Baby Dedication

Last Sunday, our church had a Baby Dedication Service, and we dedicated Drew. For those of you non-Baptists out there, we don't sprinkle or baptize babies. We perform baptisms when the person is old enough to make their own decision of faith. So when a baby is born, we do an informal dedication service, where the parents vow to bring the baby up in a loving, Christian home and the church vows to pray for and support our family. This time we dedicated 34 babies, which was a huge crew. They have these services about 3 times a year and usually dedicate about a dozen each time.

Before the service, the church held a breakfast for the parents and grandparents where they showed a slide show of the babies being dedicated, and the pastor gave some words of encouragement. We were so lucky to have both sets of our parents join us, along with Ashley and Gavin and Damien and Christine. Drew did so well and looked adorable.

Sitting and Sipping

It's been a busy couple of weeks. Between the Baby Dedication and Drew being sick (another ear infection and upper respiratory infection), he has reached a few more big milestones. Since I'm still working crazy hours, my mom came in for a few days to keep Drew during the day. She moves him from one "activity station" to another all day, so he gets lots of love and one-on-one attention. This week he mastered sitting up. He had been sitting up for 10 seconds at a time before reaching for a toy and toppling over. Now he has mastered sitting for long periods of time. He's figured out that he can put his hands out in front of him to help keep balance.

With Aunt Ashley

Drew has also been introduced to his sippy cup. We gave it to him first when he was sick and running a fever, with water inside to help keep him hydrated. He loves to put anything in his mouth and was pleasantly surprised when water came out of the cup.

When my parents were in town for Drew's dedication, we had a "1/2 Birthday Party" since he turned 6 months old. My mom had parties each month during our first years of life, so she wanted to have one for Drew. Here are John, Drew, me, Ashley, and Gavin with Drew's birthday cookie. We got a few pictures of Drew and the cookie, but then he decided that the icing looked pretty yummy and tried to take a bite. Can't blame him for that -- what kind of party is it where the birthday boy doesn't get to eat his birthday cookie?

Here's a picture of Drew and Grandmommy. I have a great video of him laughing that I'll post later.

The weather was pretty nice for February, so we took Drew for a walk around the block, then sat outside with my dad for a while, soaking up the warm weather.

Photo Update

I've been a slacker on the blog lately, so I thought I'd do a photo update, since a picture is worth a thousand words. This post should be worth several thousand. This weekend is Drew's baby dedication service at church. My mom and dad are coming in tonight through the weekend and John's parents will be coming up Sunday morning. We're really looking forward to that and I'll post those pictures later. Drew's 6-month appointment is tomorrow. Six months already? It seems like just yesterday that I was still pregnant.

Here's the kiddo in his bumbo chair with his froggie. He was extra talkative this day, so he's making a funny face as he tells me all about things.

As promised, here is the picture from our tornado adventure the other night. Drew seems a little concerned about all the red and purple on the radar screen, but Dad and I have it under control. If you look closely, you can see DFW (the airport) in a green section. We live southwest of DFW, so you can see that we were just about to get hit. Drew loves wrestle time with Daddy. Wrestle time goes like this: Daddy rolls around Drew on the bed while Drew giggles at him and Sadie barks from the floor. Sometimes Drew gets on top to "body slam" Daddy, and inevitably the wrestling match ends when Drew wins on account of soaking Daddy's shirt with drool. I love my boys.

It is still busy season here in Accounting world. I've been getting home from work between 7 and 8 most nights (unless I need to pick up Drew), and often do some more work after I put him to bed. On this night, John was putting dinner on the stove, so Drew came to the study to help me work. He does like the sound of typing and the bright colors on the computer. Future accountant, maybe?

Here's the Drewster on Valentine's Day. Grandmommy sent us a few bibs to commemorate the occasion, and Drew wanted his friend, Spot, in the picture too. For Valentine's Day, John and I had a lazy Saturday, ran a few errands (even Sadie got to come along on family errand-running time), and he grilled out steaks for dinner. It was a great, relaxing day.

Drew's getting to be more and more of an eater. He has rice cereal twice a day with baby foods. So far he's had green beans, sweet potatoes, peas, carrots, and bananas.

Here's a shout out to our cousin Ryan. We are so glad to see your Mom and Dad getting pictures made in Cowboys gear. In Texas, we're warming up for baseball season in our cute Rangers outfit.

Drew's First Tornado Watch

Being a kid in Texas, I'm sure Drew will have the same experiences John and I did -- going to a friend's basement in the middle of the night (sometimes to Grandmom & Pop's cellar), tornado drills at school, being mesmerized by the radar image on the screen, and talking about it the next day ("75 mph winds? That's nothing. Remember back in 2003 when we had 100 mph gusts? Now THAT was wind!") Last night Drew had his first tornado storm experience. We were in a Tornado Watch for most of the day yesterday. The big line of storms rolled through late in the evening. We started watching the weather at about 8 o'clock, when a Tornado Warning was issued. (For those not from the great state of Texas, a watch is issued when the weather is ripe for tornados and as the name suggests, you should keep "watching" for one. A warning is when radar shows that a tornado is forming or someone on the ground confirms a sighting.) At about 8:30, Pete Delkus (our awesome Channel 8 weatherman) said that there was a tornado that appeared to be forming over North Richland Hills, heading toward Hurst-Euless-Bedford. That's us. So, as I've done many times in the past, I started piling pillows and blankets in our closet, in case we needed to take cover. Luckily for us, the tornado portion of the storm went north of us, but we did get some 70 mph wind, torrential rain, and pea-size hail. A couple of years ago we had tornados ALL over and hail the size of my fist, so in comparison this storm wasn't too strong. It was unusual that it was in February and not later in the spring, but Drewby got to stay up late with us and I got a cute picture of him and John in front of the radar screen. I'll try to remember to post it later.