5 months old

So I've gotten a little slack about keeping up with the blog and am a little late posting his 5 month news! Not has changed much this month except that he is growing like a crazy weed!

The biggest change is that he has randomly started sucking his thumb.  It is so cute and precious! I was a thumb sucker when I was small, and truth be told I was hoping he wouldn't start the bad habit, but I know he'll grow out of it.  He has become VERY attached to his blanket that his Mimi made him which means so much. I was never attached to any type of blanket or stuffed toy but I'm glad that he has something so special to hold onto.  At this point in time blankie heals all wounds.  About a month ago he started fussing and crying in the car....but now we take the blanket with us and between that and his thumb he is good to go!

To me it is so awesome that Mimi can make everything better even when she is 400 miles away! Thanks mom!

We also gave ridding in the shopping cart a try too!  He can't sit up on his own yet but if he has some support he does pretty well!

His reaction the first time was so funny! It was kind of like, um mom what is going on and is this ok???  But he cruised around the store for a bit until he was ready to be held.

We had to take a break from the cereal again, I just don't think his little tummy is ready for it yet.  He LOVES it and would probably eat anything you put in front of him but you can tell his little tummy is bothering him the next day. He is still breastfeeding just fine so we're not pushing it, he'll be ready soon enough. 

It's so funny to watch him discover new things.  The other night we had him in the bath tub and he was watching his fingers move around and he started waving at himself and he look at David and me and was like guys check this out. So now I've started waving at him and telling him hi and I'm hoping we'll be getting a wave back soon. He's also started to hold his bottle too! He and I were stuck in traffic on Saturday and he was hungry so I had to hand him his bottle and he managed to feed himself. He's still trying to figure out the tilting it up thing but we're getting there.

While I was pregnant I had major concerns about whether or not I would be able to bond with my baby and love him the way I should.  Now I realize all that worrying was for nothing.  This baby means the world to me and everyday the love just grows.  He smiles and laughs at me when I dance and act crazy and it makes me feel special. When he reaches up and grabs my face so that he can snuggle the joy that wants to just spill out of me is amazing. I am so thankful for this wonderful blessing God has given us. This baby is such a wonderful gift!

I Love my sleep!

So I really thought that not swaddling the baby would take some time for him to get use to it, but boy was I wrong. He now gets soooo excited for nap time and bed time.  When he gets tired  he is so ready to go down and he seems to get frustrated....like hey mom why haven't you put me down yet?  The second he realizes that we are starting his night time routine...or that he is going down for his nap he stops fussing and starts babbling and kicking his legs!  It's so wonderful!  At nap time, he plays with he hands and feet for a little while before he rolls over and wipes out. (he really enjoys sucking on his big toe, he's so silly).

My mom made him a special blanket that he sleeps with and when you lay it on him he clutches it in his little fist and rubs it on his face and rolls on his side! Its so precious. So I tried to capture it with our video camera.....but he didn't act like he normal does because he noticed the camera but it is still so cute.

I would say that my biggest lesson learned so far is that a little fussing goes a long way!  Just because he starts crying or fussing I don't jump up and run to his side. I do check to make sure that he is OK.....that he isn't stuck or that something else isn't wrong but he has learned to self soothe and put himself back to sleep if he wakes up.  There have been numerous occasions when he has started crying during his nap that he has fallen back asleep and slept for another hour. If I ran right in an picked him up he wouldn't get his nap out.  He generally always wakes up in a fantastic mood, unless he is hungry then nothing makes it better until he eats.  The morning are always my favorite.  He greets me with the biggest smile and laughs, it starts my day out on the right foot. 

