It's a BOY!!!!

Read about our baby boy's name on Stanton's first entry into the blog world.

My thoughts exactly!

As a mom of a sweet baby girl, I am often disgusted at some of the things written on t-shirts for baby girls. Add my aversion to anything mentioning how Chaselyn is a "diva in training" to my dislike of pink and frilly, and the wardrobe possibilities are quite reduced. Which I often over compensate for by purchasing anything cute in purples and greens.

Anyway, I saw this article today that pretty much pegs my feelings on what Chaselyn will not be wearing in the near future.

14 months

Chaselyn is over 14 months old now, and what does she like to do? Well of course Mommy has already trained her to help out with the laundry. Another wonderful benefit of the front load washer and dryer. Not only does she enjoy helping load and unload, but she also likes to just watch. It's very cute. (Note: This blog post has been delayed for 2 days waiting and retrying to upload the video. I've decided to carry on with the post and catch you up with the video later.)

Some other new favorite activities include watching the local weather station. She grooves to the smooth relaxing music and really appreciates the graphics and bright colors. She is still expressing her love of music all the time. She likes to dance and is amazed by singers too.

She's also learned to spin around in circles. She can usually only make it around two and a half times before falling down, but she laughs the whole time.

Chaselyn is far more expressive than she was just a month ago. On the way home from Christmas, she was making totally different noises and gestures than she made on the way too Arkansas. And she definitely grew too. She's so much more mature looking and acting.

This past month she has exposed her true girly side (scary for me to think about). At Christmas, she loved the few clothes that she got. She loves playing with her clothes too (doing the laundry is a special treat). She has also expressed an affinity for Mommy's sparkly shoes and purses. She loved to pick out clothes while Christmas shopping too. We could take her to a rack and she would push items out of the way until she found something she liked. Well, at least that's what she appeared to be doing.

But no worries, she's got brains to go with that beauty. She's made big progress in figuring out some shape sorter toys. And she loves to play with her farm. We're still working on animal noises and parts of the face. Her favorite songs are "If you're happy and you know it" and "The Itsy Bitsy Spider".

Unfortunately, she spent the last few days of her 13th month sick at home with a stomach virus. But with some help from Ducky she made a full recovery and was back to tip top shape to welcome in month 14.

There is hope for me yet...

Still wonderin’ why I’m here,
Still wrestling with my fear
But oh….He’s up to something,
And the farther on I go, I’ve seen enough to know that I’m not here for nothin’

He’s up to somethin'.

I never slow down or so it seems, but singing my heart is one of my dreams
All I gotta do is hold on tight

There is hope, for me yet
because God won’t forget all the plans He’s made for me
I have to wait and see,
He’s not finished with me yet,

...and a happy new year!

The three of us have had quite the spectacular Christmas, and based on the swirls I've been feeling in my tummy, I'd say Greer #4 has had a good time too. We kicked off our official holiday break Friday the 18th with a packing party with the Coxs. They sent us off in true Texas style with some Dublin DP and some Gorman Peanuts. A much appreciated snack for the upcoming family time. We left Waco around 10:00 on Saturday morning and made the trip to AR. Chaselyn is a good traveling baby, but she's not quite the baby she used to be and therefore no longer sleeps the entire way. She's a trooper though, and we ended up making it to Stanton's parents around 4:30. We played for a while and then it was time for dinner. My parents and aunt Rachel came up to join us and they all oooh-ed and aaaah-ed over the sweet baby until she was ready to go to bed. Oh yeah, they were happy to see us too.

Sunday we went to check out the mall while Stanton waited in line at the doctors office. He had another round of mouth sores and wanted to be sure he could have a healed mouth before the deliciousness of Christmas. We got a couple things, but mostly came up empty handed. That night, Leslie, Blake, and Taylor came down and had dinner. There was more oooh-ing and aaaah-ing and then some pool, ping-pong, and Mario Wii playing.

On Monday we left Chaselyn with Ducky and Crawdad and we went shopping all by ourselves. Which was entirely necessary seeing that we had about 85% of our Christmas shopping left to do. We had an easy time finding some prizes for Chaselyn, and had most of our list filled out by the time we made it back home.

Tuesday, we were all set up for some shopping in Fayetteville and then a basketball game. Right before we left, Stanton decided he would stay back and rest and catch up with us at the game. So, Debbie, Rachel, Chaselyn, and I piled into the car and went searching for some special hoggie prizes up in Fayetteville. We weren't too productive, but found some awesome gifts for the dirty Santa exchange at Grandma Schluterman's. Stanton ended up taking the toolbox with Home Depot gift card. I took a box with a bad breath detector and some mouth wash, gum, floss, and other breath freshening items. After the shopping we had a quick dinner at Foghorns with Leslie, Blake, and Taylor. It was super nice, and Blake even gave us tickets for the game. The game was not the best game ever played, but the hogs did end up winning in OT. And we got to meet up with Josh and Matthew. Chaselyn was again the little trooper staying out way past her bedtime.

