Happy New Year!

Hello!! We spent our evening at our friend's house - Jack was so good! Only fussy when he got a little tired. So I was able to nurse him and then cuddle with him until he slept. Then he woke up at about 11:30 or so and was awake to watch the ball drop! I don't think he wanted to be awake though and was a bit confused about where we were. Luckily, these friends live less than 10 mins away.

Exciting news though is that once we got home, about 12:40 or so, he was back asleep and slept until 7:15!!! Hooray!!! Now he is taking a nap and has been asleep for 2 hours. I guess he partied way to hard last night.

John and I are enjoying our day off and doing laundry and other odds and ends around the house. John is putting together a cabinet he got me for Christmas. I cleaned up a couple cupboards and put the glass things higher and brought the plastic things lower. 

Jack is really really wanting to crawl. He does Army crawl and he puts his whole body into it. He's such a happy kid though. But now you can see why the plastic things needed to be in a lower cupboard as I imagine he is going to learn to open the door and play with whatever he finds. Trouble maker for sure. 

 I can't wait for him to wake up and so we can play! My folks were out here this past weekend and bought him a Johnny Jumper. His cousin has one and they thought he needed one too. He loves it - not as much as his cousin yet but, he will get there.  

He is also very spoiled - lots of lovings while Grandma and Grandpa were here - then the weekend before John's dad was out and gave him lots of loves too. It's easy to love him with the cute little smile he gets. I don't think it will be easy to say no to that.

A few other things that happened recently:
- We got to spend a whole week in Iowa for Thanksgiving and saw just about the whole immediate family. - Even got to meet Jack's new cousin Daniel!
- I cut 5 inches off my hair.
- Jack had his first baby sitter while I was at work and John had drill.
- We were Jesus, Mary, and Joseph for the Christmas program at church.
- John had his work Christmas party and naturally Jack was the cutest guy there
- Jack now eats carrots (iffy on liking them) and sweet potatoes (likes them).

Baby sleeping

Just sitting here rocking the little guy. He's so stinking cute. Problem is, I'm starving. No one else is awake - father in law is visiting for the weekend. Thankfully Jack is snoring so he can't hear my stomach growling. 

Whoa I'm behind

Soooo I'm behind on posting any updates. It's like I have a cute little baby at home or something. =)

Anyway, things are busy. Jack is learning new things all the time and his eyes just always look so big with wonder. He also now has 2 little teeth on the bottom. They don't seem to bother him much but I do catch him chewing on his tounge sometimes. He does love to chew and chomp on all of his toys. Luckily he doesn't reach for any of the dog toys!!!

My parents were out for a long weekend visit during Veterans Day. I know they enjoyed seeing baby Jack and Jack enjoyed his time with them also. He showed them how good he is at eating cereal at night time (helps him not wake up so much during the night). He also showed them how he rolls over every where and how good he is at petting the doggies.

The dogs have been behaving so good around the baby. I think they know that he's here to stay and not so bad. Both Lucy and Charlie will go and stick their noses close to him to make sure he's okay. Charlie of course gives him kisses and he doesn't mind.

Here are a couple photos. 

Eyelash

I realize that eyelashes fall out. That being said I have one eyelash on my right eye that is pointed down. Nothing I do works!!! I put make up on and still points down...eyelash curler...tried pulling it out - that hurt. 

It's toward the center of my eye and believe it or not it does sort of get in the way. 

Never imagined I'd have a problem like this.

Shopping carts

So it really bugs me when people don't put their carts away. Either back into the store or in the cart corral. We all hate to find a parking space only to realize there are shopping carts in the space right? Plus when they are just randomly in the parking lot the wind can sometimes get it and push it onto someones car causing damage and frustration. And we all hate to see the parking lot full of carts only to get into the store to realize there are none inside.

Well today I had enough. Squeaker and I went to Wal-Mart to get some address labels and we actually scored a decent parking space. Sometimes I park next to the cart corral on purpose so it's easier to get into the store. Just pop his car seat in and go. 

Anyway, when we were leaving with just one bag of stuff I watched a woman finish putting her things into the back of her SUV. She was parked in one of those parallel handicap spaces. I was just getting near her when she was finished. She was the first car in the line and she started to push her cart away. I held my breath thinking maybe she was actually going to go back into the store to put it away.  Like I said she was in the first spot and I couldn't tell what made her qualify for the handicap space. Well nope...she just dropped her cart off in the cross hatch spot not 10 yards from the door. So I looked right at her and said "really you are going to leave your cart right there?" She replied, "yes isn't this where they go?" Mind you there were shockingly no other carts there. So I turned toward her and said nope and me and Squeaker took her cart and walked it into the store leaving her standing there. I can't believe I actually said anything. 

I hope she thought about how inconsiderate she was. I know I should have been nicer but ahhhh it drives me nuts. I also hope that she was embarrassed that she didn't put her cart away right but a mom carrying an infant in a car seat could do it.

So moral of the story. Put your cart away. 

Kudos to my mom

As I sit here and nurse squeaker I can't help but wonder how my mom did it. 4 kids including a set of twins. Right now he's doing a great job of not squirming around and such. Last night though he just didn't feel like going to sleep. In his defense though he had shots Monday so Tuesday he slept quite a bit at day care. He just wanted to fuss and be rocked. I just don't know how my mom had the energy and patience for us when my twin sister and I were born. 2 boys in grade school and the twins! She nursed us too which I am very thankful for. I just don't know how she did it. It is a bit tiring. I feel like I'm always hungry and can't get full.

I do realize that dad helped out and our brothers were able to mostly take care of themselves. I'm quite certain that helped. I know everything the hubs does around here I am very thankful for. For instance he is usually the one that has to finish preparing dinner. Then has to clear the table. He also makes sure the dogs still get attention and exercise. I'm sure though that my brothers still wanted mom's attention and hugs. I'm sure she gave them plenty of those hugs too.

Seriously though, I have no clue how my mom was able to feed, care for, rock to sleep etc twins and still had energy and patience for our brothers. Getting this little squeaker to sleep is exhausting. Its not like he is fussy like I said, he just wanted to be awake and look at things. Can you imagine having to try and calm down 2 babies?!  She is a master at holding 2 babies at the same time though.

me getting ready for a photo with both boys

and GO for photo!

Grandma is a pro!

I have been told that after you have one baby that any after that are easier and you are less worried about things and have a better grasp about whats going on. I don't know about that though. I'm not sure I will know though. Much too early to be thinking like that. I do know that I will not be pregnant during a deployment again though.

Anyway, just wanted to give a shout out to my mom for being such a great mom!!!

Introducing....

Mothers Day 2012

Well most of you know me in real life know that I was pregnant. 

super pregnant!



In the elevator going to Labor & Delivery

Now there's a baby!!!







First Family Photo



Cuddling with Dad in the hospital







Sleeping in the hospital







Professional Phto



Just look how curious he is!



Born May 25, 2013 at 9:16AM, 7lbs 6oz

The hubs calls him Mr. Squeaker or Squeaker because of the noises he makes. He's my little cuddle buddy. I'll try and get a picture of him cuddling up on my shoulder after a feeding. He just wraps his little arm around my shoulder.

Of course there will be more Schuster Stories involving the new addition. =)

Professional photos done by Elisabeth Smith