and me |
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| Presley little Santa baby fun photos |
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| Christmas fun and festivities |
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| My Christmas loot! |
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| My first snow on Christmas day! |
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| I was too sick to have fun : ( |
Just some everyday photos!
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| Loving bath time |
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| Play time after work |
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| Not feeling good : ( |
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| Aunt Amy caught me at Landrie's party |
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| Some bed head and her last time in my favorite newborn gown of hers |
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| Shopping with mommy and nettie...as usual |
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| Mom and dad's night out with the Razorbacks |
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| Mom and Dad at Justin's show! |
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| Supporting my team, and keeping warm! |
And finally a few shots I took of Presley around the first part of December just for fun!
One total year of blogging complete, whew...what a dedication! My hopes are that when all of this is compiled into a book for Presley to look back on her first year, she is well educated and can almost be present in the moments that we experienced on her big journey here and throughout her first year. Thanks for keeping up with us. The comments and encouragement from friends and family really has kept me motivated. 2012 sure was good to us....2013, you've got some big shoes to fill.....or shall I say, tiny shoes to fill : )
Cheers and much Otwell love,
Kelly, Jason, and Presley May
