Birthdays and Turkeys

Last weekend was by birthday... #26.  Man, I feel like I'm getting old!  Haha...  We left Ruston with a church friend of ours for a couple of hours on Friday night, and Jason and I went to see Shutter Island.  It's definitely an unordinary movie, but nonetheless, I enjoyed it, and it messed with my head a bit.  Jason works with crazies while doing his security stuff at the hospital, so he would have preferred to see a different movie, but it was my birthday, so I got to pick. :)  Next time I'll let him choose.  Either way, it was the first time we left Ruston with anyone that wasn't family (besides the nursery at church), and he didn't do too bad.  When we got back to Lesa's, she said "does he fight sleep?"  After we said, YES, she said "I can tell".  She had JUST gotten him to sleep before we got there, which was sometime around 10 or 1030, I think.  She loves seeing Ruston though, so I'm sure she'd do it again to get her baby fix... her daughter is in college and she has no grandchildren yet, so she gets the baby fix by watching others' kids.  That was a MUCH needed evening for Jason and I together, and we enjoyed it.  I'm sure we'll do more of those in the future.

Last weekend was also the NWTF (National Wild Turkey Federation) convention at Opryland.  It's a yearly thing where people from all over the country (and really continent) come to gather and talk turkey... and hunting in general.  All the big wigs of hunting are there, so it's a pretty big deal.  We're lucky that it's in Nashville every year or we definitely wouldn't go to it, but we went on Friday and Saturday, and managed to get in free both days by having people give us their passes... they were on their way out, and we were on our way in, and they asked us if we wanted their passes; we weren't going to say no!  So that was $12 a piece each day that we saved ($48 total).  Gotta love nice Nashville people!  Below are some turkey pictures, not from the convention, but from the previous week.  Jason and I spotted them on the way up to Mammer and Papa Wayne's house.  That's a lot of turkeys!

This was Ruston's attire for the convention.  He had a great time and did really well amidst all the people and turkey noises.  He got a lot of attention though too.

Saturday night a bunch of the members of tnturkey.com got together at a restaurant near Opryland to chat and hang out.  Even though we were supposed to have the entire back room to ourselves, the new management there ended up double booking the room, so we shared it with some birthday party of a man who was turning 80 years old.  Neither parties were very happy, but we made the best of it.  I think there were about 50 of us turkey people there... a rowdy bunch at that!



By the end of the night, Ruston was passed out!
It's always a good time getting together with the tnturkey bunch and listening to hunting stories, even if most of them are making fun of Jason. :)  We look forward to it next year already. 

5 Months Already!!

I know I'm a couple of days behind, but I did TAKE the picture on the 25th!  Ruston is already 5 months old... so exciting but so sad that he's growing so fast!  Look at that belly peaking out of his shirt too!  By the way, that's a 6-9 month outfit too... although clothes depend on the brand.  He can still wear some 3-6 month clothes (although not many), and fits well in most 6-9 month clothes, although a few brands seem to be big on him for 6-9 month stuff.  Either way, he's growing quickly!

A few things he enjoys doing these days:

-sitting up like a champ

-reaching and grabbing for EVERYTHING (toys, remote, computer, cell phone, etc)

-sitting in his high chair (no more bumbo seat, his legs are too chunky)

-drool drool and more drool

-talk and babble and squeal with delite

-laugh... and sometimes he'll just start laughing for no reason

-reaching for faces... he's learning about teeth and lips apparently

-cuddling with mommy and daddy

He's now just about 20 pounds, and we bought a new carseat yesterday since the one we currently have only goes to 22 pounds... his new one will grow with him up to 80 pounds, and I was excited to get it at Walmart for $70, marked down from $140.  It's a Safety 1st brand, and I think they're just discontinuing it in the store, so I got a great deal!  I'm thinking Jason might have to go back there today and get one for his vehicle too... two for the price of one!

