Mansfield again

Jeremy and I drove back up to Mansfield this weekend to enjoy another Rangers game and let Granny Randy play with Autumn for a night. The game was so much fun and Autumn had a great time with the family!

I learned last night that I am a VERY lucky woman. I married a legend in Mansfield! During one summer break, while Jeremy was in college, he worked at the local video store. He doesn't have any good stories about this time, but I have a feeling that he is leaving something out. On one of the brick pillars outside of the video store, to this day there is some very interesting grafitti.

There is a heart out there somewhere that is eternally broken because the love of her life has found another. While Jeremy claims that the love was one-sided, the mystery woman should be comforted in knowing that she found the most permanent ink there is.

Like Her Daddy

Everyone's keeps talking about how much Autumn looks exactly like Jeremy and I've finally captured the resemblance on film. The likeness is amazing!!

Independence

The biggest topic around here these days is the one thing I forgot to mention in my last post. I swear, I'm losing my mind these days and lack of sleep could have something to do with that.

Saturday night, I put Autumn to sleep at night in her big girl crib for the first time. I know this sounds crazy, but I have been dreading this day for a long time. I really loved having her next to me while I slept, but she has been getting bigger by the day and was starting to outgrow her co-sleeper. I would wake up and her legs would be hanging out of the bed! As you can tell, I've been putting this day off for a long time. I have to admit, I was a mess. I prepared for this by buying a video monitor (which I swore to myself I would never need!) and setting it up next to her sound monitor in her bed and my room. After the long week that we had, she zonked out quickly in her crib. When I went to bed, I went in to check on her and of course, she was fine. Throughout the night, I probably woke up every 45 minutes to check on her remotely. In the morning, at 8am, I woke up to my monitor beeping because the base had been turned off. I assumed that Jeremy went in to get her and so I tried to go back to sleep. However, the monitor kept beeping. I couldn't figure out why Jeremy wouldn't just come in to the room to turn off the monitor so I could keep sleeping, so I headed to Autumn's room to ask him why! Well, I found that my little stinker had crawled up in to the corner and had turned the monitor off herself. I could just imagine her saying "Mama, don't listen to me anymore!".

Tonight is the fourth night in a row that she's going to be alone in her room for the night. I completely understand that it is important for her to be in her room at night but it is hard for me to comprehend. I have always been one to imagine the worst, which is what I'm doing in this situation. What if there is a fire in the house and I can't get to her? What if someone breaks in to the house and gets her first? Although in reality, I know that these things are unlikely to actually happen, in my mind, these are the things that could. And to be completely honest, I do not want to live one second on this earth without my little girl. And I will do anything, and I mean anything to protect her. My way of protecting her up until 4 days ago was keeping her beside me, even when I sleep. It's just going to take a while to get used to, but I'm sure she'll appreciate this when she's older and I'm not still stuffing her in that tiny co-sleeper!

I did not know how much I would love her. It's completely impossible to quantify it. I just know that the world is a better place with her in it and I'm lucky to be her mommy. And every morning when I get to go in and pick her up, I am the one who gets to see that big smile, like she's saying "well, there you are"! And that moment every day may just make all of this worry worth the trouble.

The last week

Autumn and I have had a busy last couple of days! We've been going and going and my little one has been a trooper through it all.


Last Thursday, we drove to Bryan and had a sleepover with our Auntie Elizabeth and Autumn's best friend, Felicia! Although we didn't get any pictures this time (we'll be hanging out for over a week together in Leakey two weeks from now and I am certain that we'll get plenty of pictures there!), Elizabeth and I got the kiddos to bed on time and had a blast gossiping, eating, and drinking margaritas! I stopped off at Must Be Heaven for some to-go slices of pie and we ended up giving up the margaritas for them. I told Elizabeth that it's sad that I don't have a problem admitting that I'd much rather have pie than booze these days!


On Friday, my cousin Kendra, who is an amazing ballerina, was performing in a dance concert at A&M and after a wonderful dinner out with the family, we headed to campus to check it out. The concert started at 730 so I figured that Autumn would just sleep through the entire thing, but boy was I wrong. She was really interested in the dancers and stayed awake the whole time. As soon as we got in the car, though, she was out like a light until we had to wake her up to put her in some pjs to go to bed.


Saturday, we headed home to get ready for the Brew-B-Que, which is where the Chihuahua races were being held. For those of you who don't know, Dolly is a Chihuahua race veteran so we knew what we were getting in to! We headed down to Waterloo Park and Dolly showed all the other dogs how it was done. We won our first heat and then unfortunately lost in the finals. But Dolly was a champ and remains one of the fastest Chihuahuas in the west! After the races, we set up camp and were joined by a bunch of friends and were able to relax and enjoy the rest of the day. Autumn and her boyfriend Graham got to hang out most of the day, and I think I've raised a little flirt (or a potential cougar... she likes 'em young, haha). They were laying side by side on our blanket and Autumn kept grabbing the poor little man. It sure was super cute, though!

Eventually, they ended up holding hands...

...and then napping together.

Yesterday, I celebrated my very first *real* Mother's Day with my 2 favorite people (and 3 favorite dogs!). It was a very relaxing day that included grilling some chicken kebabs and taking a luxuriously long bubble bath with a book that I've been reading for quite a while. I don't get a lot of time these days to sit down and read and so it was wonderful! I also received some beautiful earrings in Autumn's birthstone (blue topaz) that I will cherish forever.

Happy Mother's Day to all of my wonderful friends and family. I hope that yours was as wonderful as mine :)

User Error.

I will keep this posting short with just a short video of my precious. This was taken last Wednesday with my digital camera, and unfortunately I turned the camera sideways to get the whole shot. I learned the hard way, though, that when you turn the camera sideways, you cannot turn it back the right way when you transfer it to the computer. However, this is such an adorable video that I cannot bring myself to delete it. Tenley and I tried to recreate the moment, but Autumn would not cooperate. The bottom line is that I'm stuck with a video that you'll have to turn your head to enjoy! It's really the sound that's important with this one anyways!

There's more than one way to honk a horn!

Last weekend I was fortunate enough to see Fleetwood Mac in concert. It was truly amazing and I loved every second of it. I left Autumn for the first time overnight and I think I did ok :) It was really a fun time and I'm so glad that I went. Unfortunately I don't have any pictures because we were told that they were confiscating cameras at the door so I left mine at the hotel. I was so disappointed to see almost everyone in the arena had brought in their cameras and were taking pictures the whole time. I cried when Stevie sang Landslide and Lindsey sang Never Going Back Again immediately after. That was hands down my favorite part of the concert!

Autumn is getting so big, I just can't believe it. She will be 5 months on Wednesday and is such a joy. She's talkative, very smiley, and very curious. She's mastered the art of rolling over and is now working on sitting up unassisted. Tenley put her in the jeep today for the first time without any belly support and she held herself up wonderfully! The funniest thing happened while she was in the jeep, though... Take a look for yourself.

She is getting chubbier by the second and I love every single roll. Take a look at these thighs. I wish my chubby thighs were this cute!

This weekend there are some Chihuahua Races in Austin that we will be attending. For those of you who don't know, Dolly is a Chihuahua Race veteran. We have the experience necessary to give the competitors a run for their money. Wish us luck!