She's Here!

Grace Elizabeth

was born today!

4:01pm

7 lb 11 oz

19.5" long

Dark curly hair and baby blue eyes!

She is absolutely perfect!

Thursday Thirteen

13 Reasons that this Thursday is gonna be a GREAT day!

1. It's cold in Texas... I mean COAT weather! LOVE IT!

2. Travis is on the verge of crawling and today might be the day!

3. I am suppose to get my Christmas Cards in the mail, I love getting mail!

4. It's Almost December!

5. Grey's Anatomy comes on tonight!

6. I love reading other TT's

~BEST OF ALL~

7. My best friend is being induced today! Please Pray for her!

8. Her baby girl may be born on THIS Thursday, TODAY!!!

9. She conceived on the day Travis was born... 39 weeks + 1 day ago! COOL, huh?!

10. I may get to hold her and kiss her today!!

11. I may get to see what a wonderful mom Michelle will be!

12. I Love looking at all the new born babies in the nursery, it makes me feel warm & fuzzy!

13. I will get to be called Auntie Lindsay by another BEAUTIFUL little girl!

!Today is gonna be great!

** and if she is not born today, then tomorrow will be even better!

Updated Template!

Whatcha think?

Can you tell?

I updated my blog!

Added new, higher quality pictures and fonts!!!

I had been working so hard on everyone else's blog with all the new things I have learned and had not done a thing to mine... Gavie had a late meeting/get together with some clients, so I took this time after Travie went to sleep to update my stuff!

Gotta take care of yourself every once in a while!!!

Travis and Santa Claus!

What a SUPER cute Santa Claus we have at our Mall!!!

He was so sweet and met my anal mom expectations when I saw him use antibacterial hand sanitizer between each child! GO SANTA!

Trav did GREAT! He didn't want to smile for the camera man, so he is looking over at me... but at least he did not scream! I thought of a great idea... since you can purchase your Santa picture on a disk and use it for holiday cards or whatever, I thought I would get it made into an ornament and do this every year! So I got on Snapfish and ordered a $10 ornament with this picture! It will be a cute collection in a few years...

***

Yes, My kiddo has no socks on! It was almost 80 degrees here in TX today, I wanted him to look festive in his overalls and long sleeve red polo, BUT it was so hot the socks and shoes had to come off!

Pretty Cool

My best friend Michelle who is due any second and another good girlfriend of hers... Allison were over (they went with Travis and I to see Santa) and Allie was telling us about this awesome Oprah episode she had seen...

It was about babies 0-3 months old and what their cries meant... Man, I wish I knew that when my son was itty bitty! Things in this world change so fast that even going to babies r us the coolest stuff has recently come out, and I registered like a year ago.. WOW!

So, this is the link to the Oprah show.

Click HERE

You NEED To watch the clip on the baby sounds, it truly is amazing!

I was Tagged!!!!

A-Z of Me
I was tagged by Lori!!!

A - Available/Single? Married and Lovin' it!
B - Best Friend? Got a ton... My Hubby, My Momma, Michelle, Lacy, My Cuz Ellen... and on and on!

C- Cake or Pie? Neither, I cant have wheat :(
D - Drink Of Choice? Ice Tea
E - Essential Item You Use Everyday? This darn computer!

F - Favorite Color? Purple

G - Gummy Bears Or Worms? Gummy Bears.. sour PLEASE!
H - Hometown? (born in ) Omaha, Nebraska

I - Indulgence? French Fries

J - January Or February? January, start the year off right!

K - Kids & Their Names? 1 kiddo... Travis

L - Life Is Incomplete Without? hard one!
M - Marriage Date? June 26

N- Number Of Siblings? 2 step brothers 1 half sister
O - Oranges Or Apples? Apples
P - Phobias/Fears? dark, spiders, death

Q - Favorite Quote? Look up at my header...
R - Reason to Smile - My sweet baby boy, look at the post before this one!

