Catching Up..

 Our SUPER BUSY summer started way back in May! And honestly, I haven't caught up yet! One of the main events that happened in May was when Taylor and Tyler graduated from Auburn University!! We are so proud of them for working so hard and getting their work done! Here are just a few pictures of our trip down to the Friendliest Village.

Our Entire Family at the Ham Wilson Livestock Arena the morning of Graduation. They have an Ag Breakfast where they teach you to make omelets and make several presentations to Outstanding Students. This was a really fun time for all of us to celebrate Taylor and Tyler's Graduation Day!

The Graduates!

The Entire Family again after graduation. Boy was it hot outside!! Fearing slept through almost the ENTIRE ceremony! He was such a trooper! We finished graduation day off at the Todd's house eating one of our favorites...Ribeye Sandwiches-Courtesy of Mr. Phillip who makes an AWESOME ribeye sandwich. It was so bittersweet for us because Katy Beth was leaving Auburn for the real world and this was our last "Weldon-Todd" Family dinner at  Katy's place! (Fearing spent his first football season at Katy Beth's with Mrs. Beth and Mr. Phillip and then everyone would end up there for dinner after the ballgame. Those are some of our sweetest memories and we will treasure them forever!

We finished Graduation weekend off with an Auburn Baseball game on Sunday. It was a lot of fun despite that fact that it was 100 degrees outside!

We were So excited to get some pictures made with Our FAVORITE!! Aubie!

Fearing LOVED Aubie once again and we got a really cute picture of just the two of them!

We Love Aubie!

Happy Birthday!

Today is one of my dearest friends 27th birthday!! I have some really awesome pictures of us with our boys from a few months ago....but they are not with me! So all I could find at work was this picture of us with Fearing when he was 5 wks old and made his first trip to one of our favorite places...Auburn!

I love you sweet friend. You are the best friend a girl could ask for!

Where I have been...

I know I have been MIA for months (yes, that is plural) now. I really have no good excuses except that I have one VERY busy little boy! Also, my mom, aunt, cousin and I have started our own business. And boy is that A LOT of work!! Yes, work is good but that means it leaves me very little time to do anything other than work and take care of my boys. A quick update on the gang, we are still holding down the fort with my sweet parents, but for a different reason now. We are in the process of working out all of the exciting details for an addition on our house. This has come after much thought and prayer from Beau and myself. We were so torn when it came to selling our little cottage in "tiny town" we LOVE our house. We didn't however love the drive to downtown. But, we feel like we are willing to take the good with the bad and we are REALLY excited about this new adventure for our little family.

In other news, Fearing is doing REALLY well. He has not had any problems with his ears since tubes! Praise the Lord! He did however have a run-in (a 7 day run-in) with the "fever virus" Bless your soul if you have ever had a bout with that...it was horrible. That was over Memorial Day weekend which caused us to miss our sweet friends beach wedding! But luckily Fearing bounced back fairly quick from that!
Speaking of bouncing back... This is really why I have not blogged...I spend all day chasing this!! Fearing is WALKING!! He took his first 'real' steps a few days after his 10 month birthday (June 4). I caught a little bit of it on my iphone (love it, can't remember life before it!). We had a feeling he would be an early walker but I really don't think I was prepared for this! It is exciting, scary and sad all rolled up into one! (Sad because his little life is going by SO fast!). This was right around a month ago so as you can imagine he is much faster and stronger than in the video. I thought I would share for those who want to see. Hoping to be back with a whole bunch of pictures soon!

Fearing's First Easter

I am really behind on posting about Fearing's first Easter Sunday. It really could not have been ANY better! We had such a beautiful day with gorgeous spring weather. It was a day full to the brim! I worked really hard on Fearing's Easter outfit. I did my first "French Hand Sewn" project and I could not be any happier with the outcome. It was overwhelming and frustrating at times but it turned out just how I hoped it would.  Here are just a few pictures from our day.

When Aunt Syd comes home....

She ALWAYS has a photo shoot with Fearing!

She is such a great aunt and when she comes home his little feet don't hit the ground! She scoops him up as soon as she gets here and he is mesmerized by her the entire weekend!! Fearing loves playing with her pretty hair, and he gives her the funniest smiles! EVER!! It makes my heart smile to know that my sisters(all of them!)  love my baby as much as they do.

