Our Weekend

Matt has been gone most of the weekend. On Friday evening, he had to head to Bossier with his parents for a visitation. On Saturday, he and three of his friends headed to Catalouie (sp?). Catalouie is a camp that my dad has...it's close to Natchez, MS. My parents are currently building a house/cabin there and it's going to be way nicer than my house so I am looking foward to it being finished in September so that our little family can go and stay for the weekend. There are tons of guy things to do there...hunting (deer, duck, alligator :), snakes, and I'm sure other things) and fisihing! I haven't actually been to the camp yet but I've seen tons of pictures and it's beautiful! It's definitely heaven for the boys! This is a picture of the house going up!

And, the view out the back of the house.

Anyway, Matt and his friends, armed with pistols and other guns (you can tell I know alot about guns..haha), left extremely early with FOUR four-wheelers on a really long trailer. They had a good time and killed many snakes!!! I must say poor Matthew was COVERED in mud from two of his "friends". He spent forever digging mud out of his ear...yuck! Thanks, Gabe and Chad.

Then, Saturday night, Matt had a fish fry with the CORPS men! Trigger has another ear infection sooo...it's been a LONG weekend. Saturday morning, Trigger was sooo happy. We went to the children's shoppe and walmart. He charmed everyone! Then, we get home and I put him down for an afternoon nap. He woke up after 30 minutes SCREAMING. He usually sleeps at least an hour in the afternoon. I gave him some tylenol and he finally took a nap around 3:30 and slept for 2 hours and 15 minutes...WOW!!!! I'm wondering if he's teething again. I keep thinking that it's impossible for him to already be getting his molars but he's chewing up a storm and he's cut all his other teeth early. I guess time will tell! These are some pics from Saturday. He loves chewing on the mylicon bottle...another reason I think he's teething again! It was making him happy so I let him do it.


And, here is him watching the Wonder Pets. It doesn't matter where he is or what he's doing, when Trigger hears the phone ringing, he high tails it to see the TV. Can't you hear it, "The phone, the phone is ringing...there's an animal in trouble somewhere...Wonder pets, wonder pets, we're on our way..." I'll stop there and you can sing the rest!

Last pictures, Trigger was eating puffs and one stuck to his face...I thought it was funny. This was when he was still in a good mood so I took several pictures.


One more thing, Trigger has now gone from 5 bottles a day to 3 bottles and 1 sippy cup a day. I changed his schedule yesterday and it worked great!

Our Nursery!

I can't believe it is already Friday...seems like I was just posting about our dining room! This week over at Kelly's Korner it is Show Us Your House Friday: Nursery/Children's room. This is the only room that actually have things hanging on the wall. When I started planning the Nursery, I knew that I did NOT want a theme. I'm not real big on theme nursery rooms like transportation or baseball. Now, there are some baseball and transportation things in the room but no theme. We used light blue and navy colors with a few spashes of RED (my favorite color)!
This is the sign that is on Trigger's door. Ladies in Waiting in Shreveport, LA made it for me. When I picked it up, they asked me if I had a western theme in the nursery. Ummm, no! For those of you that don't know, Trigger was my mom's name (her nickname). Her real name was Wilmoth Dewitt Stevens Hood. When she was very young, she was nicknamed "Trigger" because she was "fast as a trigger". And, can you blame her for wanting to go by Trigger...who would want to be Wilmoth. So, my son is named after his grandmother.

When you walk in the door, this is the view of the room.

Our bed is a convertible one but I don't think we will convert it. Instead, we will probably use all Trigger's furniture for another baby (hopefully) and get him new big boy furniture! Our bedding is from Pottery Barn and I LOVE IT!


This is Trigger's changing table.

His armoire and table and chairs.

These are the pictures above the table and chairs. My neices, Abby and Chelsea, and nephew, Corbin, painted these for Trigger. I LOVE THEM and they are probably my favorite thing in the room.

Our glider and ottoman. We have rocked many hours in this glider. I'm not sure if you can see it but the red pillow in the chair has a vintage baseball patch in the middle. It's an Astros baseball. We LOVE the astros! My MIL made this pillow for me and I love it!

Close-up of the bookcase. I'm a teacher so of course Trigger already has alot of books!!!!! And, these aren't even all of them.

And, Trigger's closet. These are his "mall" clothes. His play clothes are in his dresser. "MALL" clothes/shoes is a term my mom used. We always had "mall" shoes that we were allowed to wear on the weekend or to parties. When Liz and Daddy got married, Liz thought it was very funny that we had "mall" shoes!

So dang cute!

