Peter's first Christmas was definitely low key so there's not a lot to share. His family had all already come and gone, but he was blessed with some cute clothes and fun toys! We got him a cookie monster teether/rattle and some fun learning rings though he really didn't need anything. This boy has been extremely blessed, we've hardly had to purchase anything! As he gets older we are going to desperately try to preserve the meaning of Christmas and hope that he doesn't just look forward to presents. Misty, if you're reading this, we love your idea of three gifts- one want, one need and one to further his relationship with God. I guess that's about it! I can't believe I'll be posting his two month update soon. He's already outgrown his newborn clothes:(

Peter turned 1 month old on Monday. He weighed in at 9 lbs, 4 oz. He was slow to regain his birthweight so we were thrilled with his most recent weigh-in! Peter is already on a great nighttime schedule. He typically sleeps in three, 3-5 hour stretches. He wakes up to feed and goes right back to sleep! He's a pretty good daytime napper but has been spoiled by all the visiting family holding him all day long! His Oma and Opa (Jamie's parents) were here for Thanksgiving. Peter's stump came off on Thanksgiving day so Oma and Opa got to witness his first tub bath a few days later. Peter's Nanna and Poppa (Curtis' parents) were just here for a visit. Peter has been much more alert lately so they got to see a lot of those big beautiful eyes! Peter's relatives from Knoxville also came for a visit this past weekend. Turns out our house can hold 12 people AND two dogs! It was a lot of fun!

Our sweet boy was born on November 14th at 9:54 am. He weighed 7 lbs, 12 oz and was 19.5 inches long. We are so excited that our little guy is finally here!

His Birth Story...
November 13th was my last day at work. It was a fun day full of surprises! My 1st period AP Economics class threw me a surprise diaper party. I walked in to find our table covered in diapers! Later that day my freshmen advisory group threw me a surprise luncheon. They reserved our private dining room, decorated it and had lunch brought in! I finished the day with a faculty send off party. All in all, it was a fun last day. My school’s football team had a playoff game at home that night against our rival, MBA, so of course I had to go. I joked that hopefully the game would send me into labor. Turns out, I was right! By the end of the first quarter I noticed that I had been having contractions that were definitely not Braxton Hicks. Curtis and I timed them for a while and they were about 8-10 minutes apart. We decided to leave at halftime just in case this was the real thing. We got home and relaxed for a few hours. By 11:00 pm my contractions were about 6 minutes apart and somehow I managed to doze off for about three hours. I woke up at 2:00 to a painful contraction and my water breaking. At that point I decided to time a few contractions just to see where things were. The contractions were about three and a half minutes apart and much more painful. I definitely could not talk through these so we decided to head to the hospital. I was checked into my room by about 3:30 in the morning, was dilated to a 5 and contractions were fast and strong. By 4:30 I was dilated to a 7 and contractions were about 2 minutes apart. I was having intense back labor and decided to go ahead and get the epidural. I was a bit hesitant, but the epidural didn’t slow my contractions or affect the baby at all. Most of all, I felt wonderful. I could still sense my contractions but was totally relaxed and finally enjoying my labor. Curtis even caught an hour or so of sleep. I, however, was way too excited to sleep! At 7:00 am I was fully dilated but the baby’s head was turned so they tried different things to move him. At 8:15, I started pushing. With each push, the nurse tried to turn Peter’s head. After an hour of pushing the doctor came in and decided that c-section was my only option. Peter was determined not to turn! It’s possible that they could have tried the vacuum but Peter’s heart rate was as high as they wanted it to be. He was almost in “distress” after an hour of pushing. I was hoping to avoid c-section but I really felt at ease after talking with the doctor about it. It was actually quite an amazing experience. When the decision was made, they had me in the OR within 10 minutes. My anesthesiologist came by to up my epidural. He happened to be an MBA grad, and joked that he’d relieve my pain only because Ensworth lost the football game that night. The doctor who delivered Peter also happened to be the doctor that delivered a colleague of mine’s children, who also happens to be our head football coach. Needless to say, I was distracted by all the football/rivalry talk. I needed the distraction because the OR was a bit intimidating. I remember it being cold and brightly lit. There were at least 10 people in the room prepping things. I wasn’t really nervous, though I started shaking uncontrollably the minute they moved me to the operating table. Once I was prepped, they brought Curtis in to sit with me above the curtain. All the doctors and nurses were aware of Curtis’ tendency to pass out at the sight of blood so he was carefully watched so that he wouldn’t see any. About 10 minutes after entering the OR, they were tugging Peter out. Oddly, I stopped shaking the minute I felt the doctor make the incision. It was a very weird feeling. I could feel significant tugging but the minute I heard Peter’s cry, I was perfectly content. The doctor held him up right away so that we could see him and Curtis was able to snap a photo. As soon as he was cleaned up and checked out they handed him to Curtis who brought him to my face. One of the nurses then took our first family photo. They finished sewing me up. Again, it was a weird feeling. I could still feel significant tugging. They quickly brought me back to the labor and delivery room and I was able to nurse Peter. He was and still is a great nurser! About an hour later they took us all to a recovery room where we spent the next several days. Peter spent most of his time with us, though he did pay a few visits to the nursery at night. I have to say that it was a great experience. Things definitely didn’t go as planned, but I have no regrets. I have a happy, healthy boy!

