Zane's Baby Dedication

"Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up." Deuteronomy 4:4-6


Last Sunday, we had a very important milestone in our family. We dedicated Zane to the Lord at our church. We stood in front of our family and friends and committed as his parents to raise him in the knowledge and love of our Savior.

Us on stage with Pops. So glad he is our pastor!

Our friend Joe praying over our family as our deacon.

There are 4 things specifically that we have committed to Zane as his parents:

1. We commit to love you and care for you in a way that will show you a picture of how God loves you.

2. We commit to be the primary spiritual teachers in your life, to teach you about the Lord at home.

3. We commit to pray with you and for you on a regular basis.

4. We commit to make your spiritual development a priority in our family lives.

Zane with his first Bible

The gifts we received from the church.

Zane is our precious blessing from the Lord. I cannot imagine a greater gift.



Crystal

8 Months Old!

You are getting so big!! So, technically you have been 8 months for 13 days already, but let's pretend it's April 30. Mommy has been a little busy! You amaze us every day as you learn and grow so much! You are getting more and more mobile every day. We set you on the floor and you quickly pull yourself onto your stomach and scoot yourself around in circles grabbing everything you can reach. You are not crawling yet as you still have trouble pulling yourself forward but you don't stay in the spot that we put you, that's for sure.

Your personality comes out more and more each day. We have had lots of fun with you this month! You belly laugh at silly things all the time. Your dramatic side has come out a little more. You are definitely laid back and happy, but you make some dramatic faces and you are very vocal!

You love to eat! We could feed you baby food for hours and you would probably still keep opening your mouth for us to put food in and get upset when we finished. You cry every time we tell you "all done" with your food, even after we increased the amount we give you. There are very few things that you haven't liked. You do, however, have quite an opinion about formula. We began supplementing with formula this month. You did fine the first few times when we were using pre-mixed liquid formula samples. Later that week, however, we tried the regular powdered formula and you absolutely refused it, even when it was just 1 oz of formula mixed with 5 or more ounces of breastmilk. For whatever reason, you could tell the difference and you went on a hunger strike with Dad! We got some more pre-mixed liquid formula and you have taken that just fine. I think you share my sensitivity to different textures in food. :-(

You finally started consistently sleeping all the way through the night this month. You occasionally wake up once during a night for a very brief period of time, but for the most part you are usually out for the whole night although you still sometimes wake up earlier than we would like. You don't seem to understand why Mommy & Daddy don't want to play and talk at 6am.

You played with Noah (6 mos in this picture) at our cousin Isabella's 9th birthday party.

Isabella and Zane

Doesn't it look like he is taking the picture of himself? Remind you of anyone else we know?

All dressed up for church

We are getting a bit old for the swing. You get frustrated that you cannot put the toys from the mobile in your mouth!

We took a quick trip to Waco this month and visited with our friends, Keith & Rachel, and their kids Naomi (2 1/2) and Caleb (2 1/2 weeks!). Landon, Nikki, & London came too! It was great to catch up with old friends. We couldn't believe that we were all old enough to have kids! It seems like just yesterday we all lived in the dorms!

You love seeing Pops & Gigi at church every Sunday!

Fallon & Lylah came for a brief visit this month and you had a great time with Aunt Fallon. You stayed up a little too late that night and got into a really silly mood. You loved having your cousin Lylah around and kept looking at her and saying "bah-bah-bah" as though you were trying to say "baby" but couldn't figure it out. Fallon decided to help you figure it out and you thought it was HILARIOUS! This is one of my favorite moments with you so far!

You are so much fun to be around! 8 months is a great age!! We love you Zane!