Our Daily Routine

I always enjoy talking to other mothers or reading other moms blog to get an idea of what kind of schedule/routine they have their baby on so I figured I'd share a run down of our typical day!
David does sleep through the night but he just can't seem to shake the desire to wake up at 5:00 am for a feeding.  But I kind of like this because I'll lay him back down and he sleeps until 9:00 am.  This gives me a chance to get a few more hours of sleep and then get up and get my day started before he wakes up for the day. When he wakes up he is in such a wonderful mood full of laughs and tons of smiles!  We head down stairs for some breakfast and our morning playtime. Right now he really enjoys rolling all over the place and singing songs! If it's Monday or Wednesday we might be at the Library enjoying the baby class that they have called Babygarden. He stays up for about 3 hrs before he goes down for his afternoon nap at 12 pm. If we don't go anywhere and he doesn't have the chance to fall asleep in his car seat he'll sleep for 2 hours (Which is so wonderful).  When he wakes up he is really good about playing in his high chair or Johnny Jump while I clean the kitchen or do laundry.  He thinks it is so funny when I dance around the kitchen and sing (I'm sure it would be quite amusing to see). He's up for 2 more hours before he takes a short little nap around 4:00 pm which generally last for about an hour.  5:00 is dinner time for our little one and he enjoys some cereal and maybe a few bites of a veggie before we head out the door for our family walk.  David now recognizes the baby Bjorn and when ever he sees his dad put it on he gets so excited, he starts kicking his feet and waving his arms.  Once we finish our walk we get ready for bath time. David gives him a bath between 6:15 and 6:30 and he is usually down for the night no later then 7:00 pm.
I'm glad he is on such a predictable schedule but sometimes I find it hard to get some of the errands done between naps. If he falls asleep in the car he'll still nap when we get home just not as well.  I try not to stay locked up in the house but sometimes that seems so much easier then interupting his routine. But I'm blessed to have such a sweet baby boy.

Hurricane Irene Weekend

So as most of you know we thought that Irene was going to be pretty bad.  After reading all the hype about this hurricane and because of our close location to the ocean we decided that it would be best to make a run for it. Since David and I live in Base housing right now are only big assets are our vehicles and with all the talk about the storm surges we figured we better get BOTH of our vehicles out of there. As with most big decision I have trouble deciding what to do. First we were going to stay and wait it out....then I was just going to drive home to SC with the baby and David was going to stay on the ship....then that changed to us packing our bags and heading to Richmond on Saturday morning 8-27-11.  But you see the problem is that I make things more complicated then they have to be  I keep thinking things over in my head and the negative juices and worries start flowing. While checking the weather it was forecasting heavy winds and rain on Saturday and I began to stress about what it would be like to drive with the baby by myself in all that mess.  So my good friend Molli and I decided that we would take the kids and head out Friday afternoon and our husbands, who had duty until Saturday a.m., would travel up on Saturday morning.  Well of course we should've just stuck with the original plan because we sat in traffic for 4 hours!! (Richmond is only an hour and a half away!)
Once we got settled into our hotel we just relaxed and stayed indoors away from the bad weather.  Saturday of course, only brought worse weather and ironically the hotel we stayed at lost power Saturday evening.
This little adventure though was the baby's first stay in a hotel.  He did really well.  The first night we shared a room with Molli and her to young kids and he slept through us talking and TV going.  On Saturday he even managed to get his two naps in during all the craziness.  David has always needed to be swaddled up in order to go to sleep but on this particular Saturday he discovered that he could roll on to his tummy while swaddled....not so good for us.  Of course I couldn't leave him swaddled up because if he rolled over he would have no way of getting back on his back.  So now our sweet boy sleeps without his swaddle blanket and the transition couldn't have gone more smoothly. He hasn't had any trouble going to sleep or napping! If anything he might do a little better.  Sometimes he wakes up and just plays with his hands and feet quietly in his crib or puts himself to sleep the same way.
Back to our little Hurricane adventure.  We traveled back to Norfolk on Monday to discover LESS damage there then in Richmond (weird huh??) so basically we wasted time, money, and gas for nothing. Oh well I guess that was just how it was suppose to be.  We are so blessed and thankful that we are all safe and that none of our personal property was damaged! God is Good :)

Sand between our toes

So most evenings, we try to take a family walk between 5:00 and 6:00 p.m.   We usually just walk around our neighbourhood and check things out.  But we decided to venture down to the beach this time since we only live a mile away.  David really enjoyed himself!  Daddy carried him in the baby bjourn (which he ALWAYS loves) and he even got down an put his toes in the sand.