We spent our last real pre-baby vacation in Charleston, SC this summer. It's a city I've always wanted to visit so we drove down for an extended weekend. I was only 24 weeks pregnant at the time so it was still easy enough to get around. It's definitely a walking city. I think we enjoyed walking the historic streets most but decided to do some of the typical touristy things too. We toured some museums, took a boat tour of the harbor out to Ft. Sumter, and sampled many the the local dishes that are so famous there. The city is famous for it's carriage tours so we took a sunset tour one evening and spent our last night watching the sun go down at Folly Beach. It was very relaxing!

Curtis and I were able to go on a fabulous cruise with Curtis' parents for Spring Break this year. We flew to Houston and spent the night in Galveston in order to board our ship when it arrived in the morning. The ship itself was pretty impressive. I think we loved our private balcony the most but we spent a lot of time reading and sunbathing out on the deck as well. We were surprised how easy it was to escape the crowds in order to find a quiet spot. At night they showed movies out on the deck- Curtis and I really enjoyed that! The food was so much better than I expected and we did a decent job watching what we ate- thank goodness! Our first stop was Key West. It was really beautiful and we spent the day walking the entire island. We stopped at the beach, toured the Little White House, the Hemingway House and the Lighthouse Museum. Our second stop was Freeport. We spent the day at the beach. It rained a little but that didn't keep us out of the water! Our last stop was Nassau. We LOVED Nassau! We started the day with a catamaran tour of Paradise Island. Our destination was a coral reef where we hopped into a clear kayak for a few hours. The scenery was beautiful, the water was crystal clear and the fish were amazing! In the afternoon, we took a taxi over to Atlantis. After walking around the resort we spent the last couple hours of the day at the beach enjoying the HUGE waves! We're already looking forward to our next cruise!

My mom was able to spend a week here in Nashville before we headed back to Dallas for the holidays. She took this picture of my flute choir playing at the Frist Center for the Arts. I think we had three concerts the week she was here! I'm also including a picture of those of us at the band reunion lunch. It was great seeing some good, old friends!

Back in Nashville. Back to work. And back to our blog! We had a great visit home this year. We had a nice, long, 10-day visit. I didn't leave myself much time to get ready for a new semester, but things are going well. I'm teaching an extra course this semester which is definitely keeping me busy! I designed this course form the ground up so prepping for it doesn't REALLY feel like work. It's a Financial Management course. It's project based and it's fun! Not that AP Economics isn't fun, but we move quickly and the AP curriculum doesn't include topics like the stock market, personal finance and business development. Enough about me. Curtis recently submitted a paper for publication. Very exciting! Now we're just waiting for reviews to come in. I had to attach this picture of Opa, my Italian grandfather who's a fan of Southwest flair. He was well-dressed for Christmas day!