Be Merry 2011 (part I)

Merry Christmas!!! This year we had such a fantastic holiday season filled with family, friends and tons of fun! We kicked off the Christmas season by attending a MS Swing! (the swing band Jeff used to play with and now fills in for when needed) concert at the Flowood library. Last year H slept through the entire concert but this time around she danced and played and sang and waved and called for her Daddy then tried to run up to him while he was playing. I quickly swooped her up and headed for the lobby. Out there we could still hear the music and dance AND sing and not disrupt all the other concert-goers. H did make it long enough in the concert to hear a few of her Daddy's solos. We are so proud of our great saxophonist!

A few days later was our church's annual Christmas program, Crossgates Live at Christmas. It was an amazing time of worship with our church family and the community. Lots of traditional carols and audience participation! The best part about the night was running into a former youth pastor from my high school days. We saw Tim and Sheila Tolleson as we were waiting for the music to start. They ended up sitting with us giving us lots of time to visit and catch up both before and after the program. They are a such a sweet couple and I'm so happy we ran into them.

Our next holiday event wasn't really a Christmas event but a fun time with family. My little brother married the cutest girl the Saturday before Christmas. All of the decorations were hot pink and black which I loved. The ceremony was beautiful and the reception was full of music, dancing and yummy food. H had a great time meeting her cousins Braelyn and Ella Spell. She just wished they could have stayed longer to dance with her at the reception. After the wedding we went to a late dinner with my dad, my older sister and her husband and my younger sister and her boyfriend at the Jourdan River Steamer. Let me just tell you the only thing better than that food was the company. It was amazing!

The next day we traveled to Picayune for a 1st birthday party for one of the J's (Jennifer) littlest cutie. The theme was "Cooper's ONEderland". Isn't that cute? I got to catch up with my J's (except Jodi, who we missed) and H got to play with the little J's - RJ, Ethan and Cooper. I love love love those girls and their families!

All our fun Christmas week coming soon!

Be Thankful 2011



This year we had a super duper fun Thanksgiving hosted by Yours Truly! It was my first time to host the event at my house for family and I must say I thought it went quite smoothly. But it was probably due to the fact that we had a "rehearsal" Thanksgiving dinner last Thursday night for our fab Life Group. My main squeeze got lots of practice frying turkeys after making a grand total of 4 this year alone. (He made 2 last week for our Life Group, then one for our BFFs and one for our celebration on Thanksgiving day.) I made my favorite veggie casserole, Jeff's favorite pecan pie, a "turkey" veggie tray (in the picture above) and a few other simple appetizers. My mom made a tasty sweet potato casserole, 7 layer salad and a cranberry/apple dish. It was all quite delish!  

Some of our Thanksgiving decor

H-bomb's contribution to the decor. Oh and her version of "Gobble, Gobble" is too cute!

More decor - that little Pilgrim has been in our family for years! It was on my grandmother's table every Thanksgiving for as long as I can remember! He has two friends that are in the kitchen.

waiting..

waiting...

to dig in!

My lil TURKEY!



Be it resolved...

This is my favorite time of year, hands down. But it seems that every year Satan sneaks in and manipulates me into giving up my joy. He twists the things that make this season unique to make me stressed, sad, overwhelmed and even mad. However, this year I am making my resolutions early. I am resolving to live with a JOYFUL CHRISTMAS SPIRIT this season.

This holiday season, BE IT RESOLVED...

I will not complain about crowds but be thankful I live in a city that is safe enough to go outside, day or night, without fear of being attacked by missiles, car bombs, military raids, etc...

I will not complain about traffic but instead take that time to crank up the Christmas tunes, sit back, relax and worship the King on His birthday.

I will not complain about cooking but be fondly reminded of the blood, sweat, tears and good times that went in to remodeling our kitchen a few years ago with a special family member that we now miss so much.

I will not complain about cleaning the house but be excited that friends and family are coming over to celebrate and prayerful for the perfect buyer to view our house.

I will not complain about being busy at work but be thankful that I have a job that I absolutely love and try hard to treat my patients with extra special kindness during this time of year.

I will not complain about being busy with parties and dinners and musicals, etc but be over-joyed that we have so many friends and family that want us to be part of their holiday festivities.

Beach Portraits

a few of my favorite shots from the beach...