Wednesday was Christmas prep day. We wrapped presents and made sure to check off the last couple of things from our list. We tried to get everything all straightened up so that we could just enjoy Christmas eve with no worries.

Christmas Eve was spent at the Greer's as usual. We had a lovely linner meal of boiled shrimp, corn, and new potatoes. Then we all got ready for the Christmas Eve service at First Baptist. Chaselyn was going crazy, and dancing and singing and jumping. Unfortunately some of that was done during solo performances. On the upside, she was fairly quiet, just wiggly. Overall she was very well behaved. When we got out of the service, it had started to sleet. We got home and Chaselyn started ripping into some presents. She got lots of fun toys, but I think her most favorite was her new brown-eyed baby doll.
Chaselyn quickly learned to pull the wrapping paper off and had a great time. After presents there was a tremendous surprise...SNOW! And lots of it. We quickly put on our coats and snapped a shot,

...but before too long it was time for Santa PJs and night night time.

After Chaselyn went to bed, the grown ups exchanged gifts. Stanton and I got some fantastic gifts. Stanton got some shelves for the garage, which he has been wanting so thatt we can organize, I got a Flip video camera, and we got a Blu-Ray player. And that's not all, but those are our favorites. We ended the night with some brownies made from the perfect brownie pan that we got Debbie for Christmas.

Christmas morning was just amazing. Chaselyn woke-up ready to go for round two. She looked out from upstairs at all the prizes that were there for her.


Mommy and Daddy got her a rocking chair, some sippy cups, some table top placemats, and a picture book to replace the one Santa brought her last year.

Santa brought her a wagon, with a shape sorter, some monkey PJs, a Razorback cheer shirt, a hippo bib, a snack cup, some socks, and her first Crayons. By the way, we found out our little girl is ALL girl based on her exuberant reactions to the 2 items of clothing she got, the immediate love of baby dolls, and her affinity for princess castles.

After present time and some breakfast, it was time to make a plan. There was lots of snow outside, and the roads seemed icy. Fortunately, the sun was shining, so the roads were getting better and better. We decided to have my dad come and pick us up just to be on the safe side. He's a more experienced ice driver, and he was already out in it anyway. (Not to mention in Stanton's effort to check the conditions he misplaced the keys to our truck somewhere outside.) So Dad and Heath came to the rescue. We loaded up most of our stuff and got the baby buckled in safely. (Bonus: Dad found our keys underneath another vehicle.)

After a not so bad trip to Charleston, we quickly played the unpack/repack game and headed out to Papa Wurst's house. We had some delicious steaks and Chaselyn got a great little ride on Princess car from Papa Wurst and Grandma Beth.

Next stop was Grandma Schluterman's. Unfortunately it seems we were having too much fun and pictures are not very abundant. But Chaselyn loved being the center of attention, and had a good time entertaining her second cousins. Chaselyn got several neat Little People toys, and Stanton and I cleaned up in the Dirty Santa exchange with some much needed new skillets and a hog serving dish.

Saturday we played with my family until the whole gang got there. Josh and family arrived in time for dinner and presents.
We got a good family photo while everyone was opening,


but otherwise, there seemed to be too much chaos for Chaselyn to really figure out what was going on (or maybe she was sick of ripping paper by this point). So she found a different way to enjoy her presents.

Chaselyn loved playing with cousin Madison in her pop up castle. It was so fun to see them all playing together.

Stanton and I were super excited about the Sears gift cards we got to buy a deep freezer. (I think that mkes us sound more grown up than I want to be.) We stayed up later than we should have, putting a puzzle together while Josh and Dad went fishing on the Wii.

Sunday morning brought more family time and play time for Chaselyn and Madison, while Matthew learned how to drive on the Wii Cars game. The rest of us took turns when we could and just had some quality time in between. My brothers and family left Sunday night.

Monday was spent resting and going to get our vehicle from the the Greers. Today, we rested some more and made a trip into town to do some exchanging and looking. We made no more purchases due to our inability to carry home the stuff we've already collected.

Tomorrow, I think we're going to make a trip up to see the niblings again and then Thursday we're going with Kimberly to look at some wedding dresses in Fayetteville. We still haven't made and exact plan on when we will be returning back to TX, but it will be sometime before the Razorback bowl game on the second.


I hope you all had a Very Merry Christmas! And in case you didn't get your card from us, go HERE to see the wonderful card designed by Leslie.

