Bathtime Fun

Drew has started to really love his bathtimes. He's figured out that kicking his legs wind-mill style in the bathtub makes fun splashing noises and sometimes even gets his Mom wet. Here's a little video of him in the tub.

I also wanted to get a picture of this little man's chubby thighs and booty. Since nobody else was around, I did the picture taking. Apparently Drew was not too happy with this photo being taken, so he showed his displeasure by peeing on me about 3 seconds after I snapped this. Oh well -- it was worth having a photo memory of those sweet chubby cheeks!

January Update -- Playtime Galore

January has been a fun month for Drew, aside from Mommy and Daddy working hard and being sick. He is just the happiest child. He fussed when he had his ear infection, but otherwise he is such a great baby. Here are some of our fun memories from the last couple of weeks.

Drew loves his rice cereal. We started with green beans, and he likes them too. We then moved on to carrots, which he also enjoyed. (Mom didn't enjoy the orange poop, but it's a small price to pay to have a happy kiddo.) We'll start sweet peas this evening.

Drew loves when we blow on his tummy. His eyes get really wide and he laughs at us while he straightens out his legs and flails his arms.

Here is Drewby having some tummy time. I have no idea what he thought was so funny, but I'd guess that Mommy was making silly faces.

Oh, I LOVE that smile!

We were going to have a fun portrait session on the couch, but Drewby took a couple pictures and then exploded his diaper. Fun for all!

After cleaning up the diaper explosion, we took a few fun naked pictures. His prom date is going to love these someday!

Drew's new favorite toy is the jumperoo. He hops and jumps to his heart's delight. His favorite thing is watching Daddy throw the ball for Sadie. He watches Sadie run after the ball and when she barks, he laughs and hops again. She watches Sadie bring the ball back, tracks her as she chases it again, then laughs and hops at her barking again. It's great fun.

Sickies

Sorry for the lack of updates, my dear blog friends. We have been super busy with work/hospital rotations/playtime at day care. To top it all off, we've been passing around some sort of bug this week. I got violently ill on Sunday night but woke up feeling much better Monday morning. Whatever I had must have passed on to Drew because he had a rough night on Sunday and was restless most of the day Monday. John had been feeling fine until this morning, when he woke up with a cough, congestion, and general achiness. I also woke up this morning with a sore throat, stuffy ears, and a headache. Drew seems to be the only one feeling good today. I think the weather may be a factor, since we had two 80 degree days last week and the high today is 32. Gotta love Texas weather! This time of year, there are probably all sorts of things going around and we're just lucky enough to catch lots of them. Please keep us in your prayers as it's just not fun to be sick, especially when Drew isn't feeling good either.

Busy Season

I know that people go through "seasons" of life, and clearly we are going through a busy one. Here is the latest update from here.

The day we got back from Amarillo, Ashley had tickets to a Dallas Mavericks game. These were tickets from one of her co-workers, and they were on row D. So we were 4 rows (and a few rows on the floor) away from the action. We could see the sweat on the players. We could hear what they were yelling at the referees (and realized why the refs don't wear microphones that could broadcast on TV.) The game was great, since the Mavs were up and down the whole time and finally won it at the end. We had a GREAT time and have volunteered to go with Ash anytime she needs someone to help her use these tickets.

I now in busy season, as I am every January-March. One of my clients has a super busy time the first couple weeks of January, and another client is swamped the end of February and beginning of March. So, I called in some reinforcements to help keep Drew the last couple of weeks. Last week my mom was here and this week John's mom is here. To top things off, John is doing his OB/GYN rotation right now, and he has been working the night shift this week. (Night shift = go in at 7-8 pm, get off at 7-8 am, stay for lecture until 10-11 am, come home and crash, wake up and start it all over again.)

I'm sure you can imagine that our stress level was a little high. Both working 12 hour days, plus not seeing your spouse for several days at a time will do that to you. And poor Drew got an ear infection. I'm not sure how he timed it to be during one of my busiest weeks of the year, but he sure did. The worst part (for me, at least) was that my sweet, sleeps-through-the-night baby turned into a crying monster who was up 3 or 4 times every night. So, two trips to the doctor later, he is feeling a bit better. He had been congested over Christmas and apparently his little ears didn't drain, so the infection kicked up. The doctor described it as "ugly" the first visit and "yucky" the second. (Gotta love pediatricians' vocabularies!) The first antibiotic didn't quite do the trick, but it looks like #2 is working. He is much happier, and thankfully has been only waking up once a night. I'm hoping that with some prayer, he'll ease back into his 9-hour sleeping routine.