Beach Vacation 2011

We usually go to the beach each year in September for Jeff and my birthday. It's cooler, less people there, CHEAPER, you get the picture. We skipped last year because H-bomb was so little but since she is now walking running, jumping, climbing, etc we thought it was the perfect time to take her on her first trip to the beach. We stayed on the bay in Orange Beach this year, which was new for us. Our condo had lots of fun things for a little girl including a splash pad, water slide, lazy river and multiple pools but we had to drive to a public beach to play in the sand and ride the waves. She was not too impressed with the beach but absolutely loved all the water features at the condo! Her favorite thing to do besides riding in the lazy river with Mommy and Daddy was to run from the splash pad to the big pool and jump in! (The child has NO FEAR!) She must have made 1000 miles between the 2 in the 5 days we were there. We had so much fun at the condo we only went to the beach one day and that was mostly for picture taking purposes. She didn't care too much for the sand, she must get that from her Mama!

Ready for some fun in the sun!

Riding the Lazy River

She wanted a cup like the big girls

At the Splash Pad (SHE wanted the flower in her hair, I swear!)

Breakfast on the balcony

The Ely Trio at Lulu's

And this pretty much sums up how she felt about the sand

Bilingual Baby

For several weeks now H-bomb has been a little motor mouth. She talks, talks, talks in her cute little baby language, with facial expressions, hand gestures an all! But it seems like her vocabulary has exploded over the past week! She is now trying to mimic just about everything we say. Currently her vocabulary consists of about 15 intelligible words:

MAMA, of course :)

Dada

Yes

No

Uh Oh

Ball

Bath

Nose

Ear

Eye

Gigi

Aunt Lane

Go Dogs

Thank you

Love you





I am loving this new stage. It's just amazing to actually be able to "talk" with my baby. We are working on Happy Birthday and Trick - or - Treat.

Besides talking, H-bomb has become quite the little mover and shaker. She absolutely loves to dance. If she hears music on the TV, in the car, at the grocery store, anywhere, she starts wiggling those little hips and swaying her shoulders. It is SO CUTE!

She loves to be outside. Swinging, going down the slide and sitting in the stroller watching Daddy "fix" things are her favorite. She literally kicks, screams and cries when we have to bring her inside. We have a glass back door that she will stand in front of and beat on until we take her outside or distract her in some other way. Now that it's getting cooler I see frequent visits to the park in our future.

For a while I was afraid she'd be 15 and still solely eating with her fingers but that fear has been put to rest. She's finally started using a spoon and fork! It's messy but she's getting better :)

Our big girl weighs 24 pounds and is 30 1/2 inches long at the 15 month mark. She is in the average percentile for girls her age and is perfectly healthy! We have an appointment with the pediatric cardiologist next month and are expecting the same great check up.

God is so good! We are so blessed He chose us to be her Mama and Daddy!

BABY MONET

A few weeks ago H-bomb brought home her very first piece of refrigerator art! It was a beautiful, thoughtfully planned, well executed painting in shades of red. I'm going to be honest, when I saw it I cried. It was hanging on the fridge when I got home from work and I'm sure it will be up there for a very long time.

After discovering she had such an artists' touch, I thought it was time to introduce her to the world of crayons. I had seen some "beginner" crayons at Toys "R" Us recently but thought they were a little to advanced for her. (They said 18months + on the package) But since seeing her painted masterpiece I knew she was ready. Large crayons fit into the center of little ball holders that are designed to easily fit into little hands.
Oh and just a side note, Jeff picked up the crayons at TRU. He got a little carried away and also bought a package of twist up crayons, and two different kinds of markers as well as 2 very large coloring books. It was so cute how excited he was, too!
Later that evening, I strapped H-bomb into her booster seat, pulled her up to the table and began the "coloring" lesson. She was very interested in these new toys. Of course she had to taste them during the lesson, quite a few times actually. So many, in fact, her lips were stained blue for a while. (I'm sure they are non-toxic, right?) After deciding they did NOT taste good we got down to business. I took the crayon and demonstrated for her then put the crayon in her hand and "helped" her color. We tried both the right and left hands 'cause I'm not partial. But when was flying solo she tended to use the right hand most often.

I'm pretty sure she enjoyed it because she sat up there "coloring" for about 20 minutes. She didn't do too bad either, for her first time, anyway. I was a proud Momma!

Birthday Bash at Bill Vance Park

H-bomb's first birthday party at Bill Vance Park in Brandon was super fun and super HOT! Even though the party was late in the day it was still a sweltering 100 degrees at the park, in the shade! That didn't stop lots of friends from coming from near and far to help celebrate our big girl's special day.