Lately, we have LOVED skyping with them in Auburn too! It is really funny to see through their eyes how much Fearing changes from week to week. When he first started crawling I put the computer on the ground and accross the room from Fearing and he went tearing toward the computer as fast as he could... his audience on the other side of the screen cheered for him..and it was so much fun!!
We are REALLY looking forward to Easter because everyone will be home together for the first time since Christmas!! Even Uncle Tyler! This next week we are going to Auburn to stay with Aunt Cindy and Aunt Tater and we can't wait!! It is going to loads of fun packed out with LOTS of fun events!

Aunt Cindy teaching me how to play the drums with the old pots and pans and wooden spoons!

***By the way we REALLY miss Aunt Tater too! We can't wait to see you this weekend!

Tubes...

This is last Thursday morning around 5:30 AM. We were Already at St. Vincents getting ready for Fearing to get tubes in his little ears. WOW was that an early morning. He woke up around 2:30 screaming so I picked him up and held him until 3:45 when I had to get up anyway. I got up got ready and then got Beau up since we had to be at the hospital at 5am for his surgery. I won't lie I was scared that they would have to put my baby to sleep...but Dr. Wag. made a good point, it was probably no more harmful than all of the  antibiotics he has already had to be on.

I was shocked Fearing was as happy as he seemed to be. We had to pick him up out of bed and take him to the hospital with NO food or drink...I'm not going to lie about that either. But he seemed to do great.

I don't know why I didn't think to take my camera! But lucky us Daddy has an AWESOME iphone that Mommy really wants takes pretty good pics! I could NOT resist my sweet baby in this tiny gown!

Of course we had to get a 'rear view' photo too.

The closer we got to 6:30 the more ancy someone Beau Fearing became.So we had to do lots of walking, singing and funny faces to keep his mind off the fact that he was probably hungry.

Wonder why Beau looks so tired?

This picture is quite grainy but he finally got extremely sleepy and stayed asleep when the nurse took him from me to go to the O.R.

They kept telling us it was a VERY quick procedure but I don't think either of us were expecting THAT quick!! Literally 20 minutes after they took him from us they called us into the meeting room for Dr. Waguespack to come and talk to us. As soon as we got in the little room I heard them waking Fearing up ( I could hear him crying from where we were) He explained to us how the surgery went and then just a few minutes later they let us go back into the recovery room (Beau and I were headed back there when they came to get us...we could hear him crying and we could not take it!) Once we got back there he was quite ticked off (which we were told to expect) mainly because he was HUNGRY!! All we could give him was juice until we got him home...which needless to say was an awful ride! BUT, once we got home and he got some food in his little belly he was perfect. He was SO happy all day and he actually took a 3 1/2 hour nap (the longest one he had in over 1 month!! thanks to those mean ole' ears!) and so far he seems to be doing great.

Tubes Tomorrow...

I don't really have a lot of time to post right now but I thought I would share a quick picture of my sweet boy this morning as I was getting ready to leave the house to take him to the ENT.

Please remember us in your prayers tonight and tomorrow...Fearing is getting tubes tomorrow morning. We knew it was coming, we just didn't realize that when we went today they would do them tomorrow. We have to be at the hospital at 5AM! The worst part for me is that Fearing cannot eat or drink after 12 tonight. It makes me cringe to think I have to pick him up in the morning and not give him ANYTHING to eat or drink. I hope he is still really sleepy and doesn't really wake up so I don't have to just completely deprive my baby. I have been told that most likely at his age when he gets out of surgery he will be alert and mad because he will be hungry and not know why he hasn't eaten. So pray for us. I know this is the best thing for him and I am OK with it, I am just feeling a little scared/anxious about everything right now. I will update tomorrow (hopefully).

New Favorites

I have so much to catch up on but today its not going to happen. See, F is on consecutive ear infections numero 6 and 7. Yep thats right. So to say we are a little miserable would be an understatement. BUT there is a light at the end of this tunnel. We have an appt. with the ENT on Wednesday morning. HALLEJUAH! Yesterday was really rough (poor baby pretty much screamed all day. Even in the Dr's office where usually he is a perfect little angel. I can't imagine how bad his little ears must hurt). I was thinking today HAD to be better and so far it has been better than yesterday but he is SO ill!! So  with that said, I will NOT be recaping the last month of our life. Instead I thought I would share some of our new favorite things through pictures.
Sunday was such a beautiful day and our little family of three decided it would be a great day to get out of the house. I have been wanting some of these for quite some time. And now that I have them, I know why I wanted them.



