many thanks

Although Thanksgiving has come and gone, and we are well into the holiday season (sadly, you'd never know that if you walked into my house...smh), I am beyond thankful for so many things in my life right now.  Post partum life is full of unreasonable ups and downs.  So periodically I like to stop and remind myself of how truly amazing life is.

This little face says it all...

This sweet baby makes my heart melt.  He makes every day worth living to its fullest.  He is a constant reminder of God's love.  I still cannot believe He has blessed our lives and entrusted us with such a happy, healthy baby.  I thank God every day for letting me be Tyler's mom.  Many thanks.  

This time a year ago, we were finishing up our last appointment with the fertility doctor, 11 weeks pregnant.  I had the most wonderful experiences, watching our little peanut grow from week to week, overwhelming emotions.  I remember that last appointment in particular, Ty had hiccups in utero and we got to watch his tiny body jump.  He stretched during the ultrasound and it brought tears to my eyes.  I yearned to hold that wiggly, hiccupping baby in my arms.  And I prayed to stay pregnant long enough to get there.  I still thank God every day for helping us get through that.  What an incredible year it has been.  Many thanks.

I am unbelievably thankful that I can be a stay-at-home mom.  You ever feel like you were born to do something?  I was born to be a mom.  Seriously, I want nothing more than to take care of our baby and watch him grow and learn every single day.  I have loved every moment.  I remember staying up all night in the hospital, just so I could hold him while no one else was there.  Who needs sleep?!?  I love watching him hit developmental milestones and the process it takes him to get there.  His newest thing...he reaches out for me now.  Absolutely. In. Love.  Many thanks.

I have an extremely patient, understanding, and loving husband.  I am so thankful for him.  Not just any man can deal with a hormonal, crying, overly anxious wife on a daily basis.  He stands by me when I am feeling just a little bit crazy.  He thinks its okay when I'm crying over an episode of Dancing With the Stars and laughing hysterically the next.  He does his best to pick up my spirits when the baby blues have me down (which, by the way is SO frustrating!  I have NOTHING to be sad about in my life, yet still manage to get down from time to time...).  He lets me know that I'm doing a good job of raising our son.  That means the world to me.   I may stay at home, but I most definitely work.  He makes sure I know that my job is just as important as anyone else's, regardless if I bring home a paycheck or not.  Most importantly, he tries so hard to understand my anxiety since having Ty.  Post partum anxiety is something I have fought since the day he was born (I need to blog on that topic later...).  It is inexplainable as to how or why I get as anxious as I do when it comes to my son.  Over time, I have been able to pin point situations and circumstances that trigger or fuel my anxiety and that's made dealing with it much easier.  Bottom line...I couldn't have done it alone.  Cooter has supported me.  Many thanks.

Certainly not last on my list of thanks is our friends and family.  After 2 years of heartbreaking attempts to have a baby, our families were ecstatic with the birth of Tyler.  We are lucky enough to spend time with our families on a regular basis.  Cooter and I both have parents that have been married over 30 years.  What incredible role models they have been for us, and will be for Ty.  He is so lucky to have 4 grandparents and 3 great grandmas!  He has cousins close in age and I'm sure they will all be the best of friends!  I cannot imagine where we would be today without the love and support of our families.   Not only do we have incredible families, but quite the awesome bunch of friends as well (whom we consider family)!  Hours following Ty's arrival, our hospital room was surrounded by family.  We wouldn't have had it any other way! Many thanks.

Here's a few shots of our Thanksgiving family photo shoot...

5 months

Yet another month has come and gone...and our baby is FIVE months old!  Lots of happenings this past month!  Ty's first Halloween, my Pampered Chef come back, and most importantly, we welcome baby Addison Grace to the family!  I'll try to back track in chronological order (that seems to help my disheveled brain a bit).

Here's Ty's 5 month pics.  He no longer wants to sit back in the rocking chair, he wants to sit up!