S - Season? Toss up with Fall or Spring

T - Tag Four People? Tasha, Lindsey, Melanie, Jessica
U - Unknown Fact About Me? I hate to drive in the rain!!!!
V - Vegetable you dont like? cooked carrots
W - Worst Habit? popping my knuckles

X - X-rays You've HadRecentlyly.. my leg and they found a fracture.
Y - Your Favorite Food? Mexican...I so agree with Lori!

Z - Zodiac Sign? Sagittariusus

My kid is soooooo cute!

Today was a fun day!!! One of Gav and I's best girl friends came over to take pictures of the 3 of us for our Christmas card and just to have 2006 Christmas pictures... I had seen this adorable card on Lil Duck Duck's site a few days ago and thought the idea of taking a picture with your baby in a diaper and lights was just to die for... so we did it! This is a little picture she send me while I am waiting for the group of all of them... she did a little special effects to it and I think it is just too cute!

I am so proud of Rachel (our photographer) she is self-taught and just does a great job!!!!

... and my kid is just the CUTEST!

New Template!

I designed another New blogger template but this one was for my buddy Tasha!!!!

Go Check out her new digs!

Click HERE

Big Boy Banana!

Travis Eating a "REAL" Banana

for the First Time

He never really liked bananas as baby food and still to this day doesn't really like them alone or mixed with anything... but my mom and I thought it would be fun to let him try a real banana!

He liked the fact that he was holding his food and feeding himself but after these pictures were taken the nana was thrown on the floor and Trav was over it!

Sorry!

Just wanted to apologize for missing my Thursday 13 and Photo Scavenger Hunt this week.. I promise I will make it up next week with some awesome posts!

Thanksgiving Pictures!

TURKEY DAY PICTURES

Happy Turkey Day!

I hope you all have a GREAT Thanksgiving! I am thankful to have all of you in my life, cyber friends and all! Have a WONDERFUL, Tummy filling day!

Trav's Tooth #2

!Pickled Tink!
I have heard that baby teeth always come in pairs... well I guess that is so true because Travis just got his 2nd pearly white! YAY!!

My little man has also decided that he wants to try anything and everything that I eat... including pickles! He LOVES them! I dunno if it is the flavor, texture or coldness on his gums, but this little man is in LOVE!I honestly think that the pickles have soothed his gums because this second tooth has not produced half of the drama as the first one did!

New home remedy? I think so!

He cant bite through the skin (thank goodness) but he will poke little holes in it with his first tooth and gum it so the juice comes out...

Whatever works for teething babies!

Sunday...

Hangin' with the Gavster!

On Sunday Gavin and I decided we needed a little break and decided to drop the little man off of Gigi's house and head up to the lake and go hiking and check out the boat... It was a beautiful day with a high of 60 and bright blue skies (I love this type of weather!)

We hiked for about 45 minutes... and saw a ton of fallen leaves, some people fishing and of course a ton of mosquito's. We decided to cut our hike short and attempt to take the boat out just the 2 f us ( I have not one clue of how to do a damn thing on that boat!) but those plans quickly changed after I got a view of all the NASTY spiders that were using our boat and slip as a fall/winter get away YUK! We did hang out for a bit and then decided to head homeward... on our way home we decided to stop by this neighborhood a little north of where we live now, where there is land and BIG trees and we cant spit on your neighbors house.

In other words a neighborhood completely different then the one we live in now!

Well, I found my dream home!

It is way more expensive then we can afford OF COURSE, but OMG I want it so very bad!

It had a solid wood door that was arched at the top and had a wrought iron medallion in the little window, the floors were hand scrapped hardwoods in the main walkways and shag burber carpet in all the rooms. The walls were painted dark cream with a little texture . It was 4 bedroom, study, dining room, playroom, and media room( only room upstairs)... the kitchen was a little small BUT it had gold and black granite countertops, an island with lion claw feet (WOW!), a gas stove and a nook attached... BEAUTIFUL! There were windows lining the back side of the house looking out over the wonderfully HUGE back yard! I mean 3/4 of an acre at the least with a diving pool and covered patio... All the hardware in the house was black wrought iron (MY FAV!)I am so in love with that house! I guess I will have to wait till we win the lottery to get it :)

***

Here are some pictures of our hike...