With love,

Mommy (Crystal)

Zane's First Easter

In the rush of Easter morning, I didn't get any pictures on the actual day of Easter, but I really thought Zane was cuter on the day before at the Easter egg hunt anyway. We had the hardest time finding a dressy Easter outfit in Zane's size. Maybe I waited too late to look or didn't look in the right places, but all we could find were toddler outfits or more casual outfits. On Easter Sunday, after trying on several combinations, he ended up in a "polo" type romper with khaki color pants over it because all of his jeans that are long enough fall off his waist! I was slightly disappointed. Nonetheless, we had a great time at the Easter Egg hunt (for Zane it was more of an Easter egg reach) at our church on the day before Easter and I wanted to share the pictures.

My Easter bunny!

He figured out what to do with the borrowed Easter basket

"You said this was an egg, right? Aren't eggs food?"

It was very bright outside so this is the best picture we were able to get of the 3 of us.

Zane with Pops & Gigi


Zane's first experience with a chainlink fence

After the egg hunt, we met Tommy's family for lunch to celebrate his Aunt Nancy's birthday. Zane had a good time with his Great-Memaw and Great-Pops and his Great-Aunt Nancy.

Great-Memaw & Great-Pops loving on Zane


Our happy guy!

Easter sure is exhausting!

With love,

Crystal

7 Months Old

Zane! You are growing too quickly! You turned 7 months old yesterday. I am amazed every day at how much you learn and how grown up you have become. You weigh 18 lbs now! You have been staying home with Daddy all month and you guys have had so much fun together.

You sit up really well now! You can sit up all day long it seems. You love this new way of looking at the world and you sit up and play all the time. You have also been rolling over more, usually from your tummy to your back because you hate tummy time. You get a little more mobile every day. Before long, you will be all over the house!
Your new favorite thing is waving. You wave all day long, one hand or both. We need to get video of this! It started out a very slow deliberate hand wave while you watched your own hand in fascination. It has become an exaggerated, "blinker" motion that you do constantly- if you see someone across the room, yourself in the mirror, when you're happy, sometimes even when you're crying.
You are getting better and better at communicating with us. It pulls at my heart whenever you are playing on your own and then you look up at me and cry and reach for me to tell me you want to be picked up! You reach for everything now! We have to constantly move things out of your reach or they will be right in your mouth.

You especially want our food and cups! You LOVE to eat still! I am not sure if you would ever get enough. You get very upset when we stop feeding you, no matter how much we give you. You seem like such a big boy sitting in your booster chair at restaurants and eating with the family!

You have one tooth! (Almost 2). Teething has not been our favorite thing but we are managing. Unfortunately, we have also had to continue breathing treatments. All month you had to take at least 2 a day for the preventive medicine even though your wheezing got much better early in the month. Just as we were about to be done, you got a cold and sure enough, you started coughing and wheezing again. This has led to another ear infection too! This is feeling like an everlasting cycle! We hope that you will feel better quickly and that we won't have to keep doing breathing treatments forever. We have at least another month ahead of us....

Zane (6 mos) & cousin Lylah (2 mos)

Most of the time, you are just about the happiest baby in the world. We are having so much fun with you! We are so glad you are our little boy!

Zane making the bedtime story difficult!

With love,

Mommy

Happy Half-Birthday, Zane!

So, Mommy is a little behind this month! We celebrated your half-birthday, 6 months old, 10 days ago. We have been super busy, but this was too big of a milestone to skip over! You are such a joy to everyone around you. Even though things have been difficult this month, you are definitely the bright spot of each day! Your big personality shows more and more each day and you grew up so much this month.

This is one of our favorite moments with you from early in February. We were reading a book to you about a baby monkey who wants a hug and you starting trying to say the word "hug"! We know you didn't know what it meant, but it sure was fun!

HUG!

We had a record amount of snow this month. On Feb 11 & 12, we got a combined total of about 1 foot. That is crazy for this area of Texas! You weren't nearly as impressed by the snow as your Mommy & Daddy but you humored us and let us take you out bundled up for some pictures.

