September 21...

Look what dropped in to our house...

Look what parachuted in the other day...

Speaking of parachuting in, the stork brought Joe and Shirley and little girl on Wednesday - Nealy Marie. I don't want to steal any thunder, but here is a quick picture of Nealy and Autumn at the hospital. Congratulations you three!

Then, of course, we have tried more cereal. She is getting more and more used to it, but still likes her finger a lot.

Autumn was giving her some rasberry toes and she liked it a lot.

Here is a quick note from Petrea typing with her feet...
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All kinds of news...

First, Joe and Shirley are at the hospital as I type... Their little girl should be here very soon - we have our fingers crossed! More about that later.

Tre, on the other hand has had a big few days. Monday was her four month checkup. She came in real chummy with Nurse Sherry and, of course, made friends very quickly.

We spied some nastiness in the ear before anybody came in. Tre seemed to like it and didn't want Mom digging in her ear right before the doctor came in, though.

She measured and weighed Tre. 26.5 inches long and 16 pounds 6 ounces. How much again? 16.6?

Dr. Eisemann came in and looked over her numbers. She still has a peahead... 97th and 98th percentile in height and weight - still below 60th in head circumference. Dr. Eisemann isn't worried. He still thinks she is going to be tall and lean. He was giving us the lowdown on what she should be doing and what we can do to help her continue to grow. He mentioned cereal and she seemed to perk up, maybe wondering, "When do I get the ribeye?" More on food later.

Then Nurse Sherry came in with the bad part of the day. Petrea didn't mind the shots and really didn't get upset until the third shot. I think it scared her more than hurt, but either way she was not all that happy. I think she thought she made friends with Nurse Sherry early on...

But for all that, the reward wasn't ice cream, it was a Grizzlies game! The first one! We went with Kevin and Cindy Brewer and their baby, Benjamin. Benjamin is 2 months old and Petrea and Benjamin seemed to love the lights of FedEx Forum. Tre sat in awe at first, as if to survey her kingdom.

She did seem to enjoy the game but was not impressed with being in the same room as Bill Russell. He even walked through the restaraunt as we were eating so I was like 10 feet from Bill Russell. Kevin and I were impressed, that was really it. The greatest defensive player ever, maybe the greatest ever. I shoulda got an autograph...

Tre and Ben enjoyed the show, but seemed to like hanging out together more than the game. We did not plant her arm, she put it up on him all by herself!

Ben got pretty sleepy after that but the game was pretty much over at that point. He is awesome!

Then yesterday, whoa yesterday... It snowed, but that isn't the big news.

On the way home from my Leadership Academy meeting, I stopped and got some rice cereal. Yeah, real food. Yeah, real food! We warmed it up, got out a bib (thank goodness), and started the process. Petrea seemed to like it, although she seemed a little impatient as if she wasn't getting enough fast enough. She didn't spit too much out, but it took a little getting used to the spoon thing. Here is a small movie file of her first few bites!

Download MOV00007.MPG

Tre has found her thumb...

Pretty self explanatory, but I offer some pictures of it all the same. She goes from the thumb to her first two fingers and back again. Most importantly about this process, she seems to be very content with both (all three) of them and will sit for an hour or two just going back and forth. Oh, yeah - she puts herself to sleep, too!

In other news, we walked up to Overton Park yesterday and Petrea got to swing for the first time with Mom and all by herself. It was cold so I don't know really how much she really liked it. We didn't stay too long but got some cute pictures while we were there.

I do have some four month pictures to post and will do that very soon. We go to the doctor today to get those four month shots, too! But, as a treat, Petrea gets to go to her first basketball game tonight - Grizzlies host the Spurs.

I will leave you with some shots of us playing in bed Sunday morning while we should have been at church...

One more, the walk and swing was very tiresome...

What, a new post?

I know, it has been three weeks since the last post. Get comfortable, there is lots to update you on!