For those of you who don't have them or know what they are, they're TOMS. They are super comfy and come in an erray of colors! But if you wear a size 5 like me, you might just have to get the classic black. Which I am OK with since they will go with all kinds of things! The best part about these super cuties are each time you purchase a pair of TOMS a pair of TOMS is given to a child in need! YEP. Cool huh! New thing too, you can choose the country you want to donate too.

We have a case of alligator skin in this house too so lately this is our favorite! It is very moisturizing and smells yummy too!!

My MOST favorite item that has been a life saver lately is this!



Fearing has been teething for a while now, he has two pearly whites on the bottom and this baby LOVES his paci! So because he has SO much extra saliva and that paci is not going ANY where, he had the worst chapped face. I found this at Publix and it worked wonders!! It is pretty water proof so drool wasn't a problem. His pretty little face is back to normal again!! Thank you Burt's Bees!

And last but not least, The Winter Olympics have been a staple in our house lately!! We have LOVED watching every single night and we are so proud of the U.S.A!! We have our favorites and have truly enjoyed watching this together throughout the past two weeks.

6

Fearing was 6 months old yesterday! I had big plans of taking lots of pictures and just enjoying a busy day... But Fearing had other plans. Wednesday I took him for his 6 month check-up where he had to get 5 shots which caused him to run a low grade fever and make him feel really ill! So needless to say we ended up spending most of the day in the recliner. All he wanted was to be held and snuggled. I will admit that it was fine by me. SO today my happy boy seems to be back to normal. YEAH!!
In other news, Dr. Millie said that Fearing looks great. He weighed in at 16lbs 10 oz, and was 26 1/2 inches long. I thought for sure he weighed more than that (my arms swear it too!) But he is one busy little boy and really active.  He loves food too! He pretty much likes all baby food we've tried except green peas. Can't say I blame him...they don't taste very good!
A quick recap on some of the things he is doing these days...

* loves playing in walker and can go backwards really fast!
* loves playing in jump-n-go (johnny jumper on the doorway!)
* would rather be in the floor rolling around than anything else!!
* rolls from back to stomach then back over (I swear it is like he doing what we call log rolls!)
* gets up on his hands and knees and rocks back a forth
* does the army man crawl
*has 2 teeth through the skin!
*grabs anything and everything he can get his hands on!
*loves to pet the puppies
*loves sitting in his highchair
*loves his daddy to hold him at night!

I could keep going but he just passed out in my free arm which now feels like it is going to fall off!

Totally Random Tuesday!

I am up to my eyeballs in projects today. I am putting some last minute touches on several gifts for a sweet friend who has a precious little girl arriving very soon! I am also planning on finishing several projects I have previously quit  taken a break from...for instance, a cute Johnny for my sweet Fearing. OR there is also the Casey that I had planned on finishing for our Disney Trip which I never started on I did not get much done on. OH well. So much for good intentions. SO with that being said I thought I would share what my morning's have been looking like lately.

 Fearing's Nanny and Poppy (my parents) got him a high chair for Christmas. This morning as he was sitting in it I started thinking how did I feed him without it! Well, the truth is I know how I did it and it was a total pain! But I am thankful we have it and he really seems to like it. He loves sitting up like a big boy and seeing everything. He likes to sit in his highchair and play with some of his toys too. Well, I should say he likes to hit them on the tray part and then they end up in the floor and I have to pick them all up...but that is ok.  I don't have a picture of this yet but he will close his eyes and start raising his arm up and down hitting his toys on the tray as hard as he can...oh boy am I in for it!! I truly believe he is ALL boy!

OK I'm ready!

Fearing's new little face he makes. Not sure where he got this, but Beau and I can't help but laugh!

I only wish I knew what he was thinking!

