Night Out

Last night my bible study decided to have a night out/off from bible study. It was so nice to just enjoy a meal together. We also celebrated my mom (who leads our study). It will be her 60th birthday at the end of this month! Little did she know that dinner was not her only surprise. She made the mistake of telling us about a month ago about her "bucket list". She told us several things on the list she wanted to do, one of which being to sing in a smoky piano lounge! Ha! Random I know, but us girls we determined to at least attempt to make that happen for her. We searched high and low for a Piano bar, but came up with nothing. Instead we settled for a place that was having karaoke. It was so much fun! She did great and we had a great time making fun memories together. Love you girls!

First week with the Band

So yesterday was one week with James wearing his band. Buggy has done an amazing job with it. He never fusses when I take it on and off and when it's on he doesn't grab at it. He really acts like he has nothing on his head. I was just telling someone today that his sweet disposition and reaction to this band has made it all easier for us. He's such a sweet boy. All last week not only did he have a new accessory but also got a cold and he was STILL as happy as can be. So lucky to have such a sweet boy!

We went for his weekly check up for the band this morning and it went great! Our therapist took his band off and immeadiately said that she could tell the difference. She was very happy with the results so far. He must have had a growth spurt this week so we saw a huge difference. I was extremely encouraged by it. We are hopeful that the progress continue to go this well. At this rate he'll be out of this band in no time!

Here are some pictures of him from this week. He is changing so fast!

6 Months

Wow what a month this has been! I hate to sound silly, but honestly every month gets better and better. As much as I love watching Buggy grow, it's also hard. I can't believe that I have a 6 month old. The time is flying by way too fast. I feel like if I blink I'll miss something. What's even crazier is if these first 6 months flew by as fast as I feel like they did then I can only imagine how fast we are going to get to 12 months!! Ugh...NOT READY! In the meantime am just going to enjoy everyday with my little man.

What Buggy is up to this month:

-You are sitting all by yourself
- You sleep 12 hours every night
- You have been wearing your band for 1 week and you are doing AMAZING!
- You found your feet and love to grab them
- You eat breakfast, lunch and dinner in addition to your bottles
- You started sitting in your highchair
- You love to roll and sleep on your side
- You like to shake things
- You LOVE to touch faces (this melts your daddy's heart)
- You have started head butting mommy....you must think your all tough now that you have a band on!
- You still love to laugh and smile
- You are wearing 9 mo and have almost grown out of those. Here we come 12 mo clothes
- Your two bottom teeth are almost through! Mommy is ready for that

Buggy, you make mommy and daddy so happy. Our lives are better because of you. I learn so much from you and thank the Lord daily for bringing me you. We love you.

The BIG Day!

So today was the day that Buggy got his Cranial Band put on. I was super anxious leading up to today. This whole process is so foreign to me. I have never known anyone close to me that has gone through this experience, so I had no clue what to expect. I could barely sleep last night worrying about what today was going to be like.

We got to Cranial Technologies and after getting to our room they immeadiately brought his band in and put it on. I must say...He looked ADORABLE! After making a few trims to the band to make it fit even better we were out the door and starting this new journey.

So far it has been pretty good. He has done amazing. Still has yet to cry. The first few days you are supposed to take it off every 3 hours to make sure his skin is not getting irritated. Which so far his has been great. He even took a 2 hour nap for me! So all in all day one has been great.

I am in an amazing bible study that I have been in for the past few years and one of the chapters that we were just discussing, our leader (who happens to be my wonderful mom) proposed this question to us...."Do you love God and will you trust Him?" That question kept running through my mind last night and this morning. And with everything I have in me I can give a firm YES! I look at what God's word says and the promises that he makes and I know without a doubt that YES I love my sweet Heavenly Father and YES I trust him. I can't wait to look back at the end of this journey and see all that God has done. He is good and faithful!

Making his first debut....I give you Buggy in a Band!

Thankful Thursday

Today I am thankful my this little love





Also thankful that my sweet hubby gets home tonight. It's gonna be a fun weekend just being a fam!

Panty Hose

I'm sure you are thinking...what kind of title is that? But panty hose it is. Last week I had to take James to get his dsi photo done so that they can make his cranial band. Some of the sweet girls in my bible study prepared me a bit for what to expect, but other than that I had no clue what this appointment would be like. My friend Shannon warned me that they put panty hose over his head before taking the photos. I figured they put it over the top but certainly not over his entire head. I was wrong.



As you can see they pulled the panty hose right over his face. I thought he would freak out, but not a peep. He stayed calm the whole time. I on the other hand had tears streaming down my face while he was sitting there getting the pictures done. It took all of five minutes, but it just made me sad looking at my sweet baby. He could open his eyes underneath the stocking and he was just looking at me like "what is going on".

It was pretty neat though how they do this. They sat him on that seat and there were cameras all around him that took pictures at the same time. From that they make a mold of James' head and create his band. So it will be a perfect fit for his head. We go next Thursday to get the band and for them to teach me all that I need to know. And then my little buggy will be in his band for about 8 weeks. I'm anxious to start this journey. God has already begun opening my eyes to so many things and teaching me so much through this little boy. I'm so thankful for that!

The dreaded post baby weight

When I was pregnant I think my philosophy was like so many first time preggers...INDULGE! And indulge I did. I mean nothing overboard. It was mainly in my first trimester that I ate a lot of junk. French Fries to be exact. By the time I got to the second trimester I decided to get healthy again. Regardless my pregnancy brought on a whopping 42lbs! Can we say FAT?!?!

I figured you have the baby and BAM they go away. Well not right away, but I sure did think they left soon after baby got here. Boy was I wrong. Those little lbs like to hang out a whole lot longer than I wanted. I can remember going to my 6 week post baby appointment and being nervous for 2 reasons....first a reason I will let you figure out and second I knew that I would have to get on the scale and see just how much weight I would have to lose. I almost didn't want to look. But I did and what I saw made me want to cry....it told me that in order to get back to my pre-baby weight I would have 25lbs to lose. Can we say discouraging? Just a bit. I can't tell you how many people said this line "It took 9 months to put it on, it'll take 9 months to get it off". Worst line ever. It's not at all what you want to hear when you are trying to get the baby weight off.

Needless to say, here we are, my baby is 5 months old now. Slowly but surely my body is morphing into what it used to be, or what it's new normal is. But man oh man is it hard work. I considered myself a very fit person pre-baby. I worked out all the time and loved running. After 9 months of not really doing much I am finding it very hard to get my body moving the way that it once did.

How I'm doing it? Well we go walking/running everyday that the weather permits. (which lately in Charlotte has been everyday!) I have also done the Jillian Michaels-30 day shred DVD. Not gonna lie it is pretty good. It's worth getting. The biggest change for me has been the food that I eat. The Rodrigues household is moving away from so much processed foods and eating things that will be better for our body. This has been very hard. I never realized how much processed food I ate until I started trying to figure out what I should be eating. I am still trying to map this out and figure out all the things that will be taking out of our diet and all the things we are adding in. I'll do a post in the near future with more details.

As hard as this whole "weight" thing has been, I wouldn't change it for anything in the world. This weight gain brought me the sweetest little gift. I would go through it all again to have him as the end result. He and Manny are what keep me going. Not sure how much more I have to lose (we have no scale) Judging by my old pants I'm not too far!