He was so content just watching the waves

He didn't really enjoy the sand as much as he did the waves.

 I really want to make the effort for us to have good quality family time everyday, and for us that is going for walks. It's so nice to step outside and walk and talk without a bunch of other distractions.  With the career David has it's important to take advantage of the moments we do have together.  Plus, I think in today's society one to many kids sit holed up in their rooms watching TV, playing video games, or surfing the web without any parent interaction. I can guarantee David will not be raised that way. As his parents it is our responsibility to use all the opportunities we can to teach him the right life style and to discover the things that are most important in life before someone else has the opportunity to show him otherwise. I think a lot of parents forget to be parents because they are to busy trying to make sure their kids are always happy and never upset at them. When I stand before God one day I want to be able to say that I did everything I could to lead and guide my child down the right path.  (Oh geez I sound like my parents :) lol ).  I want David to always have a close and open relationship with us, and to know that spending time with him is important to us. I look forward to sitting on his bed doing family devotions, saying bedtime prayers and reading books.

OK I really went off on a tangent there.....but anyways back to our little outing.  On the way home from the beach David was so cute in his car seat trying his hardest to get his paci in his mouth all by himself.

He is getting better and better at it.  He has succeeded a couple of times in the past but no such luck tonight.  That's O.K because it was fun to watch him try.

Umm Umm Good

So after going to David's 4 month check-up last week, we got the go ahead from his pediatrician to give rice cereal a try. As long as he was showing interest (which could be an understatement for this baby)and if he could take it off the spoon without any problem then he could have it.  He did well taking it off the spoon and he LOVES  the cereal.

He was ready to give it a try before we even got it in the bowl for him.

I think it took me longer to make it then it did for him to finish it.

                                          Doing good holding on to the spoon all by himself.

Not so excited when it was all gone.  I think he thought he was going to be able to make more appear

I think that it is very important that he only gets the best quality food.  It can be scary to read a ingredient label and see all the additives and junk that they put in food.  We try our best to stick to organic/natural products in the Hixon household. If I'm not going to make his baby food then I'll make sure he is eating 100% organic baby food.

These are a few of the brands we are excited to try.  I actually sent some of these pictures to one of the companies and got a response back saying that he was so cute (which I knew already ;) ) and free coupon for some of their products!  Lucky me.  ( I love coupons)

Unfortunately, his second and third attempts at cereal haven't been that great.  I think it was my own fault though, because I think I made it to thick and it was a little tough on his tummy.  He has gotten sick the last 2 times.  So we are taking a break for a little while but then we'll give it another go in a couple of weeks. I'm lucky that he is still doing so well breastfeeding. It would be nice to be able to breastfeed for his first year. I would be really disappointed if I had to supplement formula, I know that it wouldn't be the end of the world but I hope I can avoid it.  I try to pump at least an extra 5 oz a day so that I can keep my supply up and have extra stashed away.  Ultimately I just want what is best for this sweet boy of ours.

Uncle Cody's and Nana's visit

So like I mentioned in my last post David's 15 year old brother came back to VA with us and he was able to stay a week and a half. We tried to do some fun things and get some great pictures! For the most part we just hung out around the house and David and Cody would play video games, watch movies or play hockey (both inside and outside ). Little just took it all in!  He really seems intrigued by Uncle Cody's head of hair!

We did get out of the house and took an adventure to Busch Gardens and Little David had fun cruising around in his new big boy stroller.  Unfortunately Uncle Cody lost his cell phone on one of the rides but overall we enjoyed ourselves. I wish I had some pictures but it was rain/sprinkling so I didn't take my camera just in case it started to down pour.