Lucky 13

I don't know what's lucky about it, but Chaselyn is 13 months old now. And seeing as how I just wrote her one year update 2 weeks ago, I must say that not much has changed. In that time, she has fought off a bout of bronchitis, which meant extra Mommy time :) and extra time in the doctor's office. :(

Last night we discovered Chaselyn's affinity for a Capella singing. She was entranced by the singing and dancing on "Sing Off". We had never heard of it before, but it came on after "Wheel of Fortune", which Chaselyn likes due to the large amount of clapping throughout the show. She was just playing around and then she heard these people singing. She got up from her toys and walked right in front of the tv and stared, then danced a little. She then did something that I have never, ever seen her do unless she is feeling very shy or very sick, she came and sat with me...voluntarily. I loved every minute of it, and even got a pillow so she could rest her little head and still see the tv. You can see the toys strewn about in the background. That is the typical result of nighttime playtime with Chaselyn, but not last night.
We also discovered while trying to take pictures for our Christmas card that she will smile and be happy until she sees that flashing light for the timer, then she just stares blankly at it. And if you want her to stand near a tree, don't expect her to turn around, the pretties are on the tree, why should she look away? And then we found something even prettier for her to look at to look away from the tree...Chaselyn.
That's right, see that smile, that's because she is looking down at Daddy's camera which is currently displaying some beautiful pictures of her. After realizing the brilliance of her smile and increased patience with crazy picture taking parents, we snapped a few photos with my camera and used those as bait to get her to smile and look in the approximate correct direction so that Stanton could take a picture with his camera. So, the picture above is one of the bait pictures. And it worked quite nicely, but you'll have to wait until after we mail out Christmas cards to see the end result.

Other new tricks that are mostly amusing include a very apparent attempt to snap, but coming nowhere close to being successful, an improvement in dance skills, I think that she is now officially a better dancer than Stanton, and the ability to play peek-a-boo using her hands, a rag, or hiding behind a door or wall. Very fun.

Things Stanton and I still can't get enough of include her wide, open-mouth, drooly kisses, the way she looks for her Daddy all around the house in the morning, her cheesy smile for the camera, and her love of bathtime.

What blessings!

Today has turned out to be one of the most uplifting days I've had in a while. Though I haven't gotten much work accomplished, I have been built up through a collaborative effort of several friends.

I started out the day sending an email to a great friend, we'll call her Al. I desperately said "I'm super sleepy today, want to keep me awake? Or should I just crawl under my desk to go to sleep?" She asked about my birthday and throughout the day we covered topics from Christmas lights, to faulty ultrasounds, to getting "Knocked Up" (the movie), to students pleading for grade changes, to situations where all you can do is pray, to my apathy at work, to what I might want to do with my life. It was a full day for one conversation and one that I won't soon forget.

Somewhere in there, another friend Allison FB messaged me about when we'll know the gender of Baby Greer #2 (which won't be until after the new year). Our conversation then diverted into a series of seemingly random but somehow linked topics ranging from very personal topics to mostly inane and boring topics.

And amongst all that, I was also able to FB message an old friend and asked her about being a stay at home mom. She gave me perfect insight that some days she does wonder what the working world would be like, but she can't imagine not getting the hugs and smiles from her little ones. I just needed the opinion of someone who I know is a smart, motivated, and proactive person being able to just enjoy life through the eyes of her little girls.

Then I heard from another friend of mine who is not having a good day. She is trying to work so hard, but has come down with a cough and headache. If she takes medicine, she falls asleep and if she doesn't take the meds, she can't focus on the work. I was able to send some prayers her direction and had the privelege of actually getting to help her out with some little stuff from here at school. I know it wasn't much, but I just get such a boost by being able to help someone I love when they really need it.

All and all today was an excellent day! I am so grateful for the four women I mentioned here in my blog today. Some of them are here to encourage me daily and others I only talk to on rare occassions, but they all served a great purpose in my life today. And I thank each and every one of you. And to all you other wonderful people in my life. Thank you! I just feel overwhelmingly blessed by knowing the people who I know and having the love and support of so many.

Also, in case you haven't heard, I'm a much better communicator via writing. I have some of the best conversations with people through emails. Is that weird. I think in conversations, I just get paranoid that I'm going to say the wrong thing, but by typing, I can edit myself. This increases my comfort level. Although, I must say that I rarely take advantage of the editing abilities in writing. I'm just comforted to know if I try to write something ridiculous, I can erase it.

P.S. This is the second post of the day, don't miss the wonderful book recommendation on the previous post. It was suggested to me by one of the fabulous ladies mentioned in this post.