'Basco Hot!

Last night David, Nadia, Dawson, and I went to eat supper at McAlister's (Baylor is at Raymond's). We were visiting and eating, when Nadia noticed the bottle of Tobasco sauce on the table. She picked it up and tried to open it. David removed it from her hands and told her it was hot. I piped in, "It will burn your mouth."
Of course, this did not satisfy the ever-curious, super strong-willed Nadia, who kept saying she wanted to "see it."
D: Well, do you want to try it?
N: Yes
D: It's hot
N: I want to see
So David opens the bottle, puts one little dab of Tobasco on his index finger, and rubs it on her tongue. She had stuck her tongue out willingly at this point!
The look on her face was hysterical!
Pure shock and horror...
David immediately gave her a big sip of water, and she choked out very loudly, " 'Basco Hot!"

Good idea for anti-abortion campaign...

David had a great idea this morning while he was driving back from bringing Baylor and Nadia to school...
Scroll down and look at the 3D picture of Dawson and the picture of him right after he was born.

He said he could take those two pictures with this caption, "This is my son Dawson, and he was alive before he was born."

Dawson's baby dedication was at church yesterday, and we had a small family gathering afterwards at our house. It was a lot of fun. I'll upload pics when my friend Mona emails the ones she took. (Her camera and skills are SO much better than mine!)

SLEEP!

Nadia sporting her new jacket, hat, and gloves.

Last night we had an impromptu movie night at our house with Kiki and Scott, Mom and Dad, and the three kiddos. It was so much fun! Before that we went to eat the pizza buffet at Sicily's, and were on our way home to watch a movie on the big screen when Kiki called to see if they could come visit. She mentioned they had "Ironman", so they decided to join us.
Mom and Dad dropped by to bring Dawson's outfit for his baby dedication Sunday, and we invited them to stay.
The movie night ended about 11:30 pm, and I fed Dawson and rocked him to sleep. I put him in his crib in the boppy pillow and a thick blanket. He slept from 12:30 am to 4:30 am! I was almost giddy when he woke me up and I realized what time it was. He was up from 4:30-5:30, and then slept from 5:30 am to 8:00 am. Yippy! I have no idea what I did because nothing I did last night was new, but I'm so glad he decided to sleep.
Today David is working, and Baylor and I are going to clean up the house. I'm going to get laundry done and clean the kitchen. Baylor is in charge of the living room and his bathroom. In between all of that we need to pay some attention to Nadia, and I need to feed Dawson every two to three hours. At least I got some sleep last night! Baylor and I are going to bake a dessert or two for tomorrow and hope they come out alright.
Tonight I'm hoping David can stay with the little ones so Baylor and I can go see a movie or something. If not, we'll watch a movie on the couch or play a board game after they go to bed.
Dawson is officially 6 weeks old as of yesterday. I can't believe how fast time is going by! Here are some pictures taken on his 6 week birthday!