At the end of Uncle Cody's visit, David's mom came to pick him up. This was her first trip to VA and we enjoyed having her here.  We went out to eat and of course made a visit to the mall.  She was so sweet and bought little David his first pair of sperry's from Stride Rite ( I love them on him they are so cute).  Here are some great pictures of the Hixon clan minus Aunt Cassie :(

David Jr. & David III

Mommy & Me

This is so sweet

Wow now thats what you call hair

He turns 4 months old

Wow when did this happen,the months are just sneaking up on me.   I know I ended my last post talking about how sad it makes me feel that time is flying....but I can't help but wonder am I getting it all in? Am I really enjoying every moment or do I take it for granted. When I look back and reflect on his little life I want to say that I spent as much quality time as I could with him.
Monday (8-8-11) was the first time that it was just David and me in almost a month and I thought I would be terribly lonely and sad but it was just the opposite.  David was in such a wonderful mood ALL day long, which put me in a wonderful mood as well.
Tuesday was another boring duty day for David. These days kind of stink because he works all day and night and doesnt come home until the end of the following work day.  I've learned that the key is to just stay busy so we do. Little David is really starting to enjoy reading books. We'll both lay down on a blanket and I'll hold the book up and when I read and turn the pages he starts moving his hands and kicking those feet and making the cutest sounds. My mom always took us to the library and I loved it,  it always seems like a magical place.  I want David to share the same love for books and reading as I did when I was small.
Wednesday we went over to our good friends Molli, Aiden (3 yr) and Ali's( 1 1/2yr) house for a couple of hours.  It's always nice to get out and have a visit with friends.  God has blessed us by having such great people in our lives while living away from our families. Aiden and Ali really seemed to enjoy little David.  They are very good at taking turns holding him.

Thursday was a blast we got to go to the Aquarium for the first time.  Little David loves an time you walk him around but when one of the new and curious creatures would catch his eye you could tell he was thinking whats this crazy looking thing! He really seemed to enjoy the jellyfish that glow a fun pink color! Thanks Yarn family for letting us tag along. 

Friday was the 12th and the day that he offically becomes another month older.  He was so awesome and took some really cute pictures.  It's hard to snap the pictures before he drools all over himself and his sticker. If you look his pictures fom month to month  you can slowly watch the hair on his head get thicker and thicker.

Saturday we had another first. We took our first trip to the Norfolk Zoo. Not only is that place huge but it is so awesome. David enjoyed the view while Daddy carried him in the bjourn and was happy as a lark even though he missed his morning nap!

The 3rd Month

So another month is coming to a close. Each month just seems to go buy faster then the next. This month David and I took our first road trip without Daddy.  We decided to travel home to S.C. for 2 weeks to see our family for the first time since he was born.  I was a little nervous about making the 7 hour drive by myself but the little man did as best as can be expected.  He followed his normal schedule of playing, napping and eating, he just had to do it all in his car seat.  The last hour in the car was fun....he defiantly got tired of being strapped in. While we were home we stayed at Mimi and Papa's (my parents) house and we tried out the pack n play for the first time.  He actually did well except for forming a bad habit of waking up around 2 or 3 a.m every night (not so fun) and now I'm at a loss of how to fix this problem now that we are home.

During our visit we had the chance to  spend lots of time with everyone.  We went to the farmers market with Mimi, watched lots of Braves games with Papa, went shopping with Nana, and Aunt Cassie got lots of TLC from the Tetrick clan. While we were out shopping with Aunt Cassie and Nana David laughed for the first time, it was such an amazing moment to witness.
Leaving is always the hard part but we were excited to get home and see Daddy.  I can't remember the last time I was away from David for 2 weeks, I think it was when I was in college.  We were so excited because Uncle Cody was making the trip back with us and we got the chance to spend lots of time together.

Completely wiped out, having so much fun he can't take it anymore.

Can't you tell he loves these kids just as much as I do already!

These kids are so very special to me!

He LOVES his Mimi. He knows she'll snuggle him any day.

So this is right before we went to The Farmers Market with Mimi. He knows where his bread is buttered for sure.

 

At 3 months old David still enjoys his swing (which he is out growing very quickly), sitting in his high chair and playing with the toys in front of him, doing tummy time (he can now roll from his tummy to his back), and of course getting lots of snuggle time in. I just bought him a Johnny Jump up and so far he loves it, he just hasn't quite figured out how to make himself jump. If you help him jump though he gets so excited and smiles so big.  He enjoys anything that he can sit up in and look around.  He's like his mom and has to know/see everything going on around him 24/7.  While we were visiting my parents he started blowing raspberries with his mouth and now he does it constantly. It's so fun to watch him discover new things everyday. It makes me sad that he is growing so fast but I am so happy and excited to see what each new day brings.

