Weekend Update

Mr. Miles is still sleeping through the night! I just can't brag about him enough. I know other babies his age that still aren't doing it so I know how blessed we truly are!

Friday was my day off (9/80 schedules for the summer) so I spent a lot of time hanging out with my little man since my big man still had to work. It was nice to be able to feed him instead of that blasted machine! Our friends L&R were coming over for dinner to celebrate her birthday. I spent Friday afternoon making her birthday cake below. (Also shown is the bday cake I made for Jason last weekend) We had lasagna and a really good salad. It was inspired by a salad I had here on Thursday night. It was FAN-TAB-U-LOUS. It was spinach leaves, pecans, cranberries, feta cheese, a couple of fried shrimp (left these out for dinner) and a raspberry vinegarette (homemade an herb vinegarette with dinner with thyme from the garden!). Everything was extra yummy!

Saturday we ran errands - BabiesRUs and the wine store - HA! What a combo! I needed to get a couple things for a girl that had a baby at work and I REALLY wanted/needed/had to have this little gym for Mr. Miles. His little legs have been going 90 to nothing lately and I feel like we don't have any good toys for his legs. I mean I have a jumperoo (2 actually) but he's still too short/doesn't have total head control yet for them. Plus I had a 15% off coupon that was going to expire this week....so you know...I HAD to use it. Needless to say, Daddy wasn't happy when he saw the price tag "just for a baby toy." But I had researched them and this was the one I was getting NO.MATTER.WHAT. It was the only one that had a music/lights kick pad and can grow with him and "taught" so many developemental milestones (read the website for info). After remembering about the coupon and reading all the good info on it, he finally caved. My research/begging/pleading padi off though when we got home and put the little guy on it for the first time. It has several settings - one for continuous music and another for music initiated by kicks. Daddy thought we should put it on continuous because "he's too little" but Mommy knew otherwise. It only took about 1 minute for Miles to catch on - when I kick, there is music and lights! SO CUTE! Also, in case you interested in getting your own cutie pie one of these, it doesn't play the same annoying repetitive tune every.single.time. It goes through several and they are nice little diddys (is that a word and if so, is that how you spell it?). Finally Daddy had to tell Mommy what a good choice this was and that Miles really loves it. HA! Mommy DOES know best!

The wine store visit was to purchase more corks, sleeves, and grape concentrate for our next batch. We bottled our Chilean Merlot this weekend. It's been percolating/brewing/aging since November. The last bottle didn't have enough to make an entire bottle, so we got to have a glass and let me tell you, it was awesome - if I do say so myself. :) The next batch is a strawberry white merlot. Should be ready in about 5 weeks - perfect summer wine to chill with by the pool...er...we don't have a pool, so maybe the neighbor's pool?

Speaking of pools, Dean was craving to be outside even though it was 117 in the shade this weekend. He was also pouting because we didn't have a pool and the neighbors didn't invite us over. So he busted out the kiddie pool we have and we all got in our suits and sat in it! I do have to say we looked a little hillbilly, but it was cool and refreshing.

Miles apparently had/is still having a growth spurt. I know in our classes they said they usually have one at 3, 6, 9 weeks and 3, 6, 9 months. But since he was born almost a week early, I guess you could say he is 9 weeks now - even though he's really 10. He was eating and sleeping a lot more this weekend than he usually does. He didn't want hardly any activity time on Sunday after his feedings - just right back to sleep. We can definitely tell he is growing!

This morning when I woke up at 4 BLASTED 30 he was stirring in his crib so I decided to feed him instead of the machine. I hoped afterwards he would go back to sleep so Daddy could catch a few more z's and he did so that was good. It felt so good to get to feed and hold him before going to work. Last week all I got to do was give him a goodbye kiss on the head. Today we got to cuddle!

Speaking of the little cuddler, here are some pics for your viewing pleasure. I added the last 2 weekly pics of him and Mr. Monkey over there--------------->

Smiles for Miles!
Spit bubbles are the new thingMom, Miles, Desiree, Bryson. Bryson is 10 days older than Miles. I can't figure out their relation, but Bryson to me is my great-great nephew!!! HA!

The Artalls during a nature trail walk

***Hopefully you made it this far. I really didn't mean for this post to be quite so lengthy, but we had a long weekend and I needed to share!