More Nadia funnies; Dawson sleep update; Baylor game night

I pick up Nadia every afternoon from Kasie's house, and she usually says, "Momma, I wanna talk a my daddy." So every afternoon I call David on my cell and she talks to him in the car.
Tuesday's conversation went something like this....
N: Hewo Daddy. What you doin'?
D: I'm working.
N: Havto make a duh money?
D: Yes
N: So I go shoppin'?
She also has her personal pronouns mixed up, which is just beyond cute. She comes up to us and says, "Momma, hold you." or "Hold you, Daddy." I'm going to be so sad when she figures it out and starts saying it correctly.
Last night I was sitting on the couch with her feeding her some soup. She clasped her hands together, bent her head, closed her eyes, and said, "Tai-to for Daddy, Tai-to for food, Tai-to for food. Uh. Amen!" Then she beamed up at me waiting for me to respond. (In case you can't read Nadia-ese, she prayed "Thank you for Daddy, Thank you for food, Thank you for food, Uh, Amen!") I gave her a big hug and told her how proud I was of her for praying, and she said, "Again" and proceeded to pray again. It was so cute.
Dawson still isn't sleeping. I've begun sleeping with him in the recliner just so I can sleep a little better. He lays across my chest and sleeps. He still wakes up every two hours to eat, but it's a lot easier to nurse him when I'm already holding him, and I don't have the fear of David rolling over on him in the middle of the night. He'll be six weeks old tomorrow, so I'm hoping that means the sleep patterns will improve soon.
Baylor has been asking me to play a game with him, and I've been totally brushing him off because I'm just so tired. I then realized that he is already 10 years old, and he won't be asking to spend time with me for much longer. So last night when he asked, I told him that we could play a board game after Nadia went to bed. (It's just impossible to play anything with pieces with Madame Curious running around.) When she went to bed, he took out "Guess Who?" and we played four or five rounds. It was really fun, and I enjoyed laughing with him. We don't get to do that too much anymore...
This morning was chilly, and Nadia didn't have a thin jacket. She does have her winter coat from last year, but I'm not too sure it's going to fit her, and it's so thick that it doesn't fit well in the car seat. I went to Wal-Mart and bought her a thin fleece zip up jacket. It's pink, reversible, and very cute. I also bought the lunch stuff for Dawson's baby dedication at church this weekend. I'm serving baked potato soup, a caesar salad, a fruit salad, and some raspberry dessert bars. Hopefully I have enough food.
This morning we also left the house early enough to drop Nadia off first, so Baylor and I went through the drive through at McDonald's for breakfast.   It was a special treat, and we both enjoyed it.
My 2nd substitute for my maternity leave quit last Friday, and the 3rd one started on Monday. I've talked to her two or three times, and it seems like this one will be a keeper. Apparently the other two weren't teaching my kids at all. They were writing the assignment on the board and sitting down without explaining. This new lady is researching things on the internet so that she can explain the material to the kids better. Wow! Thank you Jesus for Mrs. Savoie...
Well, Dawson is napping, so I'm going to join him. Then it's laundry time.

Nadia and Dawson's first UL football game!

On October 18, 2008 a very bored little lady named Kiki REALLY wanted to go to a UL football game. You see, she had never been to a college game before, and was interested in the whole experience. She mentioned it several times, and finally the rest of her family agreed it was a good idea. (She even got Granny and Papa to come!) Dawson was so excited that he practically jumped into his infant carrier, and Nadia couldn't wait to wear Frere's UL shirt, even though it reached her to her knees! UL won in a most exciting manner, and we all went home on a natural high!

(I have no pictures of me, Kiki, or Granny and Papa at the game, but we were there cheering loudly for the Cajuns.)
All in all, the game was much better than a snowball (inside joke), and was a wonderful way to make memories.

I was lounging around with Nadia and Dawson last week (October 11, 2008) while David was camping in Sunset with Baylor. I took some CUTE pictures of Nadia loving on her brother.

We stayed in our pajamas for a good portion of the day, but we had fun anyway!

Dawson is five weeks old already! Here's some pictures of the day he was officially five weeks old! (10/17/08). You can kind of see his smile in the right one. It's so hard to catch him smiling with the camera. I keep trying and missing! You can see his dimple, which was also visible during the 3D ultrasound.

Last night was a little better.

Dawson actually slept from midnight to 2ish, then again from 3 am to 6 am. (From 3 to 6 I caved in and put him in the bed with me.) I know this is a bad habit to start, but at this point I'm so tired I don't care. I'd do just about anything for some sleep.
He's asleep in his swing now, so I'm going back to bed.
Thank goodness David was able to bring Baylor and Nadia this morning, so I also got to snooze from 6:30 to 7:30! I've also taken a bath, and I feel kind of human again.

Dawson is a month old already!

I can't believe how fast it's going by. I also can't believe how tired I am. When he starts crying at night, I want to cry too. I can't even tell you the last time I got more than three hours of sleep. I'm just grumpy and cranky and always on the verge of tears.

Thank goodness Nadia goes to Kasie's during the day so that I can at least take an hour or two nap. I'm sure I'd be in the looney bin by now if I had to deal with a two year old on no sleep.

This weekend we did go to Festival Acadiens, and we had a good time. The food was so good. We spent a lot of money on food, but it was so worth it. We went with the Karoly's from church. They're from Ohio, so I had to take them around to each food tent and explain words like ettouffee, boudin, and tasso. It was fun! Baylor and I danced a couple of times, and I really enjoyed that. He's such a good dancer. I can't believe how much rhythm he has for a 10 year old.

