Growing Like a Weed

Before (September 2009)...

...and after (July 2010)

First of all, I cannot believe that he can still fit into this outfit (especially since it says 12 months). Secondly, I cannot believe that he has grown so much! Put those two together and it doesn't make much sense, does it? He never ceases to amaze Chris and I. We are so proud of him!

Blessed!

We haven't taken a family photo since Easter (Bad Mommy)! We got all dressed up tonight to go out to eat, so I though it would be a good time to take a new updated picture of us. We had to sing "If You're Happy and You Know It" to get James to grin at the camera, since we used the remote to take the picture. I think they turned out pretty well!

I am in absolute LOVE with these two!

Family

We had my (Leigh's) side of the family's Family Reunion over Father's Day. This year, we went back to my parent's house on the river. We had a great time enjoying each other's company, playing card games, watching the little kids, and eating (of course)! Dad does an excellent job catching and cooking fish for our fish fry! Many of us are Auburn grads and we owe that to my Great Uncle B.J. (who passed away several years ago) who first attended A.P.I. and graduated with a degree in Engineering. My Grandfather's only surviving brother, Uncle Gray, was honored at the family reunion with a very nice certificate from Auburn University for his generous support. I felt quite honored myself to be there to watch him receive it!

Here is my Great Uncle Gray and his wonderful wife, Dorothy taking a walk to the water.

James and his cousins Ava and Carter enjoyed hanging out as well. They were all so cute together! I wish I had snapped a picture of all three playing!

James and Ava playing with cars.

Cousin Carter. Isn't he a cutie!

This past weekend over the Independence Day weekend, we got together with Chris' family since his grandfather, Grumps, was in town. I didn't catch any pictures of James with his namesake Grumps, but here are a few of James and his cousin Charlie having a good 'ole time!

Riding in the laundry basket

These boys may be playing sports together one day, so they thought they'd start early on team workouts.

Chris, James and I went to our neighborhood pool on Monday. We had a great time in the big "cool" and baby "cool" (as James calls them). He really liked when Daddy would swim like a "fif" (fish)!

Of course, every little boy enjoys doing this after changing out of wet swim trunks!

Summer Fun

It's been quite a while.  We've been a tad busy since the last post.  Anytime we get in the car, James asks if we are going to any of the following: Ko-guh (Kroger), Peepo (Home Depot), Pop Gae-ee (Pops and Grammy's), Poppa (Grandpa and Grandma's), duck (to feed the ducks), ai-kee (Brusters for ice cream) or koo (school).  James attempted his first ride on a carousel while visiting Mrs. Ali and Cooper at the mall.  We will likely not attempt another for a while.  Chris and I had a date night to attend a beautiful wedding while James stayed with our first non-family babysitter.  We are so thankful for her for being such a huge help and so delighted that James didn't scare her away!  Here are some pics of  life at home.

Dress up (boy style)

Anyone who knows me very well knows where James picked these things up.

Can't forget about the perfectly eaten corn.

James' favorite new games include playing with (and flying) his toys while lounging in the baby pool,

playing outside,

and playing with cars underneath the 'tent'.

Still cannot believe that he will be two in a couple of months!! 

Five Years!

Last week (May 7th to be exact), Chris and I celebrated our 5 year anniversary!  I can't believe it has been that long and I'm blessed to have such an amazing husband.  We celebrated by taking our first trip without James.  We stayed at a cool inn at Folly Beach in South Carolina and spent time eating, napping, walking, sightseeing in Charleston, and hanging out at the beach.  We also took a tandem kayak out in the estuaries and saw a bald eagle (!!!!) and two pods of dolphins.  One pod had two baby dolphins, one of which had a fin that was no bigger than 4-5 inches wide!  It made us think of little James!!  It was so nice for us to spend time together.  Of course, we almost didn't know what to do when eating out, since there was no one to entertain and no need to scarf our food down.  We did find ourselves at several restaurants sitting next to families with young children, so we didn't feel too far removed from the chaos of eating out with a young one.  Here are some pictures from our trip. 

View from our screened in porch

Not the same kind of beach as the FL panhandle, but still enjoyable. 

