First round of shots

Daddy got to take Little Man to his appointment for his first round of shots on Monday. Mommy doesn't do needles. Especially if they're going to be poking her precious little one - so sad! I came home and he had blue crayola band-aids on both his legs. Patrick said he reached a whole new kind of scream when they poked him :(

Sweet cousins!

Last night while visiting grandmother, Eleanor (1 1/2 years old) kept Thomas's seat warm for him. She and Thomas are booth hooked on "Soothies" only.

Kay Masterson - She was our beautiful flower girl at our wedding and loves the baby Thomas! We went to visit them at the Jacomini farm.

Pretty little girl - she has a ballet recital in Houston this Friday...trying to figure out if we can make it

She did such a great job! Little man was all kinds of cozy and asleep.

Bluebonnets...

So, we attempted to get a super cute picture of baby + bluebonnets, but it didn't exactly work. The attempt was funny at least, but we'll probably try again for some with a smiling baby :)

The Burleson Wedding

Little Man attended his first wedding on Saturday. He LOVED the music and had good times dancing with Mommy and Daddy. Congratulations to the new Mr. and Mrs. Jeremy Burleson! Patrick fed him his bottle while watching the people giving their toasts...

Thomas already has the girls all over him. He's a pimp.

Two Months Old! 3/20/09

Thomas turned two months old on Friday! In keeping with tradition, we greeted Grandpa and Grandmama Ervin with his birthday sign on our arrival to Brenham. Little man was sleepy though.

Baby Blue Eyes

Ok, one more picture :) He has the most beautiful blue eyes, it's just hard to see them in pictures sometimes:

A Surprise Visitor!!

Little man was super excited last night because his Grandpa drove all the way in from Houston to stay and visit for the night!! ...he also had court in the morning. Grandpa Ervin swears he's heard little man say his first word already: "GRANDPA!" ...soon enough, soon enough.

I'm thinking his first word will be "Mama", but apparently according to teachers, who I guess know what they're talking about, they say "Da-da" first because of some development thing with their tongue. Whatever. haha. Little man is TWO MONTHS old today!! Very exciting. Now if he somehow manages to get a fever he won't need a spinal tap... this is a very exciting / relieving landmark in his little life.

Dog Gone Cute!

Here Little Man is practicing walking to his daddy.... he literally puts one foot in front of the other. It makes him happy. Hence the smile and no puchetos (frowns). It won't be long until the outlet protectors come out. Uncle Cliffy once stuck a key in one and got an electric surprise.

Thomas gets pretty serious when he's practicing...

Dog Gone Cute!!! I love the little bittle ears on this outfit :) .... chunky monkey isn't the biggest fan though.

It's hard to leave for work when you have the most precious little man on planet earth smiling, cooing, and looking you right in the face. Little Man is definitely advanced for his age. He's already reading nursery rhymes.... silently of course.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!!

While we won't be drinking green beer and partying at the Corner Bar on Northgate this year, we have our own fun-filled little irish boy to entertain us! Little Man's "Kiss Me I'm Irish" outfit is super comfy and oh so cute!

Jumperoooooo!!!

Call us overzealous - but we could not wait to put little man in his jumperoo... he just needs about one more inch and then he'd be able to touch the ground! Tonight he will be 8 weeks old... so i guess it was a bit early. But he loved it! ...kinda.

5 Generations

The moment Daddy Hal met his Great-Great-Grandson...there were fireworks...

When little Thomas was born, he became the fifth generation on the Baylor side and on the Schmidt side. We were lucky to have the opportunity to photograph all 5 generations together one evening. Daddy Hall, Mimi, Keith, Tori, and the baby Thomas.

Daddy Hal even had the opportunity to feed the little man!

Poor Little Man

So, Thomas is NOT a fan of his antibiotic eye ointment. We have to wait til he has his eyes open and not being a wiggle worm and then BAM! we sneak some of the ointment into the corner of his eyes by the tear ducts. It must burn or something because he gets a whole new kind of red in the face! He is definitely a pouter when something is not going his way (must have got that from his mom, oops).
This short screaming session was brought on b/c little man wanted to fly like an airplane and stand up and try to walk (see below). Laying down was simply not an option.

Learning to fly...

He'll prob walk before he crawls...crawling just pisses him off b/c he doesn't go anywhere fast.

This precious little face arrives every time he has to get out of the bath. He goes from kicking his feet in the water, to a screaming little unhappy critter in about negative 2 seconds. We try to crank up the heater so he doesn't get so cold.

While nobody likes an upset baby, his clenched fists and quivering bottom lip in full pout are def the cutest in the world.

Thomas and his "Soothie". Def a brand whore already. It is the ONLY kind he will use. Don't even try something else. If the 5 we have somehow disappear, we're buying every single one CVS and Walgreen's have in stock....we get that desperate.

Thomas & his Grandparents

Grand-Jancy and her favorite little man... still waiting to decide on the official name :)

Don waiting for Thomas to scream "GRANDPA!"...it will come, very soon ;)

Dad sharing his lap with the baby and Sarah the cat, who is NOT a fan of sharing...Thomas was kicking her in the rump in this picture haha

Grand-Mary and Baby T!! nose to nose.

Pumping Iron

Little Man loves his monogrammed rattle. He's already started working out those biceps... no wonder he's in the 100th percentile on the growth charts. Next week: 20 pull-ups in a row.