A Sweet Poem written for our Son

Lines Commemorating the Birth of David William Hixon III on April 12, 2011

I felt I hardly knew the light of earth
when I sang Eternal Father, Strong to Save
at your grandfather's funeral. Life went on,
but I had felt true loss for the first time.

And then there were marriages, an aunt-to-be
wed a dear friend of mine. Your father became
something of a mystery, suddenly seeming so
much my senior, though forty-eight days younger.

He wed a praiseworthy woman, friend to one I'd loved,
and I stood next to him, despite certain doubts.
Then suddenly you were coming, and friends were
to be fathers and mothers, and I could hardly see

that all the life your newborn April brought
would find its way to me, and flood this heart.

-Joseph Montoya 

How we got our start

At a complete loss for where to start I figured the best place would be the beginning.  As most of you know I met my wonderful husband at the young age of 14.  We were both involved in band, he was in the drumline and I was in the colorguard (big dorks I know)! We beat the odds and dated all through high school and college and married on May 30th, 2009 in Summerville, S.C.  David is in the Navy and at the time he was getting ready to start the second of three training schools to be come a  Nuclear engineer. I took my first job at a hospital working as a secretary (not what I had planned to do with a four year degree, but you take what you can get in this economy). David's schedule was nothing but early mornings and late nights studying but I was so excited to be a wife that I didn't mind so much. I focused on my new responsibilities of cooking, cleaning and taking care of the many loads of laundry.

Our second year of marriage we decided to move into a house on the Naval Weapon Station in Charleston, and boy did God ever bless us.  We ended up living in a brand new four bedroom, 2 1/2 bath house with a garage.  The best part of all was that we didn't have to worry about paying any utilities.  (Oh how I miss this house)

Well, a couple of weeks after we moved in I found out that I was expecting our first child.  David and I were so excited as were our families.  Things started out kind of rough for me with morning sickness but after that I never had any problems.  I got a trainer and worked out twice a week for an hour in the beginning and then at the end I went to 3 days a week for an hour.

With only 2 months left in my pregnancy we found out that we were making the big move to Norfolk, VA. We were excited about this new adventure but scared and sad to leave our families at such a big time in our lives.  But we managed to settle in and find a doctor, a hospital and take a birthing class just in time. On April the 11th, 2011 I was given the option to be induced so that my parents could make it up here in time for the birth of our son.  My options were to either be induced the very next day or wait until the following Tuesday.  We decided to go ahead and be induced the very next day so, my parents jumped in the car and drove all night (which meant so much to me). It was so scary to realize that the very next day I would go from just being a wife to being a wife AND a mother. I think I cried the whole night I was so scared and full of nerves. The  next morning we arrived at the Hospital and got all set up.

When I arrived at the hospital I was already 5 cm dilated and feeling no pain and no contractions. Because my doctor had another patient who was suffering from an allergic reaction she didn't break my water for fear that I would deliver before she finished up with her other patient. So I just laid back and enjoyed the meds (which I was still feeling nothing) So at about 2 or 3 the doctor came down and broke my water, well let me tell you, I sure felt it then. I went from 5 cm to 10 cm in just under an hour and still hadn't received my epidural.  Once I got my epidural I was in heaven, I pushed for an hour and then at 5:12pm David William Hixon III made his grand entrance.  He was as healthy as can be and more handsome then I could've ever imagined.  He weighed 7 pounds 9 ounces and was 19 3/4 inches long.

Our sweet bundle of joy is now 3 months old and has grown way to fast. Each day is a learning experience and we are having a blast. So that pretty much brings you up to date on all things Hixon.  Like I said hopefully I will be able to update this blog weekly but we shall see!

First time Blogger

  Writing/journaling has never  been my strong suite but I thought I'd give this blogging thing a try after reading a friends blog.  It's always so much fun to see what it new with her family I wanted to give our family and friends the same oppurtunity to know what is going on in the Hixon household.  So here's to hoping that I can keep this up, my goal is to blog weekly so we'll see!