James spent time at Grandma and Grandpa's house playing in the blow-up pool, picking out toys and eating Mother's Day brunch with the rest of the Rogers clan.  Then they passed James off to Grammy and Pops and all three of them stayed at our house the remainder of the time.  James especially enjoyed taking wagon rides to the neighborhood lake and feeding the ducks with Grammy and Pops.  James LOVED spending time with his wonderful Grandparents (and I do mean "grand").  He now points out every truck as "Pop" and every CRV as "Pop-pa" (for Grandpa).  He also keeps talking about his Uncle Mike.  

In other news, James is very interested in learning about colors.  He loves talking about colors and questioning the colors of things, especially when playing with blocks.  Right now, he will say at least 6 colors for us.  I just watched a video from last week that I took of James where he kept saying "gee" about a pickle jar.  I told him over and over that they were pickles, and he would respond again "gee".  He was trying to tell me that the pickle lid was green!  Duh, Mama!  

Like any good Speech Pathologist, I have been working on getting James to use 2-word phrases.  He is doing so well!  He continually surprises me with the word combinations that he comes up with!

My favorite things now that James entertains us with are singing anything (even the Handy Manny song) and making "Hungry Caterpillar" sounds.  He makes the most precious eating sounds!!

     Enjoy this popsicle season!

Water!

We took a trip to visit Grammy and Pops at their river cabin the weekend before last.  James loved being outdoors, playing with the family, riding in the boat (or 'boap' as he calls it), watching the silly neighborhood doggies play fetch, eating fish, and looking at the lawn mower (or 'mah mow').  He was also able to spend a little time with his Great Aunt Carol for a little bit too.  He woke up every morning asking for 'Pop'.  We had him sleep on his kids Aero bed for the first time.  Let's just say that he's not ready for a toddler bed yet.  We will have to corral him inside the bed the next time we go on a trip with him.  I hope he grows up enjoying the outdoors as much as he does now.  Here are a few pictures from our trip.

James was excited about the 'boap' ride with Pops.

Riding in the boat with Grammy.

It was sooo peaceful!

Playing in the boat.  Dada was probably doing something funny.

Cheesin'!

This past weekend, we decided to let James play in our blow-up baby pool and in the sprinkler.  It was a little cold at first, but James had a blast! Chris and I had fun throwing his blocks near the sprinkler and watching James get shocked by the cold water getting on him. He thought it was hilarious!!  He might get angry at us in several years over these photos...either from letting him parade around in a swim diaper or from allowing him to be a skinny little white boy.  I'll take my chances because these are just too cute! 

After seeing how skinny he looked, Chris and I decided to put him on an exercise program to beef him up. 

 

Maybe we need to start with lighter weights!  Ha!!

Have a great week!

Easter

I am going to move from my regular format this week.  As OCD as I am, I am trying to mix it up a little in my life!  If this is as crazy as I get, so be it!

We had such a wonderful Easter weekend.  The weather was just perfect!  Our neighborhood held an Easter Egg Hunt on Saturday.  Before heading over to the clubhouse, Chris had to make sure that James received 'training' in the proper way to acquire eggs.  I must say that the training paid off!!!  I was so happy that they decided to do a little hunt for kids 0-2 inside the playground fence instead of out on the lawn near the neighborhood lake.  Chris took James into the hunt while Grandma, Grandpa and I watched.  James was the first to discover that if he climbed the play structure, he could find eggs all over the place! 

He knew that he needed to share some of the eggs with the other little ones, so he kindly gave away some of his eggs by pushing them down the slides.  We were so proud of him and his little stash of eggs!  Instead of a victory lap, Chris decided to take James down the enclosed slide.  I'm not sure if Chris will be experiencing this slide again. 

I don't know if James enjoyed hunting the eggs more,

dancing to the pre-hunt music,

or playing airplane with Grandpa,

but James sure enjoyed his day!

On Sunday, we went to church and then headed over to Grandma and Grandpa's for Mamaw's Birthday Lunch/Easter Lunch.  We didn't have time to go and take Easter pictures near John's Creek City Hall like we did last year, but had to use the soccer fields in front of the parking lot at church instead.  They still turned out cute! 

 

At Grandma and Grandpa's we ate too much food, then had another Easter Egg Hunt.  James was super excited about this hunt.  He had everything all figured out.  Once we opened the back door and James saw eggs scattered all over the lawn, he continued to yell out "EGG!!!" at almost every sight of one. 

Charlie enjoyed the egg hunt too!

Needless to say, those little plastic eggs have been a huge hit at our house for the past several days.  I've had to banish the eggs from the kitchen after this!!

He is risen!  Happy Easter!