Last month I dared to make a come back in the direct selling world.  Albeit, a small one, I was quite proud of myself for doing so.  I have just been taking small orders here and there, a catalog show as I pick them up, but I hadn't attempted to get back out in front of the crowd since Ty was born.  A couple things kept me separated from the Pampered pack...  I most definitely wasn't ready to leave my baby boy.  Who has more separation anxiety, me or Ty?!?  Either way, it was my prerogative to decide when I was ready to leave him.  My take is it took us two years to finally hold a baby in our arms and I was in no hurry to hand him off!  Nursing moms have a relatively short window of time to be away from their babies or pumps.  I do not have access to either during a cooking show, so I had to wait until his feedings spaced out enough to be gone and my supply could handle skipping a feeding.  Yes, I know full-time working women manage to breastfeed and leave their babies all day long, but their bodies grow accustomed to that.  My body believes it needs to feed my son every 3 hours.  I can't exactly leave the show to go pump in the car either, so I had to wait until I felt like I could pass up a feeding without leaking in front of everyone!  So, turns out my first show back was in a bar of all places!  A past host from LaGrange wanted to stock on free products again so her bar-owner friend allowed me to set up on the pool table during a Texans game.  It worked out wonderfully.  Cooter and I drove to LaGrange and Ty hung out with his daddy and Bobbie (Cooter's mom).  I ended up just doing a product demo as people came and left from the bar.  Not having to cook helped ease the transition back into the show routine.  I ended up with a $700 show in just a few hours time!  By the way, sales are great when people are drinking!  I have another show this Friday in LaGrange again and I'm the same nervous wreck I was a month ago...let you all know how it goes!

October 15th we had a baby shower for Nicole.  It was my first time planning a shower, and despite the fact that I left the stuff for the games at home, I think it went very well.  I had tons of help from friends and family.  Well, there we were thinking we'd see everyone in about a month or so since Nicole, 36 weeks pregnant would be due by then.  As most things with babies, the unexpected happened and Addison Grace was born on October 20 at 11:00pm!  She weighed 6lbs 1oz and was 19 1/4 inches long.  I was packing the house waiting for text messages and phone calls the night she was born.  I was so sad to have missed it, but with a sleepy baby at home it just wasn't feasible for us to be at the hospital at that time.  We were there the next morning though!  My mom has a pic that I took of her holding Addi in one arm and Ty in another...I need to get it and share, its priceless!  So, two babies in 4 months for the Edge family!

 Ty and Addi hanging out.  She is TINY...he is not near as huge as he looks!  

 Napping together at Pop and Cici's house.

Ty spent his first Halloween in a fussy mood!  All day he didn't sleep well and just wasn't a very happy baby in general.  I never made it back to the pumpkin patch to get better pics of him in his costume, which really bums me out.  I tried to take some that night, but he was so tired.  In fact, we had planned on trick-or-treating at the neighbors and coming home to pass out candy, but we never made it out of the garage before he was passed out.  So Ty spent his first Halloween asleep!

Carving pumpkins with the neighbors...

 ...but this is the face he made most of that night!

 my little lion

 how Ty spent his time trick-or-treating

No new stats this month since we haven't been to the doctor recently.  Two new milestones in the last couple of weeks though!  Ty has officially learned to sit up unassisted...and he caught his first cold.  For the last several weeks, Ty has been able to sit for a few seconds, leaning far forward trying to eat his toes.  When we were at my parent's house the first weekend of November, my dad had him sitting on the island in the kitchen and decided to let go.  Ty sat for a significant amount of time before teetering sideways!  Every day he improves!  He can sit for quite a while now, even longer if he is distracted with a toy.  The downside...he's not quite stable enough to be left sitting without someone there to catch him, but now that he can sit up, he'd rather not lay on the ground longer than a few seconds.  So I just lost some of my independent time that I used to clean dishes, etc.  Ty is also in the process of fighting his first cold.  It started with a dry cough, which was hard to tell if it was real or not. Ever since the wildfires, he has had allergies and periodically coughs.  By the second day he had a congested cough and runny nose, but never any fever.  You could tell he felt bad though.  The third day I called the pediatrician just to see if we needed to bring him in.  I'm terrified of RSV.  They said with no fever, I didn't need to bring him in.  So he's been sleeping a lot, using the humidifier, and constantly smells of Vick's vapo rub.  He's already getting better though.  No more boogers, still no fever, and his coughing is still present, but not as frequent.  It was inevitable and I know it won't be the last cold he'll catch!

First time sitting up!

Here's some of our favorite pics of Tyler this month!

Cooter went dove hunting and wanted a pic with Ty...and I LOVE it!