JM's 1st Birthday!!!!!

Five days before JM's 1st Bday...he was just too excited to take his nap!

I made JM's cake...I think he was intemidated by it. You can see one little blue glob of icing. That was all that he got on him...at least from the big cake.

The many faces of JM while eating cake:

I love that last shot...thanks to our friend Tom for taking the pics at the party!

JM's friends going for a Jeep ride in J's Scrambler. Instead of pony rides at parties we have Jeep rides through the yard.
All of JM's peeps that came to the party

While opening presents we had some help from the boys...once we'd open something they would immediatly take it and put it on the coffee table.

I still can't believe a year has gone by already!

JM actually started to crawl (on hands and knees) on his birthday.

Really, the kid doesn't need any more toys...for at least few years :)

Random JM pics from Feb.

Whenever JM was taking a bottle or sleeping he's got his hands up behind his head.

He would be kicked back in front of the TV (I know bad habit, but it was usually a kids show) just chillin taking his bottle.Then we started doing the inch worm crawl...not really a crawl more of an up, thrust foward, and fall on his belly movement.

My two guys :)

Justa Swingin...JM loves to swing at the park!

No matter what position he's in when I try to take a pic he'll turn around and grin just like this.

Animal Walk...or so we thought

In Feburary I took JM downtown to see the Animal walk. Every year when Barnium and Bailey Brothers Circus comes to town, they unload the animals from the train and walk them through downtown to the civic center. Its like a parade of the animals. I had never been but had talked to some that had gone and they said it was neat. So I loaded up JM that day and headed downtown. We got there an hour early so we could get a good parking spot. I opened the back hatch and JM and I sat there waiting, and waiting, for what seemed like eternity! He ate almost a whole can of puffs while waiting. Finally the people started going towards the street and the police were blocking the roads. I scooped up JM and we stoof in the street waiting for the animals. now when I say Animals, I was thinking the circus Animals, like all of them. Much to our dimay it was only 5 elephants. Yep thats all 5 elephants. It was disappointing, well at least to me. JM probably didn't care, plus it was his nap time.

Waiting in the Jeep to see the Animal Walk

The Cirus train...there were numerous Circus train cars

5 Elephants...all that for 5 elephants. They could have at least

held each others tails with their trunks...come on they are Circus Elephants!


Later that week it snowed...again. I think it was the 3rd or 4th time it had snowed. I got JM up that morning and put on his fleece pants and hoodie over his jammies and sat him in it. I don't advise that first thing in the morning for a kiddo his age. He was gumpy the rest of the day.

Smoky Mountain Trip - New Years weekend

For J's B'day we dropped JM off with the Grands and headed to the Smoky mountains over New Years weekend. It snowed most of the time we were there. We had an awesome little cabin with a view of Mt Leconte, which we could only see the last day we were there. We could also see Ober Gatlinburg. One of the days we were there they had closed every road in the park! This almost never happens! The next day we were finally able to go up to Newfound Gap and it was FREEZING! I'm talking about 6° and you could only stand ouside for about 2 mintues before you started to shiver uncontrolabley. But the view was AWESOME.

Our Cabin in the snow

Mt Leconte Trail

Newfound Gap Rd

Temp at Newfound Gap parking lot

I took these shots by sticking the camera out the sunroof...it was just too cold.

Roaring Fork Motor Trail in the snow

This stream at some spots had ice all the way across it.

The road above Treemont

So its been a while....

So we'll start with Christmas:

After Santa visited

Opening gifts

Playing with our new stuff.

Belle loved her new bed.

We visited with J's side of the family (all nine Aunts & Uncles...and numerous cousins)

The BIG picture with everyone
All of JM's Christmas presents...he doesn't need anything else until next year!

Merry Christmas

Here's a few pre-Christmas pics.

This was the pic for our Christmas card this year. We could not get JM to smile, so if you recieved a Christmas card from us with him smiling, that smile was Photoshopped in from another pic.

I LOVE our Christmas tree this year!! We bought it from a Boy Scout troop. In B'ham every road intersection has a Boy Scout tree lot, but here in north Alabama this is the only one we could find. It smells so good...it might be a while before we take it down :)

Since we had to redo our fireplace/chimney this year, we haven't put up the mantle yet (we are making is stone up to the ceiling), so our stocking are hanging on a piece of furniture that was my grandparents. My stocking is Vixen, J has Dasher, and JM has Roudolph, and of course Miss Belle has her doggie paw print stocking.

This is our family stocking. It has history. When J's parents got married and they lived in Tuscaloosa, a neighbor gave it to them. It was their first stocking. It has "White" knitted into it. I don't put anything in it because I'm afraid it'll streach it, its very delicate.

This is my Christmas card garland. Ever wonder what to do with all of the Christmas cards you get??? Well I took last years cards, traced a Christmas tree over the most interesting part of the front of the card and cut it out, punched a hole inthe top and tied a ribbon to it. I cut out who it came from and taped it to the back of the tree. (please excuse the view of the backyard...it has been neglected for quite some time now.)

It snowed here a few weeks ago!! It didn't last too long but it was JM's first snow. He wasn't really sure about it at first, and neither was Miss Belle.

This is the fence along the pasture across the street.

The boxes almost beat us.

So folding some boxes shouldn't be hard, right??? I bought JM some of those boxes that have the brick pattern on the side of them. I remember them from preschool and saw a set for cheap at Target. They came with instructions, that should have been my first clue. It took us longer than it should have to figure our how to fold them. The first few were not easy, but it got better once we figured them out.

Boxes - 1, Us - 0

Belle finished folding hers before we did one :)

We needed to rest our brains after the box folding event.

I made a $5 five minute scarf for JM's sitter. She is AWESOME and I wanted to do something for her for Christmas. I saw the directions on Natalie's blog, and had to give it a try. It was super easy! You need to use the super thick yarn for this.

We have a sick doggie right now...Miss Belle has a UTI, which has not been fun for any of us. She had to sleep in the kitchen 2 nights in a row, so she wouldn't destroy our carpet. She usually sleeps in our closet floor, so she was not happy with us when we gated her in the kitchen. Funny, we use our baby gates for the dog, not the baby.

JM got to see Santa Claus!! And I think they liked each other, what do you think?? Beofre it was our turn one kid in front of us cried and screamed when it was his turn with Santa, nothing made him happy. Then the other kid I believe talked Santa's ear off. The whole time I was thinking please don't cry JM. The only time he really smiled is in this pic when he looked up at Santa. I love it cause its not posed, and it makes you wonder what is going on in his mind.

His little outfit cracks me up, its smocked with the scene of a roof top with Santas boots sticking out of the chimney and a bag of presents. Santa asked if he could stay, sorry Santa its bedtime!