Zane with the Snowman

You rolled over a few more times this month. :-) We have decided that you are just too laid back to care enough to roll over all the time. You are just content to lay where you are playing with your feet or whatever toy you might have. We have seen you do it, but you just don't do it very often.
You got better and better at sitting up. This is what you really want to be doing. When you are laying down, you are often raising your head and trying to pull yourself to a sitting position. You like to see and interact with the world. By last week, you are now able to remain sitting on your own for up to 30 seconds or so before you topple over! This was very exciting for all of us.
You play peek-a-boo, even when no one is playing it with you. That seems pretty advanced for a 6 month old, but you know what you are doing. You pull the blanket over your face and then laugh and kick when we notice. If your hands are under the blanket, you can even throw it off yourself and squeal when we say "Peek-a-Boo!" You love it when someone else plays too. You think it is hilarious for Daddy to pop out from behind something.
You LOVE to eat. You have mastered baby food so well! You are now eating a variety of veggie and fruit purees. We haven't found anything yet that you don't like. You get very impatient when you don't think Mommy or Daddy are feeding you fast enough and you often get upset when all the food is gone.


You slept through the night for the very first time on the night of February 7, the Superbowl. I guess you were worn out from all that football! We were very excited! This still hasn't quite become a pattern, but at least we know it is possible. You still nap pretty well most days, taking 2-3 naps 1-2 hours each and you go down for bed like an angel. You have a stuffed giraffe ("G-Raf") that you have grown some attachment to and you smile so big when we wind it up at night and hand it to you playing a lullaby. You hold it and chew on its ears until you get sleepy and then you drift off without a peep usually.
You dealt with some sickness this month but it didn't get you down too much. You had lingering bronchiolitis and an ear infection at the beginning of February that required breathing treatments. This got better and we had just weaned the breathing treatments completely when you got sick again at the very end of February. It was back to the doctor and back on the breathing treatments, with an added medicine, for you. It didn't really slow you down much until another ear infection hit and made you pretty miserable. We are over all of that now but have to continue breathing treatments for another couple of weeks.

You are teething now. :-( This has made everyone unhappy. It is hard for your Mommy and Daddy to see our happy, usually independent little guy so grumpy and clingy. We know that it is only because your gums hurt so bad! We are doing our best to help you feel better and we hope those teeth will get through soon and give you a break!

Your 2nd Haircut!!

You had your last day at your school on February 26. We were very sad to take you out and your teachers were sad to see you go. All your little friends made a big card with all of their footprints and names on it! On the bright side, you are having the opportunity for some great bonding time with Daddy while he is looking for a job! You will be back in daycare before we know it and I am sure he will miss his time with you. Daddy has been a great stay-at-home dad these last couple of weeks!

Sitting Up

Zane, we love you dearly!! Every day you make us laugh and smile as you grow and learn!

With love,

Mommy (Crystal)