So, other than the crazy work hours, the ear infection, and the family in town, it's been life as normal. John goes back on normal day shifts this week and hopefully I can go from 12-hour days to 10-hour days. Drew starts at "real" day care on Monday, so say prayers that everything goes well and he is able to handle the transition.

Final Christmas Post

Man, I feel like Christmas was a marathon. I guess that with all the travelling, visiting with so many relatives and opening so many gifts, it was certainly an eventful holiday season.

One thing we didn't get a picture of was the Christmas Eve service we attended at First Baptist Church Amarillo. It was mostly singing Christmas carols, and their pastor got up and gave a short sermon. They didn't have child care, so Drew came with us to the service. He started to get a little fussy during the songs, so I stepped out into the hallway and gave him a private concert as I sang the carols to him. He fell fast asleep and slept in my arms the rest of the service. My favorite song that an ensemble sang was "Breath of Heaven." I smile just thinking about it. I was sitting next to John, holding a sleeping Drew in my arms, in this beautiful sanctuary hung with wreaths and candles, looking down on this ensemble singing next to a life-size nativity scene. Christmas just doesn't get any better than that.

One of the other great parts was getting to see our cousins from California, who we hadn't seen in a long time. We got to meet my cousin Melissa's son, Ryan, who is about 2 months older than Drew. They're not quite old enough to play together yet, but I have no doubt that they will be great playmates in years to come.

Here is Drewby all dressed up for Christmas dinner. I may have a small addiction to Baby Gap, but you gotta admit that the kid is cute.

The first time we got Drew and Ryan together, they stared at each other for a little while, and Ryan started laughing. He just would look at Drew and have these big belly laughs. We think he was relieved to have another little boy around to play with.

Drew has learned how to make a motorboat noise, complete with lots of little spit. Granddad and Drew played airplane while Drew made his best airplane motor noise impression.

Yes, there is a backstory to this picture. My mom and Aunt Lainie have a major addiction to Christmas sweaters. It was worse in the 90s, when they'd have enough to wear them from Thanksgiving to Christmas without ever repeating. These sweaters invariably had some sort of glitter of sequins or were possibly even handmade. (Anyone else remember the year that my dad drilled holes in all those Christmas lights and we strung them together for earrings and necklaces?) So, to welcome the boys to the family, our moms bought them their very own baby-sized Christmas sweaters. Drew seems to be in shock at wearing it, but Ryan clearly understands the horror of the outfit. I will admit that the sweaters were kinda cute and even had adorable matching khaki pants, but I cannot condone such theme outfits.

Here's cousin Ryan opening his gift from Drew, a Texas A&M tracksuit. Melissa thinks Ryan may grow up to be the savior of the A&M football team, so remember him in your prayers. :)

Here are Pop and Grandmom opening gifts. Pop turns 90 in just a couple of weeks, and in March, they will celebrate their 70th (yes you read that correctly) anniversary. Their health and memories are failing, but it was neat to see them light up when everyone came over. Pop especially just loved to see the babies and talk to them.

We got all the cousins on my mom's side together for some family pictures, but my camera wasn't used for that photo session, so I can't post those. (If you're reading this and have those pictures, PLEASE e-mail them to me!) We did take some pictures outside since it was a gorgeous day.
Here's a great family picture:

Drew wishes everyone a very happy 2009! (Thank goodness he isn't old enough to realize how silly people look in paper hats.)

The Windmill

Here's a little video of Drew eating his cereal. He really loves his cereal and even turns his head towards the spoon for a bite. After a bite, he gets so excited that he does what we call "the Windmill." He flails his arms and legs as fast as he can. On this day, he wasn't kicking and swimming as hard as he does sometimes, but you get the idea. The day before this was filmed, he had made a big mess, so this day he was eating in just his bib. (I took it sideways and apparently there's no way to turn a video like you can a picture, so sorry!) The voices you hear are my mom feeding him and Sadie and Gracie barking in the background.

A Slaton Family Christmas

After we packed up our haul from Granny and Papa's, we headed east to Oklahoma City to celebrate Christmas with John's parents and his brother's family.


Here is John snuggling our little man, who had on his "Santa's Little Helper" outfit.

Gerre (Nonnie) opening Christmas gifts.

Jim helped James open his gifts. Last year James was only a month old and slept through most of the Christmas festivities, but this year he had a great time pulling out tissue paper, helping unwrap gifts, and then playing with his new toys.

Here is Dale (Paw Paw) opening his Seinfeld Scene-It game.

What holiday is complete without some family photos? Here are James (13 months old) and Drew in their Christmas outfits.