Holiday Templates!

I just finished making some
Free Holiday Blogger Templates!

Frosty The Snowman

'Tis the Season

I saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus

Email me if you are interested in any of these new templates!

New Template Design!

I just designed this beautiful template for my friend Jessica!
Go check out my new design and give her and her super adorable son Matty some LOVE!

Click below!

Just the three of us...

Photo Hunt

PLUSH

The word plush makes me think of all the wonderfull, thick fabrics and trims I use to work with when I designed for Creative Designs...

This is one of my pillows!

Free Blogger Templates

I did it, I started a site for my blog templates....

I got a few free ones right now, go check them out!

Tag I'm it!

I got Tagged by Melanie....

5 things about me...

1. I LOVE the smell of a freshly opened box of crayons!

2. I have an obsession with animal noses.

3. I love to nickname people and rarely call anyone I know by their "real" name!

4. I have been singing Christmas Carols to Travis since summer time.

5. I am almost done with all my Holiday shopping.. just 2 more people to buy for! YAY go me!

I will tag....

Lace

Lisa

Tasha

Lindsey

Lori

When you are done.. head over to Sharons five things and let her link to yah!

Rip it up!

This is what happens when your child wants you to stop looking at a catalog and pay attention to him!

He was cracking me up!!!

Thursday 13

13 things on my Wish List!

Since my b-day and Christmas are coming up.. I thought I would through out some hints :)

1. This Watch

2. Gap Gift Card

3. Extra long work out pants (hard to find!)

4. American Heart Association cook book

5. Grey's Anatomy previous seasons on DVD

6. Any Cool Picture Frames

7. Yummy Smelling Candles

8. Giftcard for Makeup-- Dillards, Foleys Macys

9. New Camera

10. Bath and Body works shower gel

(I hesitate to put this on my list because I did last year and every single person got me this junk!)

11. Sunglasses

12. Little hoop earrings with diamonds (ha, they can be fake!)

13. Car organizer for the back of your seat

Christmas Tour Of Homes!

YAY! Another Tour of home... this one is Holiday related!

On December 15th, head over to BooMama check out all the decorations of the Holidays!

Here are the Guidelines!

I am looking forward to it!

~you all should do it too~

MLS cup!

The MLS Cup was played here last Saturday... Our FCdallas Crew all went to just watch since our boys lost in the 1st round of playoffs. We were all pretty sad about that, but at the game I saw Kenny Cooper, one of my favotite FCD players and had my picture taken with Bobby Rhine my other fav! So, that made me super happy even though I was ticked off that Houston won on our field!



(*BTW- those are Gavin's beers I am holding...)

Hi there...

Who is that baby in the mirror??

I got some advice from a bloggin' momma friend of mine... Melanie! I had asked her for some advice to get Travis interested in crawling... and she told me about when Miles (her son) started crawling and it was because of a mirror on the floor and he wanted to play with that other baby :)

So, now we have a mirror on the floor and Travis is LOVING looking at himself in it! He thinks he is the funniest thing in the world... and laughs almost instantly when he sees himself inthe mirror!

It's GREAT!

Trav is so needing to be mobile... he is bored out of his mind at times and needs to be able to get places with out crying for me to move him...

Any advice from all you momma's out there??? We need it!

***

Trav's New Toofer!

Wanna update of Travs new tooth... well,. this little booger sure has made a grand entrance! WOW! I have heard that teething is so painful that an adult could not handle it... and I so believe that! Travis has been having a rough time, up all night long last night and barely napping today. I have tried everything and nothing seems to take the edge off... Motrin and Teething Tabs are the fastest fixes...

I am hoping for all of us, that this passes fast!

YAY, good to see yah!

My baby got his first tooth at 36 1/2 weeks!
Its 3 o'clock in the morning... Travis has had a rough night and with great reason!

