november thru febuary

Well now it's two days before Valentines day and time for the quarterly update of B. Of course so much has happened since the last entry, I'll just touch on some of the highlights. In November there was Braden's first Thanksgiving with the Smith side of the family, then the Cougars' last football game of the season the next night. B and mommy opted to spend the evening at Starbucks and some shops because of the nippy weather, but picked daddy up after the game for the late night trip back home. It was great to see the Laurel Hill gang, but we left kind of disappointed we didn't have more time to visit with them, and got us to thinking how it would be nicer to live closer.
A week before Christmas B saw his first snow, and indeed what a snow. We got a full foot at our house, complete with a power outage and being snowed in for the weekend. Then as we spent Christmas in Boone we had more winter weather, an ice storm resulting in a four day power outage. Braden's first Christmas dinner was Chinese takeout, although he had what he always has, mama's milk. The day after Christmas after a visit to the grandparents in West Jefferson, Braden and Daddy headed to Laurel Hill and I was left in Boone to brave my first night away from the baby. We were re-united the next night, after I made a day trip back to Asheville to work for the day and pick up the dogs. Luckily we had a little more time to visit in Laurel Hill this time, and Braden stayed with grandma Brenda for the first time, while we got to go to fayetville with marvin's brother. New years was passed at our friend tommy and shannon's and before we knew it the holidays were over.
January flew by entirely too quickly. We went to our first NBA game in Charlotte and had a great time, Braden weighed 13 and a half pounds at his four month check up, tried rice cereal and mashed bananas for the first time, and we got together with two other families and their little girls that were in our birth class; one is two weeks older than Braden, one is a week younger. It was great to see them and compare all the baby milestones. We learned that Braden is the strongest stander and the worst sleeper!
This week we have begun moving B into his own room, which means getting a storage place for the guest bed and some other things that having been crowding the house, and soon the crib will be set up! I am nervous about him being in another room but he is becoming a very restless sleeper and its costing me! Luckily most nights now he will do a 4-6 hour stint in his bassinet, so maybe the crib switch won't be too traumatic. Right now he is in there snoozing in the pajamas that were the very first thing I ever bought for him, at about 4 months pregnant. It was hard to imagine then that he would ever be here and big enough to wear them, but he is, and as always, he looks adorable :)