Some Pictures

Here are some random pictures from the last few weeks.  I've been meaning to post them, but have found myself with very little time or energy lately since Ruston hasn't been sleeping the greatest.
I love this picture of Ruston and Taco... Ruston reaches for Taco quite a bit now, and Taco LOVES to lick Ruston, which Ruston finds funny also.  They're good buddies.
There have been a FEW times that I've gotten a nap, and this is what they look like.
I may be a mean mom, and Ruston may resent me for it later, but you just HAVE to do strange things on Super Bowl Sunday.  We didn't have any Colts gear, so we wore UT gear since Manning went to UT.  Yes, those are his pants on his head.
Ruston in his high chair.  He looks so small, but he's growing into it, and he really enjoys it.  
This is one of Ruston's other favorite pasttimes... chewing on fingers.  Mostly he likes to chew on Jason's fingers and my fingers, but if those aren't available, his work just fine too... no teeth yet though.
He loves messing with and sucking on the tags of this taggie blanket that his Grammie made for him.
Ruston has started reaching for everything, my cell phones included.
He also enjoys wearing as little as possible... and you can see his pudge, although this was a few weeks ago now, so there is more pudge than that!

Too much snow!

Well I started this post a few days ago and am finally getting around to finishing it!  

We've had a nasty winter here this year, at least for a southern winter.  We had a couple of good sized storms, and one of them put a good 4-6 inches of snow on the ground, topped off with a nice sheet of ice.  Below you can see our yard...

... and the car.
Jason decided it would be fun to go sledding, but we didn't have a sled, so he managed to find a boogie board in the shed left by the previous owners.  It worked pretty well.
All Tucker wanted to do was tackle Jason the entire time he was sledding.


I decided I needed to take Ruston out to see the snow, so I bundled him up in this little snow suit... and as soon as we got outside, he fell asleep!  So much for SEEING the snow, but at least I have evidence that he was out in it.  :)
Just because I thought it was cute... I laid him down on the couch and he slept like this for a good 40 minutes or so longer.  The outfit was a bit big, but he seemed to like it. :)
The second ugly snow was the worst.  I ended up getting my car stuck on the way UP the driveway... yes, even in 4WD.  The ice cover made me slide over the side into a deep ditch... which you can see in the second picture.
I also got high centered.  So Jason pulled me out backwards with his vehicle, and I ended up denting my back bumper by running it into his vehicle, although it didn't do any damage to his.  Could have been MUCH worse...
Then that night, Jason was attempting to sell the 4 wheeler because 1. we weren't using it, 2. it needed some money put into it, and 3. we didn't feel like taking the time/energy/money to figure out exactly what it needed in order to work consistently.  Anyway, while trying to get down the driveway, he managed to get his vehicle stuck too... but his required the tow truck to get him out! :)  Yes, the tow truck came up the driveway and everything.  Luckily the insurance covered that... and we didn't feel too bad because the tow truck driver said we weren't the only ones to get stuck in the driveway, and our driveway is MUCH worse than most!
Anyway, we're ready for the spring to get here!!!

4 month stats

I have been incredibly busy at work the last couple of weeks with several later nights than I wanted, so I'm finally getting around to blogging about Ruston's 4 month stats.

We went to the doctor on February 1st, and the doctor was pretty impressed by his development.  He weighed 17.8 pounds (91st percentile), was 25.5 inches long (67th percentile), and his head was in the 71st percentile but I missed what the measurement was.  Anyway, verdict is he's a CHUNK!!  But Jason was chunky when he was a baby too, so it just runs in the family.  One of these days I'll post some baby pictures of Jason and me at this approximate age.

The doctor was also impressed with how well Ruston sits up, and said it was more at a 5 to 6 month developmental level, so I felt like a proud mama! :)  He doesn't have much interest in rolling over (although has done it from front to back), but that's mostly because he prefers to be sitting up in order to see the world.  The doc wasn't too worried about the rolling over since he's developing so well with sitting up... he'll get there eventually!!  Here are a few pictures of him sitting up. :)

These next couple I just had to put on here because he loves his exersaucer.  He was WAY overtired that night but was fighting it, and fighting it any way possible... screaming in my arms and everything, so I finally put him in the exersaucer to somewhat calm him down... you can tell he's tired!