He fell asleep like a champ but woke up about 1245 crying... I ran and got him thinking it was his tummy again and rocked him and he still seemed so uncomfortable. I made him a little bottle and rocked him, with NO change I decided to give him a once over by checking his diaper, temp ect... and his little cheeks were rosey, so I stuck my finger in his mouth and WOOHOO, there was a sharp little point on his bottom left gum! Gavin and I had noticed his little gums had seemed more red and puffy then normal and the past couple of weeks they have been a little swollen... and we were right! I just got my little man back down to sleep and had to post this, I was a little bit excited :)

Its a Jungle in here.....

Travis' New Improved Jungle Themed Play Room!
Gavin and I have been busy working on getting Travis' new playroom looking tip top! I painted the walls and figured out what mural I wanted, I ordered it and got an amazing discount! I LOVE IT! Gavin and I hung it up over the past 2 days and I think it is the coolest thing EVER!

It is a different type if wall art then I have ever seen before, it is called tatouage and looks like someone really painted on your walls...check out the site HERE and make sure to watch the video on how you do it.

***

I have a great sales rep named Amy, if you are interested in getting her sales updates write her an email at... Ademaille@aol.com

Here are a few more pictures... just for fun!

Check out my silly hubby pretending to climb the banana tree... and we can NOT forget the monkey chillin' on the wall next to are other jungle friends!

Photo Hunt

Growth

This is the house my husband grew up in... He went to San Jose California on a business trip and drove to Antioch for a visit to his old neighborhood.

When he lived here 11+ years ago all the trees were itty bitty and now look at how big they are! Amazing!!!

Just Like Daddy!

Is he gonna be a computer Geek Like Dada?

How cute is he?!?

He's baaaaack!

It has been a long, rough week but my little man is finally better! His fever is GONE!!!! No throwing up... still a few ikky #2's, but so much better! He is a little weak and sleepy but that will go away soon... BUT my baby is BACK and that is WONDERFUL!!!!! I really missed his sweet smile!

Thanks to you all for your love and support!

Thursday 13

Thirteen Hints for caring for a baby with the stomach flu!

All the stuff I learned this week...

1. Old receiving blankets are the best burp clothes when you have a baby that is throwing up.

2. Tylenol is ok on an empty stomach but Motrin is not.. it will make then throw up more ( the ER nurse told us that!)

3. If you have to take your baby to the hospital for an iv to re-hydrate... take all the distractions you can fit in your car, they will all need to be used! (it was the most painful thing to watch)

4. Put Butt Paste and powder on with every diaper change even before the bad #2's come, this will help keep your babe from getting an awful diaper rash. ( Dr. Smiths and Butt Paste are the best)

5. Put your baby in onsies or just t-shirts, pants will hurt their tummy.

6. When your babe will start drinking stuff, do it in SMALL doses. like 2ml's every 5-10 minutes just to make sure it stays down. Then after 4 hours with no vomiting you can move it up to an ounce every 30 minutes and keep increasing every 4 hours if it is staying down. If your child gulps it will come right back up (A blogger bud of mine, Jessica, told me this and so did our Pedi.. and it really helps!)

7. Hold off on milk or formula as long as you can, you know when you are sick drinking a glass of milk is the last thing you want to do.

8. When the time comes you can mix pedialite with the cereal and feed your baby (a little at a time) this will hopefully fill there tummies up enough to try and sleep it off.

9. Popsicles are the BEST!

10. Lots of LOVE and kisses, TLC is sometimes the best medicine!

11. Walking around and holding your babe will be one of the best ways to get them to sleep when they are so sick, I think it is because there is no real pressure on their tummies like their is when laying down.

12. Mylanta is a great acid reducer for #2's, (this is from a friend) I asked our Pedi and they agreed. You rub plain, no flavor mylanta on your babies bottom before cream and powder, this will help with the stomach acid burn when they go potty.