Time for a Change

Well, I will come right out and say it. We had a bad week in the Williamson household. For the last couple of weeks, Tommy was getting indication at work that the business was struggling. They were looking at ways to cut costs. They were discussing cuts to benefits and some other things. We had begun having our own discussions that maybe it was time for Tommy to move on. We had begun looking at job openings and talking about what he might want to do, but we felt like we were in a good place to take some time and be a little picky. Well, we are no longer in that place. After some rough days at the beginning of the week, we began to get in more of a hurry, and scrambled to find a digital copy of Tommy's resume so he could start applying for jobs. On Thursday, Tommy was laid off. The company's financial situation apparently snowballed very quickly and they had to take some pretty desperate measures very quickly to hopefully avoid going under. Tommy and 3 other people were laid off this week, including the president's son-in-law. It is difficult as we are friends with the family that owns the company and they felt horrible about letting him go. Our prayers are with the Veras and Bulins as they also deal with a difficult time for their families.
So, we have been scrambling but trying not to panic. Tommy got about a week and a half severance to buy us a little bit of time. He has already filed for unemployment so we are hopeful that will be processed quickly. The biggest decision we have had to make was to pull Zane out of daycare immediately. This was really difficult for me on Friday. It just made everything a bit more real to have to tell his school and gather all of his stuff and know that he won't be back, at least for a while. His primary teachers weren't even there on Friday to say good-bye. I know they will be sad. We feel like we will be okay financially with unemployment with no daycare expense. I am still a little nervous about our finances over the next few weeks as we were in no position of "cushion" after I was off work unpaid for a couple of months not that long ago. We should get our tax return in a couple of weeks, so that will at least recover us from the time that I was unpaid. Things will be tight for a while but I know we will get through it.
We know that God will continue to provide for us as He always has. We are keeping a positive attitude and we feel like this will be a blessing in the end for Tommy and our family. There is a great opportunity out there for him that will hopefully be an exciting new adventure. We have had an amazing outpouring of support and prayers from our family and friends. Tommy has quite a few people that are helping him with job leads and sending his resume to various contacts. I feel like he will find something pretty quickly, hopefully.
He is looking for general administrative-type positions. Human Resources would be ideal, but he has applied for several executive assistant-type positions and other things. He has experience with HR, marketing, administration, and restaurant management. His degree is in Communication and Management. If you know of anything in the general DFW-area, please let us know! We appreciate your prayers and job leads!

Crystal

5 Months Old!

I can't believe you are 5 months old already! We have had such a busy month. We were full strength back to work this month so that means you got back into the swing of daycare. Your teachers sure do love you! Mommy's getting more used to the difficult balance of working full time and being a mommy but it is still the hardest thing I've ever done to be away from you every day and to try to find time to clean the house!!

You are truly the light of our lives, Little Man! You are so much fun! You smile and laugh all the time, especially with Mommy & Daddy. You are a big talker! No one is really surprised, considering that your Mommy likes to talk a lot, your Daddy was a communication major, and your Pops speaks to people for a living. You babble all day long and it is always something very important. You squeal and jabber and experiment with new sounds. You are a pretty good conversationalist.

You love to play now, too. You have your favorite toys that you like to play with. The best ones are the ones that crinkle in your hands or make some other noise. You think it is really fun to put any toy or any thing in your mouth too. If no toy is around, your hands or feet will do. You have really found your feet and like to grab them with your hands. You rolled over once, from your tummy to your back. You haven't done it again yet though. You seem much more interested in sitting up than in rolling over. You try to sit up a lot and you like sitting in your bumbo chair or being propped up somewhere so you can see everything.



You love to eat! You nurse and take the bottle really well, even when you don't feel good. You even held your bottle on your own a few days ago, Big Boy! Once you figured out what Mommy was trying to do with feeding you cereal, you decided that you really like that too. You often get impatient when you are not being given bites as quickly as you think you should and you have been known to throw an all out fit when the food is all gone. We have started adding some pureed veggies and fruits to your diet, too. You have been eating peas, and tonight, you tried some peaches.

This month, you had another cousin born! Lylah Belle Curry was born on January 6. In the middle of January, we went to visit Lylah with Uncle Craig & Aunt Fallon in Dripping Springs. Gigi & Pops, and Uncle Robin, Aunt Jill, Emma & Foster came too. We had a great time with all the babies and Emma in one house. You had fun with your Pops & Gigi and aunts and uncles, and you fit right in with the other kiddos. We also got to finally have Christmas with Mommy's family, but since we started pretty late, you had to go to bed in the middle of it. You still got some great presents! It was a fun road trip!

All the Curry Cousins- Lylah (11 days), Foster (2 mos), Zane (4 1/2 mos), Emma (3 yrs)


Foster & Zane hanging out at Gigi & Pops' house

You had a cough for most of the month and last week, we had to start you on some breathing treatments. We are optimistic that this will be a one time issue and we won't have to deal with this again, but there is a possibility that the respiratory issues are an indication of asthma. We are praying that this will not be the case for you!

You are such a good baby and such a joy to be around! We love you more than we could explain!


With love,

Mommy