The baby blues :(

We took little Thomas to the doctor today. Bad news first - little man has an eye infection and rash because he's gotten so pudgy and we need to be more careful and cleaning inbetween all his rolls every day. When we left the hospital they said to bathe him every other day, but apparently they didn't know how fast he would grow! Good news - Thomas is 24in long and weighs 12.3pounds! He's off the charts for a baby his age, so we're looking at a potential pro athlete here.

Anyways the eye thing is totally normal - it's really just a clogged tear duct, so we have to put antibiotic cream or something on it 2 to 3 times a day. I'm nervous about putting ointment on his eyeballs, but I'll get over it. yuck.

Last week was my first week back to work after having 6 weeks off to spend precious time with the Little Man. Needless to say I head straight home to pick him up as soon as I can every day.

This past weekend we were in Burton, Texas, at Patrick's parents hosting a wedding shower for some of Pat's high school friends. We got to take this family picture with BOTH our children; Bella was our actual first child. She was born January 13, 2008, sharing a birthday with my Papa. I predict a joint bday party for Bella and Thomas in 2010 :)

Pictures.

All smiles on the changing table! Deep thoughts in the bath tub - first time not to scream the whole way through!

Playing Airplane with daddy - a new favorite

Playing with baby in his Activity Gym from the Lumpkins :)

Little man has found is thumb! And is consistently searching for it...

Visitors

Over the past 6 weeks...and one day :) baby Thomas has had LOTS of visitors.

Cousin Blaise flew in from Seattle for the last weekend of January and Auntie Meg flew down from Connecticut over Valentine's weekend. Blaise brought a super cute hooded-onesie and blanket, which by the way, Little Man wore on his first outing to Gruene, Texas (we forgot the camera...dangit). Blaise and I were tight growing up and were bridesmaids in each other's weddings where we both put our party pants on. So, it meant the world to have her fly down. Our grandmother (Thomas's great-grandmother) was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer the week Thomas was born, so Blaise was able to visit with her as well.

Auntie Meg's visit was good times as she got to baby-sit Thomas on his FIRST overnight stay at Grand-Mary's and Grandpa Keith's.... my dad is still trying to figure out what he wants to be called. His latest is Papu, the Greek name for grandfather. Megs also unloaded her suitcase to reveal a whole new wardrobe for the little man. The kenneth cole onesie and capricorn onesie being amongst my favorites. Sunday morning when Patrick and I came to pick the Little Man up it was quite obvious that nobody had got much sleep the night before. I guess we had somehow gotten used to averaging 3 to 4 hours of sleep a night by that point.

Thomas's visitor page in his baby book is all kinds of full, but he enjoys all the company and loves the attention. Last week Mimi came to visit and got him to smile / laugh 3 times in a row! I was almost jealous....almost. She's the baby noise expert :)

Baby Thomas's First Bath!

After coming home from the hospital, Patrick and I were totally nervous about everything because obviously we had never cared for an infant before. The whole umbilical cord thing was pretty sick, and Little Man kept his for over two weeks - eww. When it was time for his first bath, Grand-Mary came over to help us. Daddy took over though and did a fabulous job! I tried to help, but ended up being more of an onlooker because I was too nervous. The little man was super slippery when wet.

These days Thomas gets a bath every other day and Patrick is in charge. I usually step in to wash the hair and stand at the ready with the towel, wash-cloth, soap, etc. It's so amazing to see how wonderful Patrick is as a father. My cousin Kristina bought us this size huge sponge thing that the little man lays on in the bath tub. It keeps him warm, but more importantly, it keeps him from slipping all over the place. We haven't taken any pictures of this amazing thing, but will at next bath time. I've just never been too big a fan of the bath time pictures. I think they're just awkward and embarassing to the kid as they grow up. It's like hey, me as a naked baby! cooool....except not. Anyways, Thomas used to scream and cry non-stop through bath time, but last night he actually seemed to be enjoying it. He was kicking his feet in the water and was surprisingly chill throughout. AND!!! LITTLE MAN SLEPT FIVE HOURS IN A ROW LAST NIGHT! That means mommy and daddy were well-rested and left for work calm and relaxed.

Anyways, thank you to Grand-Mary for showing us the art of the washcloth sponge bath!

Six weeks old...

Our precious bundle of joy will be SIX weeks old tonight at 1:31am! It's crazy to think that this time six weeks ago the doc's were flip-flopping back and forth between continuing labor or stopping and doing a c-section. Luckily, she let me continue...the short of it is that 2 epidurals and 20 hours of labor produced the most beautiful baby boy ever born. We named him Thomas Nelson Ervin. Born at 1:31am Tuesday January 20,2009, Thomas weighed 8lbs, 10 oz and measured 22.5inches long! The picture at left was literally moments after his arrival!

We picked the name Thomas because it's a strong family name. Tragedy struck the Ervin family literally one week before our wedding when Patrick's cousin Thomas Jacomini, his wife and two kids all passed away in a plane crash. We attended the funeral in Houston on Friday and got married Saturday. Patrick completely admired, adored, and respected his cousin, so there was no question that this was the right thing to do. As for the middle name, that was derived from a family connection as well. On Patrick's dad's side, they are directly related to Thomas Nelson, a signer of the Declaration of Independence. My grandfather's brother was named Thomas as well. I knew him as Uncle Tommy. We haven't decided on a knick-name for baby Thomas yet per se, but feel that one will develop naturally with time.

More pictures with stories will be posted asap to get caught up on the little man's past 6 weeks!