Our life in a nutshell right now could be summed up with "MINE, MINE, MINE"

Fearing is grabbing everything and anything he can get his hands on. On the way to Orlando a few weeks back my sister Sydney joked everytime she would hold something near him he would reach out and grab it and she would say "mine." Like the seagulls on Finding Nemo. It is really becoming a challenge- especially when I am feeding him and he grabs the burp cloth or anything else he can get his hands on and everything goes straight to his mouth!!  WHICH now I know why...he has snuck a tooth in on me! Sunday afternoon I felt of his bottom gum and he has a tooth that has broken the skin. I can't see the little pearly white yet but it is just a matter of time!!

Do you soak?

With Fearing approaching 6 months faster than I can write this blog post I have been pondering how to keep all of his clothes, bibs and burp cloths looking 'fresh'. I am not a big fan stained burp cloths, or bibs for that matter. BUT it is hard to keep everything looking new. My mom has taught me the best trick. Pre-Soak. Everything. Apparently that is what 'diaper pails' were for. I don't know if you have looked for a diaper pail lately but they are few and far between. So, when you can't find the real deal...you improvise. Denise bought me a five gallon paint bucket from Home Depot. Yep, it is bright orange. BUT It works wonders! I have become accustomed to pre-soaking all of F's bibs, burp cloths, and clothes that he gets food on. It is kind of a pain to go the extra step but in the long run it really pays off. All you need is a bucket of cold water, some detergent (we use Ivory snow...I'm not a fan of 'baby fresh' scent, and Ivory snow is just a good clean scent) and just put stained garments in bucket for a couple of hours, then pour the entire bucket into washer. Let me know what you think!

Coming up for air....

Our world has been a whirlwind over the past two months. Between Thanksgiving, Iron Bowl, Fearing's 4th then 5th ear infection, graduation, Christmas, baby showers, RSV,  and rounding it off with Disney World I feel like I am just now coming up for air! I am BEYOND behind...in everything it seems, but I have the best of intentions to 'catch' up sometime in the very near future.
Beside the list above...we have had some very exciting things happening in our family lately. Fearing is growing SO fast and he never ceases to amaze us how 'big' he is! At his four month appt.(and fourth ear infection!) Fearing was 16 lbs 8 oz and 26 1/2 inches long. He had conquered rice, oatmeal, english peas, carrots, applesauce, bananas, and apple,strawberry, banana combo (his favorite!). Fearing loves to jump! His aunt Megan and Andy gave him his 'jump and go' and he loves jumping in it. He loves it so much that when he is not in it and in our lap he still wants to JUMP! He is a really great sleeper, we had a rough couple of weeks when he was so sick there were many nights when our bed was the recliner but as soon as he started feeling better he went right back to his 'normal' sleeping. Which is nice for us too! Fearing is sitting up on his own for longer periods of time and I think it will just be a few more weeks until he can sit up as long as he wants by himself. Most of the time when I sit him in the floor he pulls himself forward over his feet out in front until he his in the crawling position. He gets up on his knees and rocks back and forth. Santa brought him a walker for Christmas and he quickly learned how to go backwards. Now he is pretty fast at getting accross the room backwards. You can tell he REALLY wants to come forward now but he is just not sure how to do it yet. 
Last night Fearing officially started the 'army man' belly crawling. Beau and I were amazed! I am afraid that it is just a matter of time until he is off. He is also really into arching his back and throwing his head backwards. Not sure why he is doing it..but can make it difficult to hold him!!
Disney World was such a fun short getaway for our entire family (my side) we really enjoyed getting to see all our Auburn friends. We went to support Aubie as he competed in the UCA National Mascot Championship. He got 2nd place and we were SOOO proud of him!! He actually won the skit portion of the competition and only lost by 7/10ths of a point!! After the competition we had a dinner with all of the students, parents, and "Aubie family" at one of the houses we were staying in. There were close to 80 people there and it was such a fun night. We learned some very interesting things about our little boy too... he is a people person, attention loving little ham! I would not be exagerating if I said probably 50 of the 80 held him that night. He will go to anyone and gives the biggest smile and jabber. Beau and I are SOO in for it. He is a mess. We are convinced he might be another 'Tyler' as he seems to have two speeds...wide open or passed out!
I will go back soon with Thanksgiving, Christmas and some other random events over the past 2 months and hope to include pictures too!