Trigger is "crying it out" at the moment. He is not liking naptime lately...too bad...MOMMA IS OUT OF SCHOOL! soooo...the crying it out has begun again...he is probably having flashbacks to naptime bootcamp during spring break!
Yesterday, today and tomorrow are half days...yesterday, I decided to take Trigger outside for a little photo session. We haven't had one in awhile...it's been at least a week! HAHA! Anyway, we got some good shots and some funny shots. Here are a few.

Memorial Day

I had to post a few pics from Trigger's first Memorial day. I had to work because for some reason Cedar Creek does not observe the holiday...CRAZY, I know! Matt was off so he kept Trigger. They had a good day together and even made a trip to town to bring me some lunch (Wendy's Dollar Menu....YUMMY)! Here are some pics of Trigger in his Memorial Day outfit. I hope you took a minute to say thank you to those men and women that serve our country!!!



Speaking of the dollar menu reminded me to tell you about my GREAT find! If you go to Sonic and like their chicken, I have a great cheap solution for you! I used to always get the kids chicken. And, the prices kept going up and up! They have now come out with a dollar menu. I order the dollar menu chicken sandwich PLAIN and a dollar menu fry...TWO DOLLARS TOTAL! and I just take the chicken out and eat it plain and my fries...GUESS what...you have the kids chicken meal for only 2 dollars! I feel like I am cheating them out of their money everytime!

Sad Day

Well. Sunday, May 24, 2009, at 8:30 PM was my LAST TIME TO PUMP! I have been so surprised by my feelings towards breastmilk and pumping. Shortly after we were "in the clear"/around 12-20 weeks pregnant, I started researching about breastfeeding. I read or started reading two books about it because I was told that I needed to read as much as possible about the subject and try to be as informed as possible. My attitude about the whole thing (before baby) was if it happens, GREAT. If not, oh well. Now I knew the benefits. I had many, many development classes in college and all drilled into us about how important breastmilk is. So I knew/know the facts. But I still was nervous about it and just went into it with a realistic attitude that it may not work. I also knew that there was huge chance that we would deliver Trigger early and he may not be able to breastfeed. Well, that ended up true. While we were in the hospital, Jennifer (my SIL) sterlized all her pump parts and brought it all to me. SOoooo sweet! However, the night Trigger was born, we went up to the NICU and I asked about breastfeeding. Of course Trigger wasn't big enough to actually nurse. They "gave" (or paid by insurance) me a MEDELA pump. Matt and I took the pump back to the room and got everything out and read the directions. Matt had to go back up to the NICU to sterilize everything and I pumped for the first time that night. I pumped every 3 hours to try to get my milk to come in. It took 3 days....he was born on Tuesday night and Friday night I started flowing! I remember waking Matt up (we were staying in the hotel in Shreveport) to show him. It was very exciting. We stored my milk in the fridge and transported it to the NICU everyday. Since I was pretty much living in Shreveport while Trigger was in the NICU, I did quite a bit of pumping in Liz's car (thank goodness for the battery pack...next go round I will invest in the car adapter) and in the NICU nursing room. Anyway, when Trigger was discharged, they told me that I could try nursing at home. It was too nerve racking for us because it was hard enough to get him to stay awake to take 50 CCs in 25-30 minutes...they had told us how critical it was to make sure he got enough milk since he was so little. So we opted to continue pumping and KNOW what Trigger was getting. I pumped every three hours around the clock. The hard thing about pumping exclusively is that it drains you and your husband...noone gets a break. Our schedule was 7, 10, 1, and 4 AM and PM...that's what the NICU put Trigger on and we continued. So, Matt would get up and feed Trigger during the night and I would get up and pump....FOR THE BIRDS!!!! AWFUL...worth it but awful!!!! because we couldn't just say, "I'll take tonight and you take tomorrow night." Anyway, we made it through it!
I want you to know that the BOOKS ARE WROnG! I read in so many books and on the internet that people who pumped exclusively would NOT have enough milk. Well, this is ONE time that it pays for my body to be the opposite of what the books say. I was a milk machine! In January 09, I was pumping 65 ounces a day...over double what my child needs in a day. I pump and freeze my milk. I have pumped so much milk that my grandmother gave me her new chest freezer and we bought and upright freezer to store the milk in. AND, they were full about a month ago. NO MORE ROOM FOR MILK...TWO FREEZERS! crazy!!! I have enough milk to probably last until Trigger is about 16 months old....breastmilk for 16 months...NO formula. AMAZING! Anyway, so I had a friend tell me that I really needed to start slowing down or I was going to be in pain when I stopped. I started slowing stretching out the time between pumping sessions..and slowly started getting my life back! And, Sunday was my last time to pump. Amazing how I went from "if it works, it works" to pumping 65 ounces and not stopping until Trigger is 10 months. That's right I pumped for 10 MONTHS! I know this is a long post but so important to me and this has consumed my/my families/my co-workers lives for the last 10 months. Glad I'm done but so sad that my baby doesn't need me anymore. For those of you that would like to pump, I'm here to tell you that it can happen but you have to be determined. I didn't miss pumping sessions...until it was time to quit. You have to be willing to set everything aside to make it happen! I could not have done it without a supportive husband, family members, and co-workers!!!! Thank you for helping me.
These are pictures of my last pumping session...nothing revealing..don't worry!
Me and my horns

My last milk!

