Merry Christmas!!

Hope everyone has a very Merry Christmas!! We are headed to Birmingham tomorrow and looking forward to seeing everyone over the next several days. We had Round 1 with my dad's family this past weekend at our house and it was so much fun! It was great to spend a little Christmas at our home for a change. It was also nice to not have to worry about packing bags!! Thank you so much Nana, Papa B Kevin and Kim for coming to stay with us!! James loved his presents and loved spending time with you all!

James LOVES opening presents in general! He was so proud he could do all by himself. And he HAD to help all of us open our presents too! I am thinking Santa should wrap empty boxes to put under the tree no need to spend extra money on actual toys, he has the best time ripping the paper! Last year he loved playing with empty boxes this year he loves unwrapping them! I have a feeling each Christmas with James is going to get better and better.

Pictures to come once I have time to download them :)

Clarification

As Chad was reading the latest post last night he began to point out my misuse of words and all of my grammatical errors. I just want to make sure everyone understands that I am not the best speller and completely rely on spell check when I remember to use it and I tend to type fragments or run on sentences or sometimes leave words out (kind of like this one). These are just my thoughts and please try to overlook all of my mistakes :)

Below are a couple of pics from our Christmas Card photo session. The 3 of us headed down to the bluff in Fairhope. My vision was I wanted to get a picture of James with the bay/pier in the background since we moved to Fairhope during 2009. Next year I will not have a vision because I think when you do there is just too much pressure and it becomes a tense environment. Chad was such a good sport to come along to help but after an hour of photo taking and an outfit change he was done. Plus earlier in the day we had driven 4 hours home from Birmingham.

This picture I think would have been perfect however you cannot see his face because my flash did not turn on. Not very happy about that!

All in all I was pleased with the way our card turned out and just hope Chad forgets about this session by next year so he will be willing to help again!

I'm Back!

Ok so I know it has been awhile since the last post but we have been kind of busy. I love the holidays, the smell of Christmas trees, the extra decorations, Christmas dinnerware, the Christmas lights in peoples yards, the family gatherings just about everything. However I tend to get a little stressed :) So many gifts to buy and then wrap, picking out the perfect tree, decorating the tree, ordering Christmas cards, addressing Christmas cards and the list goes on.

Additionally the number of cars on the road seem to increase significantly, available parking at any retail location is scarce and people tend to lose all patients, including myself :) I will say I was in a complete tizzy this time last week but after this weekend I feel 1000X better. Our house is completely decorated, Christmas cards are sent, almost all of our presents are purchased and most are wrapped! Now I can begin to enjoy the season! Plus having a young child seems to make the holidays that much merrier. James still does not understand but he is loving Santas, snowmen, and Rudolph as long as they in books or pictures. We attempted seeing Santa this year and it wasn't as successful as last year. For the pic this year we all 3 sat in Santa's lap. The pic is quite comical, both James and Chad had lost all patients after waiting in line so you can only imagine. Here are a few pics below of our house and James with the tree

This is James' favorite ornament. It is a pic of Chad and I on our wedding day. Every day he goes straight to this ornament and pulls it off. Thankfully it is not breakable :)

And then he tries to put it back on...he has not mastered that one yet. The ornament usually ends up on the floor.

Kind of a random picture but this is James watching Curious George Christmas. I thought it was too cute that he was propped on the pillow laying down watching a movie.

Reading with Daddy...wanted to have his arm propped up just like him

Lately James has been obsessed with Mickey Mouse. Loves him. So this past weekend we were at Lowe's and James spotted this little friend and he never made it out of our shopping cart. We were suckered in. This Santa Mickey sings Deck the Halls and James sings along during the Fa la la la part and it was just too cute not to purchase. It may be the cheapest looking Mickey you have ever seen but watching him sing along was too cute to pass up.

Now that we finally have presents under the tree it is hard to explain to a 21 month old that you have to wait until Christmas to open them :) He has already attempted to open a few and I do not feel like rewrapping!

Merry Christmas!!

SURPRISE!!- warning this is a long post :)

So its been awhile since I last posted...it has been a busy couple of weeks for us with the Tropical Storm Ida and a mild case of pneumonia in our house plus I knew this post was going to take me awhile to complete because it deserves the time. So I will start from the beginning, as I mentioned before the weekend after my birthday Chad had planned a weekend away for the 2 of us. Probably about a month before we left he kept talking about all these surprises he had planned for me for the weekend so that got me excited! He kept saying you are going to love the surprises I have planned. I think he mentioned the word surprise everyday that month. And for those of you who do not know this about Chad he was the kid that had to wear his new shoes out of the store because he was so excited and it benefits him to buy my Christmas presents just a few days before Christmas that way he doesnt have to keep them a secret too long!! So the night before we left I could just tell by his face he was so flipping excited about our trip he couldnt stand it. He went to sleep early the night before because he said that way tomorrow will come faster. I love that he is like this by the way! Ok this is starting to get long winded...So we are off to the beach. On the way he explains to me that when we arrive I am going to think that the place we are staying is way too large for just us but the lady who owns the house really wanted to rent it out so she gave him this unbelievable deal that he couldn't pass up. So I buy it until we pull up on this...