Nonnie and Paw Paw with James and Drew

Jim and Jaclyn moved to Wellston, Oklahoma last summer because Jaclyn is now attending the medical school at OU in Oklahoma City. Wellston is a little town northeast of there, so they took us on the grand tour and we got to see the med school, their house, the church where Jim works, and the town. On our way back, they took us to Pop's, this awesome little gas station/burger joint that specializes in old glass-bottle sodas. They had an entire wall of refrigerator units (like the glass-front ones in convenience stores) with every imaginable kind of soda. It's owned by the former owner or CEO of a big oil company, so he does it just for kicks. We had a great time on our tour, so thanks Jim and Jaclyn! John was a good sport to pose with our sodas in front of the giant bottle statue out front. And for the record, my favorite was the sasparilla, which I'd never had before.

A Mills Family Christmas

In the grand tradition of the Mills family, we opened our presents at home on Christmas morning, then headed to Erick, Oklahoma to open gifts with the rest of the clan. Drew was a great sport, and probably wound up with more gifts than anyone else. Here is John helping him open a gift.

Not to be forgotten, Sadie and Gracie (that's Gracie on the left, she's my parents' miniature dachshund) got stuffed animals for Christmas, which they promptly tore to bits.


All the presents made poor Drew tired, so he had to stop for a rest. Grandmommy was happy to provide a lap for napping on.

Here is me with my very favorite Christmas gift -- John gave me a gorgeous pendant that is Drew's birthstone surrounded by diamonds. It was a surprise, and I love it!

Here's Drew with his stash. In our holiday tradition, we wake up, eat breakfast, and open presents in our pajamas, so Drew is in a cute sleeper that says Baby's First Christmas.

Next, we hit the road for Oklahoma. We went to Granny and Papa's house for Christmas dinner, then did our traditional gift-opening routine. We all draw a name and get that person a big gift, then we get everyone stocking stuffers related to that year's theme. This year the theme was "things that come in pairs," so there were some really great ideas. Here is Drew with Great Granny. (I don't know what face he was making -- he wasn't fussy at all.)

Here is Grandmommy (with Drew again), Fred, and Papa. He seems to be pleased with his big old stack of gifts.

I love this picture! Drew got dressed up in his Santa suit to spread some holiday cheer and clearly enjoyed some snuggle time with Papa.

Here are Fred and Janna with their stocking stuffers. (Janna's opening a pair of gardening gloves.)

Granny makes stockings for each member of the family. The row of stockings has grown, and it was so fun to see Drew's hanging up there with ours.

Fun in Amarillo

Our first stop on the "Christmas Extravaganze 2008" trip was Amarillo, Texas to visit my family. We arrived late on December 19, and John headed out the next morning on a ski trip with his dad and friend, Damien, to Frisco, Colorado. He had a couple of fun days of skiing, then was back before Christmas Eve. Sorry there are no pictures of the ski trip, but John's not the photographer of the family. So, here's what was going on in Amarillo while he was skiing.


Drew showed off his new skills to Grandmommy and Granddad. These skills include rolling over, raising up his head, smiling all the time, and drooling like it's going out of style.

Here is Granddad bouncing Drew on his leg. Clearly Drew is enjoying the newfound attention.

Cereal Attempt #1

After Drew's doctor appointment, we got the green light to begin feeding him rice cereal. For those of you without kids, it looks like potato flakes, and when mixed with milk, it pretty closely resembles wallpaper paste in texture and taste. We got Drew all set up in his Bumbo seat and ready for cereal time. Here's the before picture:

And here's the feeding. Clearly he's not having any of it. He pretty much spit out whatever I managed to slip in there, then screamed til he was as red as a tomato. Attempt 1 was a failure, but I'm not a quitter.

Here's sweet Drewby all bundled up. It was cold in Amarillo while we were there, so he got to wear a bunch of his warmest clothes that had not yet seen the light of day.
Cereal Attempt #2
For attempt #2, I made a few changes. We put him in his bouncy chair with the vibration turned on (this kiddo loves that bouncy chair, so that was a plus.) We also fed him about an hour after he had eaten, so he wasn't quite as hungry and cranky as the first time.

I'm happy to report that attempt #2 was a success, as you can tell from this photo.

Pre-Christmas Photos

Well, I'd say Christmas was a success! We had a wonderful trip and it seems like we travelled everywhere and saw everyone. It'll take several posts to hit everything, so here's a start. We took these pictures before we left. We thought it would be fun to have some pictures of Drew under the tree, since he's the best gift we've ever been given. He was a great sport, so enjoy these pictures!