Nadia is still making us laugh. She's also starting to assert her independence. This morning, I told her to go get a diaper so I could dress her for her doctor's appointment. She said, "Uuhh, No." She was told a second time and chose to obey, so she's not fighting us too bad.

Sunday night we had small group and David was working, so I went with Nadia and Dawson by myself (Baylor was with Raymond's parents for the day). Kenny (our group leader) offered to carry Dawson's carseat to the van when we were done so I could carry the diaper bags and put Nadia in her seat. When Kenny picked up Dawson's carrier I thought Nadia was going to have a stroke. She said, "Don't cake Dawson!" (she says "cake" instead of "take") She then proceeded to follow Kenny out to the van without ever taking her eyes off of him! She was so worried about her brother. After Kenny got Dawson snapped in and was walking back to his house, Nadia picked up her finger and said this to his retreating back, "Don't carry that Dawson...Don't carry that Dawson!" (And she would point to Dawson when she would say his name.) It was so cute how protective she was over him, especially considering that she hurts him all the time. She has "giggled him" (ticked him) and drawn blood on his poor little face.

I also wanted to post Dawson's picture next to his 3D ultrasound. I think it's pretty cool to look at. I emailed it to the people at Sneak Peeks, and they said they hung him on their wall.

I weighed him while we were at the doctor's office for Nadia's check-up, and he weighs 11 lbs 13 oz! (He was 8 lbs 9 oz at birth on September 12.)

My weight loss has stopped, and I'm going to have to start exercising if I want to lose more. The thought of finding the energy or stamina to exercise makes me want to cry. The fact that I'm fat makes me want to cry. Getting dressed depresses me terribly because I look ridiculous in my maternity clothes because I'm not pregnant anymore, but my regular clothes don't fit me yet. So I'm wearing maternity clothes and feeling and looking like a cow. (The fact that I'm nursing for about 7 hours a day adds to that whole "I'm a cow" feeling.) I've tried walking the mall and even the track at Girard Park, but I guess I'm not physically healed enough yet for that because it causes me physical pain. Then all of this crap rolled up together makes me want to eat, which only complicates the situation.

Oh well, it'll get better...just not today!

More Pictures

Dancing with the Stars; New kid pics

I finally uploaded some more recent pictures of Baylor, Nadia, and Dawson.


First, a video of Nadia watching Dancing with the Stars. It's worth watching, trust me! She was having such a blast dancing along, and then even more fun having us play her video over and over again so she could watch it. This was filmed September 23, 2008.

I have tried repeatedly (and unsuccessfully, I might add) to get a really good picture of my three kids together. Here are a few attempts:

I'm losing it.

This sleep deprivation is killing me. Last night Dawson slept for three hours the entire night. That's it. By the time the sun came up, I was crying right along with him. My inlaws took Nadia home with them Saturday, so we did get a little extra sleep from about 7 am to 9 am on Sunday morning.
I try to focus on the positive, but I'm just too tired to try too hard. Thank goodness David is not cranky like I am when he's sleep deprived because we'd be in trouble.
Nadia has a staph infection on her thigh, which is not fun. Neither is changing the dressing on it three times a day! I hope it heals soon, and that it is not MRSA.
I gave Dawson his first bottle of breast milk today, and he drank it like a champ. I was so excited. For Nadia, I didn't introduce a bottle at all because I wasn't expecting to go back to work, and we had hell to pay when I did have to go back. I nursed him a few times after that, and he did fine. I was so worried about him not nursing well after the bottle, but so far that doesn't seem to be an issue.
Saturday night David and I had a date night. First we went to Lifemates at our church. The guest speakers were Michael and Amy Smalley (www.gosmalley.com). They were really good and made us laugh. After Lifemates, we decided to go see Fireproof. I highly recommend it. Baylor was with Raymond, Nadia was with my in-laws, and Dawson slept through the whole thing, so we decided to go to the movie even though we were both exhausted. The movie really makes you want to have a better marriage. I hope it does well enough that it sends a message to Hollywood that good, Christian movies are needed.
Dawson is finally sleeping, so I'm going to bed myself. I'll blog more later!