So yes my mind starts thinking...this is WAY too much space we dont need all this! But it could be fun. The house was great very well decorated with a contemporary beachy style. Well as I am taking a few pics of the house before our stuff takes over I hear the doorbell!! Surprise #1 Lorie and Jody! Yay! And then a few minutes later Jeanna and Jennifer!! Yay! And Lorie brought this delicious cake below (from Edgar's yes strawberry cake!!)

Chad has the biggest grin on his face. He was so proud of himself and I was so proud of him too! And it was not over yet. the four girls before dinner...

The 6 of us head to dinner at the Old Florida Fish House in Seagrove. Great place by the way!! After dinner we decided to hang out at the bar and listen to their house band and around 10:30 Julie, Corey, Lea and Russ arrive. I was completely shocked. I now had all my closest friends with me to celebrate my birthday!! How perfect!! The picture below is from that night shortly after Julie and Lea arrived. Not the best pic of me (apparently I thought something was pretty funny) but I thought it captured how much fun we had that night.

All of the girls!!

The handsome boys!

Saturday Seaside was hosting the Seeing Red Wine Festival (the main reason why Chad and I wanted to go this particular weekend). Jeanna, Lorie, Chad and myself bought tickets and the rest of the gang watched the AL vs LSU game at a local pizza place. The wine festival was so much fun!! The weather could not have been more perfect, we tasted lots of really good wine, the food was delicious and we met some funny people. This day was definitely the highlight of the weekend. A few pics from the festival below...

This is the weather we had the entire weekend. It was absolutely perfect!! Who wouldnt want to go to the beach in November when it looks like this!

This was definitely the best birthday celebration I have ever had and the memories we made will never be forgotten. I owe it completely to my thoughtful husband. He planned this trip with all of my closest friends just for me. He said in his initial email to the group that he has thought about what he could get me for my birthday and the only thing he knows I love but do not have is lots of time with my friends. How sweet is that!! I am the luckiest girl in the world. He spent the time searching for a place and coordinating all the details with everyone and I had NO clue!! Kind of scary when you think about it :) Chad, anything else I need to know...

Also this weekend would not have been possible if my friends had not made the effort to come. I am so grateful to you all for leaving your babies behind, taking time off work and making the long drive to the beach to celebrate my birthday. Words cannot express how much it meant to me that you all were there! It goes to show you that distance and time apart doesn't change a thing when you have such wonderful friendships. That weekend it felt like Auburn and Bham again and we never left :)

And one last little story...On our way out on Sunday poor Corey was taking out the trash and a glass bottle sliced open his leg and they had to make a trip to the local ER before heading home. 11 staples!! Sorry Corey but I guess you will have a small scar that will always remind you of this trip!!

Happy Halloween 2009

To start off the Halloween festivities, James' class at day care had a little Halloween party Friday afternoon. It was so much fun to see him interact with the other kids in his class. They had so much fun and thoroughly enjoyed the Halloween cup cakes. It was a real treat for James!

Then Saturday was the day. We had such great weather and enjoyed watching Auburn football especially since they won a game!! Oh and Meme, Papop, and Nana came to visit to celebrate mine and Anna's birthday. We celebrated by going to dinner Friday night and then enjoying some Italian cream cake for dessert. We opened presents and since I was already in my pajamas we did not take any pictures of the night :). But back to Saturday...I first wanted to include a picture of James last year on Halloween. It is amazing how much he has changed in just one year :)

Our little Pirate!

James does not like wearing anything on his head so it was very hard to find a costume that did not have significant head attire. We did try real hard to get a few pictures of the different head accessories individually even though they are supposed to be all worn together...that was NEVER going to happen with him...

Nana participating in the festivities :)

We took James around "the loop" for some trick or treating and he loved it. He has never eaten candy before but he still got excited about putting treats in his little bag and I will say at times he was selective about his candy choices :) It was a great Halloween!



And yes now I am officially 30! It is not too terrible. Chad is taking me on a little getaway trip this weekend to celebrate while KK and Pop stay home with James. Chad claims he has several surprises in store (I love surprises!). We do not get away very often so we are really looking forward to it!!

Weekend Recap

Sorry for the long post but there were too many great pictures documenting our weekend I couldn't help but share :) We had a fantastic weekend!! The weather was perfect and we spent alot of good quality family time together. Saturday consisted of a little bit of our own football game outside. Maybe James should start receiving for Auburn...they apparently need all the help they can get. James did start saying "Awborn" this weekend and actually recognizes the orange and blue and AU symbol. Last night Auburn was on the news and it only showed a picture of the AU and he shouted "Awborn"! He also knows which pacifier is his "Awborn" pacifier :)

The "Fork"

On Sunday we decided to make our first official fort or "fork" as James called it. He LOVED it!! He couldnt stop laughing. There was alot of the faces you see below under the fork...we were dying laughing with him. Such a great idea and it only took using a flat sheet to make him SO happy!! I wish we would have thought of this one before now :)

And here is a picture of the outside of our make shift "fork". Nothing too complicated...and I had to get outside of the fort to take this quick picture before I was shoved back in by James...


And then we enjoyed a nice walk down by the bay. What a gorgeous day!

Late Sunday afternoon James had his first popsicle with Daddy. I think he loved it. Everytime he took a lick he would say "hmmmmm" and then rub his tongue on his lips.

So even though we hardly left the house this past weekend we had a great time!! After the weekend was over I realized we even ate every meal at home...that is a record for us!!

Looking forward to Halloween this weekend. Can't wait to share the pics of James in his costume if he will wear it long enough...