Friends playing on the playground

Cara and Mattie Rose being silly

Of course Mommy's BFFs the J's were there

Mickey Mouse has been H-bomb's absolute favorite for about a year now (haha) so we had to do a Mickey theme. Our good friend and EXCELLENT cake maker (among other things) Kelly Ross made an amazing 3 tier cake adorned with Minnie and Mickey heads, red and while polka dots and topped with Mousekateer ears. The smash cake was also Mousekateer ears, with a red Minnie bow!

It was pretty and yummy, too!

About to CHOW down on some strawberry cake

Birthday loot and the "mousekatools" for the guests

Hayden is so blessed to have plenty of toys to play with at home. So we decided to do something a little different and ask our friends to bring donations of toys for the patients at Blair Batson Children's Hospital instead of gifts for the birthday girl. I'm proud to say we were able to donate over 150 coloring books, puzzle,s boxes of crayons and other toys as well as socks, hats and personal items to the hospital. We truly have amazing, generous friends!

She did get to open a few presents for herself

She LOVED her pink princess car from MawMaw

Good friends, good eats and good times equals a great birthday party! Thank you so much to all who helped with the party, especially Aunt Lane, and all our friends who made this day so special. We love you all! The birthday girl had a great time...

hanging with Aunt Lane

eating cake

wearing special mousekateer ears

and just being dang cute!

Brushing my teeth

This is just for you Janice, DMD

I LOVE TO BRUSH MY TEETH!

Birthday Girl

I cannot believe that a whole year has come and gone! H-bomb is no longer a baby, she's now a
TODDLER! Oh how far she has come since that tiny little barely 5 pound baby struggling in the NICU. She now weighs 22 pounds and is in the 75% for everything. Formula is a thing of the past and has been for about a month now and she's the only kid I know of that actually LIKES her multivitamin. Bottles are also out of our lives now as of one week ago today! Transitioning her to both of these things was much easier than I imagined it would be considering the horror stories I've heard from others. She is still working on learning to walk but I think it's only a matter of time since she pushes everything around the house. Climbing is her favorite activity these days. A few weeks ago she showed us she could make it all the way up a flight of stairs! She also likes to climb on her stroller and some of her toys.  It won't surprise me if she figures out how to climb out of her crib soon. Fruit is her favorite food, particularly watermelon and strawberries. What will we do when they are out of season? She is transitioning to all solid foods pretty well. We went through a tough spot with it but she seems to be eating almost everything we give her now. She can wave bye-bye, clap, give a high five and sometimes raise her little finger when you ask how old she is. Her vocabulary consists of Mama, Dada, bye-bye, nigh-nigh (night-night) and no,no,no. Well that's what's intelligible anyway. She talks all the time, it's so cute to hear the inflection in her voice. What else? Oh, she is a stinking little fish! She loves to be in the water. She likes to dance, when the right music comes on.  Mickey and Minnie Mouse are still her favorites, too, but she doesn't like the Hot dog Dance anymore. I think it's because she knows that means the show is almost over. She's smart like that. The itsy bitsy spider is her favorite song, I mean pull-her-out-of-an-out-right-fit favorite song. I think that about sums up what H bomb is up to these days.

In the past year our little mouse has:

1. spent 10 days in a critical care unit

2. been healed of 2 congenital heart defects

3. flown on an airplane, twice

4. been to a MS State basketball game

5. met Mickey and Minnie Mouse

6. been to Disney World

7. spent the night in MS, FL, GA, OK and AZ

8. cut 8 teeth

9. had double pnuemonia and learned how to take breathing treatments like a big girl

10. made her Mommy and Daddy the proudest, happiest parents on earth!

Since we were just getting back from Disney on her birthday we postponed her party a week. It will be this Saturday at a park near our house. But we couldn't let her special day pass without at least a little party. She got her first taste of cake and icing and she loved it!

First few bites...

MMMMMMMM...

That was GOOOOOD!

Bad Blogger...

I can't believe it has been over 3 months since I last blogged! WOW! Things have been quite busy with trips, job changes and a growing little girl. H-bomb will be ONE in just two short weeks. We'll actually be in Disney World for her birthday so her party is planned for the following weekend. So there's lots of planning going on for the big day. Besides birthday parties and Disney trips, I have also changed jobs, um twice in the last month. LOOOOOOOOOONG story but I'm super excited about what's in store work-wise for me.
Speaking of trips, we just got back from my cousin's graduation in Atlanta. My Aunt has the most amazing back yard. It's just perfect for picture taking so here are a few of my favorite shots.