13. Do not stress, if you are unsure about something call your Pedi, or the hospital.. there will a always be someone to tell you if you need to take your babe in to the ER or just need to try something different. (Web MD is also very helpful)

BONUS** WASH your hands all the time and use lysol after your babe gets better on all handles, drawer plus, crib mattress! KILL those germs!

Almost Better!

Man last night was HARD! My mom stayed up with Travis and I and helped so much I could not even find the words to thank her! She went above and beyond her motherly and grandmotherly duties! I love her so much!!!! Anyways, Travis had a 102.9 fever most of the night and it would only drop to 101 with tylenol, which to me is still just awful and unbearably hot for an itty bitty baby! He had the hardest time sleeping and getting comfy along with being hungry but not wanting to eat and just miserable... He slept on both mom and all off and on all night long and finally when we got home this afternoon he took a great nap for Gavin (who is still feeling a little under the weather). The strangest thing happened while we were staying at my parents last night... She has a monitor that is pretty crumby if you ask me.. it picks up static EVERYWHERE and has 2 channels that kinda fade into one another. Well, we put Travis down and I had the monitor close to me and kept hearing a baby crying, but Trav was less then 20 feet from me so I knew it was not him... I figured we had picked up a signal from another baby monitor in the neighborhood, so I went to switch back to channel 1 and got a perfect signal from this other monitor... whatever baby we were hearing was miserably unhappy and crying at the top of his lungs for over an hour from what we heard, and that doesn't include earlier that night when I heard it and thought I was going crazy. I understand that some people have to let their kiddos cry it out in order to get them to sleep in their beds at night... but I think that over and hour of extreme crying is way to much.. being the type of person I am I just wanted to go knock on their neighbors doors and find the family who was ignoring their child and give them a piece of my mind... It is still bothering me, I can hear that little cry in my head POOR BABY!

well back to my guy... he broke his fever this afternoon and still is having #2's but less often. So, my string little guy is now asleep in his bed, cuddleing this little red silk hand blanket my mom made him aand sucking his little fingers. What a great sight to see! Thanks for all your prayers!!

They sure have helped my little guy in his road to recovery!

What Works for Me.... Opps! Its not Wednesday

Wanna see other WFMW participants??? Click on the picture above!

THIS IS A RE-POST FROM LAST THURSDAY!!!

sorry I missed last Wednesday

I have been SUPER Slacking on my

Works For Me Wednesday...

So, I thought I would post a Works for Me today since Trav is asleep and I have a GREAT one that you all will get use out of!

I have been having the HARDEST time getting Blogger to upload pictures and let me tell it makes me so mad sometimes... so I have figured out a little trick!

PHOTOBUCKET

I have been using Photobucket for a LONG time, BUT always had issues with the fact that it always linked back to their site... well, until I actually gave it a second and decided to see what I could do to tweak their image tags...

Here is the deal...

You gotta open up a FREE account with Photobucket and then upload your photos... they have sizes to choose from varying from enormous to itty bitty!

then you will see something like this...

COPY the Tag code and place it in the EDIT HTML section of your blogger post...

this is mine...

Erase the beginning section...

...which will take away the ability to link to another site, UNLESS you want to and then add your site where it says... "photobucket.com" I added www.alittletothewest.com

Then, if you want to have it say a name or title when scrolled over change the title... otherwise it will say Photobucket blah blah.

this is what you change...

... this is how I changed mine!

Here is my final result!

Scroll over it and see the title and click on it to be sent to the site!

It now has a permanet residence over in my sidebar for anyone to click on and shop!

I also used this method in my T-13 posts

***

These Image Tags can be added to anything... your template, a post an email!

It takes a little more time, BUT you will have an account with all the pictures you have added to anything and not have to bother with blogger fickle uploading ability!

Since I am a day late and prob. will not get any WFMW traffic, I will re-post next Wednesday!