First, Christmas: Petrea had, what I would consider, a wonderful Christmas. There were some speedbumps, but I won't tell you about most of those. One in particular will be discussed, but you will have to read on. Back to Christmas... As usual, I spent the day in the kitchen cooking a big ole Christmas Eve dinner. Autumn, Papi, and Gigi worked the store. I drug the television into the kitchen while I cooked the turkey and the ham and all the fixins - including the sweet potatoes with marshmallows. That might be the whole reason I like to cook the turkey... Anyway, after dinner, we started toward the pile of Petrea's presents. She got lots of goodies and couldn't wait to get to them, crawling over her Gigi to get to them!

After she opened all her presents she got comfy with Papi in the recliner and watched everyone else open their presents, patiently waiting to get back to her toys.

Christmas Day, we woke up and headed over to Gran and Pops at the lake. I think Gigi got Tre a Christmas outfit - she wears it well...

The whole fam damily was there! We ate, again, and the kids couldn't wait to get the presents opened so we started handing them out. Petrea slept through most of dinner and through most of the unwrapping process. Once she woke up, her Mom and I helped her open her presents in front of her so she could see what she got. I really think she enjoyed all the action, but soon wanted to get out of the middle of the fray so Pops got a good hold on her while Bailey kept watch over the group.

Tre also got to spend some good time with Ashton and Lainey - who seemed to enjoy Tre's company as well!

It was a wonderful Christmas. We are thankful for our own little Christmas present.

I took some time off around the holidays to get some things around the house fixed and give it some attention that I hadn't because of my work schedule and, of course, the time that Petrea deserves... However, my plans were foiled when one morning, the ceiling in the downstairs bathroom fell in. Not the whole thing, but enough of it...

So we called for reinforcements and my Dad came over. We finally found exactly what was leaking and fixed it, although somewhat temporarily. Living in an old house, you can find a fix for something but it is hard to "replace" something unless you "update" it. "Updating" seems to cost way more than just "replacing." Anyway, we are going to have to "update" our upstairs shower/tub plumbing very soon, but for right now, it doesn't leak. Whew! Like I said, Dad came over to help and we got to watch the BCS games. Petrea loves football. I can't stress that enough. So, with her and Pops in the recliner together watching football, things were as calm as they could have been at the house!

Hmmm, other good stuff... Tre has started kicking, and loves to lay there and kick on you. As long as your leg is in kicking distance, she will lay there and kick you and entertain herself. Here she is in action!

Oh, she got some portraits made. Kevin Barre came over and took some shots of her. They turned out great! Ashley gave her this awesome little hat, just like Mom wears so Tre and Mom can be twins. She got some shots in her christening gown and some in the derby.

 

Petrea got some new kicks over the holidays and was very impressed with them. Here, she shows them off with some attitude. Maybe a ,"Check out my boots, yo!" No, she isn't walking or even making at attempt. They are purely for our enjoyment...

Oh! I Tre got to meet the crew from Stuttgart over the holidays! I took her over for the night and she got to meet Clay and Liz (who have their own little bundle of joy, Noah), Beau and Karen, Rich and Melissa, and Rich's parents and sister. Rich's parents were nice enough to let us invade their house Friday night before Christmas Eve. Anyway, it was the first time we have all been together in a while and it was great that Tre got to meet everyone, but it was even better that I just got to see the guys again...

And, as you probably guessed, there are some more pics...

Tre loves it when you hang her head backwards off your arm and kiss her neck. She throws her head back and just laughs and giggles and laughs! She likes it when Mom does it more than Dad because the beard seems to really scratch her little chin up.

Here, Tre was giving Mom some serious kisses (note all the slobber on the cheek) and somehow latched on to Mom's chin and actually gave her a hickey! It was hilarious.

These two were cute pictures - I think. I know it is kinda wrong, but does anyone remember Beavis & Butthead?

 

Whew... January 12th was Autumn's birthday. She turned 30. She was very excited, let me tell you. We went to eat downtown last night and took Tre with us. The restaraunt was so noisy, but Tre slept the whole time! I was so impressed, as was the wait staff and the three tables around us. When she did wake up, she was all smiley and happy, enough to, again, draw comments from the table saround us. I just think she wanted some of her Mom's carrot cake... So, Autumn had a good birthday, I think, and doesn't look any worse for the wear, if I do say so myself. I know I am biased, though.