Me and my best friend: The MEDELA pump...BTW, if you are looking for a pump, this is THE best pump.

FUN FACTS: I pumped approximately 1,700 times. I spent approx. 33,000 minutes pumping (or 550 hours). WOW! Sooo...I would say the medela pump is a good one if it can hold up for that many hours!

Nothing Better!

A baby's laugh is the most precious thing in the world! Especially when it's your baby. This is a video of Trigger laughing at Matt after supper one night. It was taped on May 1st.
I hope you are having a good week. Tomorrow is graduation! woohoo!!

Our Dining Room

I am participating in Kelly's show me your house Friday again this week. This week you are supposed to post pictures of your dining room. Matt and I were just discussing how we wish we did NOT have a dining room but rather a really large kitchen that would accomodate a huge table. We never use our dining room! However, I really like the space. The color on three of the walls is kindof a burnt orange and I would have NEVER picked it but I LOVE IT!
This picture is what you see when you come in from the laundry room or kitchen. The brown door is our front door and the white doors on the right of the picture. They lead to our office.

This is the view if you were coming from our master bedroom hallway.

I absolutely love my new china cabinet. My parents gave it to me for Christmas. I desparately needed something to store all of our china, serving peices, and table linens.

Inside my china cabinet, I have my moms china. It's not what I would pick out but I love it because it was hers.

These are a few other things of my grandmothers that are stored in the china cabinet.

I absolutely LOVE this. My parents gave me this for Christmas. It's from Pottery Barn and has our initials etched on the top of the glass. Our wedding flowers are stored inside.


In other news, Trigger is feeling a little better. Sunday night was pretty rough...brought back many memories from the newborn nights! We went to the doctor on Monday and I stayed home with him. I took a few pictures of him playing (playtime was MINIMAL on this day since he wasn't feeling good). He has been pulling up for about month now. But, he has just started pulling himself up on his toy bucket and it's sooo cute. He will reach in and pull everything out and throw it on the floor. CUTE NOW...probably not going to be so cute in a few weeks..haha! He doesn't look too happy in these pictures but still cute! Oh yeah...and as for the socks on the entertainment center...Trigger got them out of the laundry basket and put them there. :)




Have a great weekend!!! I hope to get lots of rest....HAHAHA!!!! Nope..no rest for me...got to finish my 13 scrapbooks for my precious students!

Update and the Weekend

Update: this is copied off facebook!
great news!! Melissa is off the vent. She has moved her legs and fingers on command. Just got a text from Carolyn, she said :"MOM!" Keep praying, things are looking up for the Riggle family" What a joy that "MOM" word much have brought to this mom's heart! Like Amy said...Keep Praying!
We have had a VERY busy weekend. Matt and I decided to do a little rearranging yesterday. It was our plan to do some of this before Trigger was born...we actually started rearranging furniture the Sunday before I was put into the hospital. Anyway, we have moved all of my craft/sewing/scrapbook stuff to the office. Matt and I now share the office. And, our guest bedroom is just that...a guest bedroom. AND, eventually...NOT NOW (unless God has other plans)...we will move Trigger to the back room and a brother or sister will occupy Trigger's nursery. NOTHING is organized and everything looks horrible right now but it's going to look much better when I get everything organized.
I'm home today with a sick and VERY fussy baby!!! He was screaming until almost midnight last night. We went to see the dr. this morning. He has an upper respiratory virus. I really thought he had an ear infection but he doesn't. She thinks the screaming is from being so congested/not being able to breathe and teething (his 8th tooth). Soooo...we now have a decongestant that will hopefully work and not make him wired!!! AND...hopefully this is not going to mess up our napping/sleeping through the night routines!!!! :)
I have inclueded some pictures from our little photo session from this weekend while Matthew mowed the grass. For some reason while Trigger was in the grass, he wouldn't put his knees down while crawling. It was hilarious to see him crawling on this toes. He must not like the feel of grass on his knees.






He got a little upset when I would pull the grass out of his mouth...I know...I'm a horrible mom.


AND, we're happy again!

I hope you have a great week!