Mr. T update

It is 8pm Tuesday night... Travis and I staying with my mom tonight, because Gavin is not feeling well and I am running on an hour of sleep and a 2 hour nap, and I need her HELP! THANKS MOM! I feel tired but to worried about my little guy to let myself fall asleep just in case because his fever is coming and going and I do not want to miss a thing. We went to our pediatrician today because T woke up with 102 fever and that is the highest he ever has had. The Dr. told us that sometimes a fever comes with the stomach flu...YUK! He has not thrown up since about 2am and is working on breaking his fever... Pedialite has been a life saver!!! Thank you for all your sweet prayers and comments, they have truly helped. God has had his arms wrapped very tightly around me, I am thankful that I have not gotten this nasty bug and hopefully will remain healthy so I can take care of my boys. I have a feeling tomorrow will be a better day!

Stomach Flu & ER Visit

My sweet little, crocodile hunting, beer box diving, huggable baby boy is sick... and I mean REALLY sick. He has the stomach flu... throwing up and #2's... poor little guy.

It is awful when itty bitty babes have tummy problems, I mean you never want to see your baby hurting in any way, but when you cant get them to drink anything and continually throw up you feel helpless! Gav and I took him to the after hours Dr. and they gave us some anti-vomiting suppositories and said to just keep him drinking whatever will go in... and that is NOTHING! Its gonna be a long night, I just pray that he will drink something soon! We have Pedialite Orange drink and popsicles but he is just not interested. I have tried Juice and water.. the Dr. said NO formula or foods until he is better. Any helpful hints or advice from you experienced Momma's would be wonderful!

Please Pray for my little guy to have a quick recovery and for me to have the strength to be the best Momma I can be while he is so sick...

***********edited to add***********

It is 3:30am and we just got home from the Emergency Room...

Travis started throwing up stomach acid and since he has reflux and was unable to take his medicine because of throwing up.. we just wanted to make sure he was ok. Plus he was not drinking anything. We got there and it took 3 nurses 3 different tries to get and IV in his itty bitty arm.. it was AWFUL! He cried so hard he was gasping for air, I was on the verge of a nervous breakdown hearing him so upset.

We are home now and he is in his bed, hopefully to stay asleep for longer then 20 minutes.

The sweet nurse that actually got T's IV in told us that having an IV will usually help the babies with this virus.. to get it their tummies calmed down sooner so they can actually eat something or drink something again without getting sick.

Man, I hope she is right!

I am off to my twin size blow up mattress in T's roo, to hopefully get a little bit of sleep.

...In a legends foot steps!

I just LOVED the Crocodile Hunter... Steve Irwin! I thought he was a little stupid at times, but quirky and fun to watch! I would always watch his silly show when there was nothing else on, and I did like to watch his silly adventures! Travis got a new Crocodile stuffed toy this passed week (from Old Navy) and LOVES it!!! This is him pretending to be the Baby Crocodile Hunter :)

BUSTED!

Itty Bitty Beer Thief

Check Him out in action

trying to steal Dada's beer!

My Biggest Fan!

One of the things I LOVE the most about being a mom is the fact that no matter what I look like, what I am wearing, the weight I have gained, the circles under my eyes... This precious little guy is still going to be my biggest fan!

***

I have now been doing the South Beach diet for 1 week and 4 days... Phase 1 is a beating and I absolutely hate it, but actually have figured out what I can eat to fill me up and it hasn't been that bad!

The good news... I have lost 11 lbs already! WOOHOO!

I am loving the results I am seeing!

I also joined Curves... besides being the youngest person I have ever seen there, I am actually enjoying the workout and all the women, they are all so supportive and wonderful. It is not so hard on my legs like the Boot Camp was (even though I really miss it) and it is all at your own pace. Speaking of my leg... I went to the Dr. the other day about my leg (the reason I stopped Boot Camp) and I have a stress fracture and strained muscle. OUCH! I have to go to physical Therapy 4 times and then get re-evaluated BLAH! I had no idea, this whole time I thought I had a pulled muscle and that it would go away with rest...

anyways, I am so proud of myself for sticking with the diet and workout...

It helps to have motivation that so lovable and cute!

Photo Hunt

Windows

The theme this week is Windows...

So, I thought I would show you all how I have dressed mine up!