Nickerson News

I decided it was time for another photo shoot with Abel. I haven’t set up the back drop since he was one month old. These were taken this past week and I am going to try and do these shoots every few months. This shoot took most of the day! I should have waited for Seth to help me, but I was antsy and wanted some updated portrait photos. He would wake up from a nap and I would take a bunch of pictures and then he was ready for bed again. Then once he woke up again, I would plopped him right back on the black blanket and start snapping away. I don’t think he was too amused and I only got a few smiles out of him. Most of the time he was looking at me like “What is she doing? Doesn’t she see that I am not interested!”

Look at this child…he is gorgeous!

I just experienced a very exciting moment folks….drum roll….I am wearing one of my old pairs of jeans. I know, I’m in shock just as much as you are! Tonight Seth and I had a date. We finally celebrated our 4-year anniversary (August 15 was our official anniversary). My wonderful mom came over to watch Abel and put him to bed so we could go out to eat and share a quiet dinner/alone time together. (We haven’t gone out to eat by ourselves since he was born and we also haven’t had a quiet dinner either… no offense Abel, but you don’t let us eat in peace). I wanted to look nice for Seth since he usually only sees me in my pjs or the same old organizing clothes, neither are too exciting. I thought I would dig out the old jeans to see how much more weight I needed to lose to fit into them. The first 2 pairs didn’t fit yet, but the 3rd pair was a winner. I will admit they were my pre-baby “fat jeans”, but I don’t care if they were my old fat jeans. They were pre-pregnancy jeans and that was a good enough reason for me to shout. And boy, did I shout and scream. Abel was cheering me on when he saw how excited I got.

On a funny note, I was “trying” to give Abel a bath before our date so he could be all ready for bed by the time my mom came. I had just finished washing him and was letting him splash around when he decided to poop. This isn’t the first time he has done this, but I was trying to rush knowing we needed to leave soon. So, I quickly washed out the tub and put him back in the bath for another cleaning since clearly he needed another bath. As soon as I placed him back in the warm tub, he gave me this cute grin (almost like he was saying, “mom you should know what is coming”) and out came more poop. I finally lied him on the towel and gave him a sponge bath!

Enough about me and poopy baths, Abel is who you want to see…so here are some more updated pictures.

He was being too cute the other day and of course daddy Seth couldn’t refuse to take a 100 photos within minutes .

Abel likes to laugh at his mommy

All smiles

I don’t think I have shared with you all the wonderful story of the “Lullaby”. For anyone who is pregnant right now that is reading this post…you might want to take note.

Most of you know, I volunteer at Care Net Pregnancy Crisis Center. It is a center that helps women in crisis pregnancy situations. I could go on and on about it, but I will save that for another day. For more info about it, you can check out their sites. manassasprc.org or care-net.org

Anyway, one day I was working with a client and we were watching one of the many baby videos (A program we call Mommy 2 Be). They mentioned that at as early as 5 months pregnant, your baby can hear. They said that research has showed that if you continually play a sloothing song to your baby every day while he/she is in the womb, that when they are born and are being fussy to play that song and it will help calm them down. We didn’t know if this was true, but we thought we could do an experiment. So, when I was 5 months pregnant we started playing the “Lullaby” by George Winston almost every night when we would climb into bed. It become our special “Tummy Time”. We were convinced that little Abel loved the song. He would jump all around in the womb when he started hearing his “song”.

Sure enough, the “Lullaby” is our saving grace. It WORKS! Every night right around dinner (6:00pm) Abel starts to get fussy. (We have heard that is the fussy time for babies-usually called 5 o’clock fuss). So as soon as we finished dinner, we head to the living room and turn on the “Lullaby” and dance with Abel. He usually is screaming his head off and the SECOND the song comes on he instantly stops crying. You can tell by his facial expression that he remembers it…it brings him back to a happy place. And you can bet the second the songs starts coming to a close, he starts crying again. We usually play it 2 to 3 times a night. One of my favorite things is to watch Abel and Seth dance to the “Lullaby” every night. I promise I will tape it one of these days and post it on the blog.

So for all your pregnant moms out there…find a song that you like (something preferably without words and one you will not tire of too quickly-because you will be listening to it A LOT) and start playing it for your little precious baby every night.

I’ll leave you with a few pictures of Seth and Abel dancing to the “Lullaby”.

Last Friday night was a ton of fun. It was my nephew’s re-scheduled birthday party and it was, as always, a great party. Every year my sister comes up with a theme and the whole family plays along. Two years ago it was a pirate theme and she transformed the basement into a pirate ship. Seth drew windows and seagulls on the walls…let’s see if I can find the photos from that party….

There were games like “walk the plank” (See, shouldn’t my sister, Kate, be a party planner? She makes all her own games up) I guess that is why she is such a good P.E. teacher.

Then the next year, was a superman theme (can’t find the photos of us all dressed in our superman shirts).

This year was a military theme and here is the whole family in our gear! Don’t be surprised if this is my mom’s family Christmas card. (Even my 86 year old Gram can rock it out in the camouflage.)

Don’t we look like we know how to have so much fun! The party was great, and of course my dad (Colonel Al DeSantis) was in his glory.

He was teaching the boys drills and making them do push-ups and everything had to be “Yes, sir” or “No, sir”.

Seth’s family was also in town and they went right along with the theme and helped participate as well by hiding in the trees and throwing water balloons at the kids.

A few more fun ones for your viewing pleasure.