Beat the Hell Outta Georgia!! WHOOP!!

A&M plays Georgia today in the Independence Bowl. Alex will be in his Aggie gear cheering on his Ags with Pop!

Alex's First Christmas

We had a great first Christmas with Alex...or as great of a Christmas as we could have without Jeremiah. We can't wait for him to be with us next year for Christmas! Jeremiah was able to Skype with us while Alex opened his presents, so at the least it sort of felt like he was there with us.

Here is our first official Christmas photo as a family:



One of my family's traditions is the annual viewing of "National Lampoons Christmas Vacation" every year. Here is Alex enjoying it!




Here is the big guy with his presents from Santa Claus! He must have been a good boy this year...Santa must not know what a bad sleeper he is!



Pop helping Alex tear into all of the new toys!



Playing with a new toy...thanks Aunt Suzanne!



Here he is with Grammy Gale, MiMi, and Uncle Sam...








Here is another one just because he is super cute...

Have you ever seen a cuter baby???

If you answered "Yes" to the above question, I'm sorry, but you are going to have to stop reading the blog. Because, in fact, Alex is the cutest baby ever! There is truly good reason for his cuteness, too. His cuteness is definitely helping relieve the fact that he still doesn't like to sleep!

Alex is 4 1/2 months now. He has finally started taking some good naps during the day. Most days, he is taking two 1.5-2 hour naps, with an occasional nap that is shorter or longer. His nights......now that's still a whole other story! It seems like everyone else I know that has a baby his age is sleeping through the night, but not us. Alex continues to wake up every 2-3 hours during the night. Sometimes I get lucky and he'll sleep 4 hours in a row. When he does that, I always feel so good the next day! It doesn't seem to matter what I do....let him sleep in the pack 'n play, sleep in bed with me, feed him rice cereal before bed, put him to bed earlier, etc. None of it seems to make any difference. There are about a million sleep books out there and they don't seem to help either. I have decided he is so special that the books don't apply to him! =)

His most recent nighttime escapade is waking up every morning between 4 and 5 AM. He is unbelievably happy and just wants to talk, talk, talk. Well, and also, pretend he's in the jumperoo and jump the best he can while laying down. It's so hard not to want to play with him when he's in such a good mood, but I just try to leave him to talk to himself and then soothe him back to sleep when he's ready. I really hope he'll learn soon that this is not play time.

Alex is also getting to be so much more fun! He smiles more often and laughs more often. He, in general, is enjoying life more! This also means I'm enjoying life more too! He is sitting up pretty well, but still loses his balance. The boppy helps hold him up though. He is also rolling over really well and his favorite thing to do is just be laid out on a quilt so that he can roll and move all over it. He wants to move really bad and I don't think it'll be too much longer before he figures out how to crawl and get where he wants to be!

He truly is the cutest thing ever and even in my sleep deprivation I couldn't ask for a cuter kid. The pictures above were from the other morning when it was very chilly. He jumped in the Jumperoo for a bit before we put him in the Bob to go to the park with Pop to swing.

Our Trip to San Antonio

Last weekend, I got brave and took off with Alex to San Antonio to visit the Walkers! Sondra went to med school with me. Jeremiah and I got to be very good friends with them through med school. We have missed them so much since we moved to Georgia! They had a little boy named Max last fall and he is now 15 months old. I never got to go meet him last year because of residency and then pregnancy, so I finally got to meet him for the first time!!

Alex did great on the car ride to San Antonio, but that was the extent of his good behavior. The rest of the weekend, he was extremely fussy and slept terribly. I guess it goes to show that he is getting used to the routine/schedule he has at home and I just wasn't able to keep it up away from home.

Aside from Alex's fussiness, I had a great time visiting with them! Max is so much fun...walking, talking, and curious about the world! It's hard to believe that Alex will be that way in less than a year!! The other great thing about the trip was that Alex got to try out all of Max's toys! It really helped me know what Santa Claus should bring for Christmas.

Max was so cute. When his mommy was holding Alex, he got kind of jealous and came up and tried to push Alex away. It was funny. Later, he was so sweet though. When Alex was in the swing, he went to the back of it and pushed it to make it go faster. It was so sweet!! It'll be so much fun to watch these two grow up and be friends in the years to come! I can tell they will be trouble... Hopefully, we will be able to convince Jeremiah that we need to move back to Texas and live near them, so that they can play and get into trouble together all the time!! Everyone should remind Jeremiah of this request ALL THE TIME!!!





Alex's new thing last week was constantly grabbing his feet. Any time you layed him on his back, he put his legs up and grabbed his toes. Sometimes, he can get his toes to his mouth. The Bum Genius diapers are a little bulky though, so they make it harder. He keeps trying anyway though! MiMi calls it his 'cheerleader' move! :)

College Station

About two weeks ago, Alex made his first trip up to College Station. We went up to take Uncle Sam out to lunch for his birthday. We went to Koppe Bridge for a delicious hamburger and fries. Alex was awesome and slept through the whole meal! That's a rarity for him. Usually going out to eat is a trigger for him to start screaming as much as possible. Maybe, it depends on the restaurant though....just maybe he was trying to tell us he likes going to bar and grills rather than to the Olive Garden!

Here's a picture of the two of them when he finally woke up in the car:



After lunch and a trip to the mall for birthday presents, Sam had to go to class. We had planned to walk around campus, but it was a really nasty, rainy, cold day out and our plans were spoiled. We did still get to go see Gabe though! Gabe is a good friend of Jeremiah's from grad school and one of the nicest people you'll ever meet. He is still there at A&M working on his PhD...lucky him!! We picked him up on campus and went to Starbucks to hang out with him for a little bit. Alex had fun meeting him!! Hopefully, we'll get to see him again soon!! :)

Here are the two of them. Alex stole Gabe's hat...I think it's because he was jealous of all Gabe's nice thick hair and he was trying to cover up his poor little bald head!! =)