TAKE ME OUT TO THE BALLGAME

I have been wanting to re-decorate the boys room for some time now, but lacked the motivation to actually do it. Thankfully, my mom has that motivation and got a really cool baseball mural for Judah's birthday to hang in their room. As usual, we recruited my dad to help hang it...since both my parents have lots of experience with wallpaper installation. To my surprise, it went up pretty easy with no mishaps.....and with a quick move of the furniture, their room looks great! I also framed some baseball jersey's I had made for Christmas and put them on the other wall. Judah was really surprised and excited about his new baseball room.....I mean THEIR new room :)

SMILES

I FINALLY caught some smiles on camera! You may be wondering what brought him all this joy....his bumble bee mobile! It is so great- at least 30 minutes of fun activity for him!


I first found out he loves mobiles on our visit to my cousin's house:




My cousin, Lindsay, had a baby 2 months after I had Hawks. His name is Garret and he is so cute! They live in Sylva, and came for a visit the other day. The babies really hit is off- I think they will be great friends as they grow up! Here are some pictures of their visit...
by the way: I have no idea why this part is underlined....I can't seem to change it :)

Our family loves babies, if you couldn't tell!

Lastly, here are the most recent pictures of Judah....not quite as fond of the camera as he once was. Oh well, hopefully it is just another one of those "stages" that kids go through!

FEBRUARY 2010

It is really hard to start blogging after you have taken a year off. I mean, how do you start without sounding cheesy. Well, after a looooooooong break, and inspiration from other friends, I have decided to come back into blogging world. Well, I actually never left....I just haven't written on my own for quite a while.

Moving on though, I guess it is time to give you some pictures.



This is our little guy Hawks, who made his way into this world on Nov. 4th (6 weeks early.) I probably shouldn't say 'little' since he weighed 8lbs. 13 ounces at birth. I decided not to schedule him as strictly as I did with Judah.....I simply went into survival mode. Not having a schedule brings positives and negatives.... we have rocky days and nights with him and don't really know what to expect. However, I have found that he is naturally developing a schedule of his own. If he misses out on sleep during the day, he is an absolute MESS by night which means uncontrollable crying. I am very excited though, that he seems to be sleeping through the night now- which of course makes a happy mommy :) Either he is sleeping through the night, or I just don't wake up anymore (just kidding...I'm sure one of us would hear him :)

Judah is a proud big brother. Of course he is a BIG kid now that has to do absolutely EVERYTHING on his own....pour his own cereal, turn on and off the lights, open and shut ALL the doors on his own, squeeze his own toothpaste etc. Now that I think of it, I'm not sure why he still needs us since he does everything independently. He also likes to do pretty much whatever his daddy does- he copies his every move.



I am very blessed to be a mother of 2 fabulous boys......yes they are loud, busy, and challenging......but I am very thankful for my family. I hope to keep this blog going as a way to document our lives since I'm pretty sure my creative memories won't see the light of day anytime soon :)

NEW YORK...NEW YORK!!

Judah and I finally made it to the Big City!! I have been wanting to come back to visit for a long time now, and finally got the opportunity...well more like made the opportunity. Judah can fly free until he is 2- which happens March 23rd, so we had to hurry. Thankfully my mom came with us-- I don't know if I would have survived the drive to Charlotte, the 2 hour flight, and the crazy taxi ride into the city without her.
The first day of spring was Friday, and we welcomed it in with SNOW?!?! Arrggg...my plans of going to the Central Park zoo had to be modified. Anyways, we sacrificed and made ourselves go SHOPPING :) We spent the day at Macy's, H&M (my favorite), and fifth avenue of course! Of course, Judah was the only one that ended up with a new wardrobe (what is up with that? )
Then we ended the day eating at Carmine's ( a family style italian restaurant) and going to Judah's favorite stores-- FAO Schwartz and Toys-R-Us.

BOOTS

Judah absolutely loves his boots! He has learned how to put his own shoes on by himself- meaning he never takes them off. As soon as he wakes up he puts his boots on and doesn't take them off again until bedtime. There's not much else to say about that, but I had to post these pics because they are just too cute.

WHAT A WEEK!!

Whew, I am glad to see this week pass. We had been planning for Nathaniel to have back surgery for a few months. After months of back pain, chiropractic service, and physical therapy, we broke down and went with the surgery. It was called a microlumbardistectomy (basically shaving down a herniated disk.) Everything we heard about it was simple in and out of the hospital and then he would be a little bit sore afterward. Well, just in case you are thinking about having back surgery, don't underestimate it. After 3 days in the hospital, lots of severe back spasms and pain, a 102 degree fever, and a migraine with vomitting.....I can now say we survived! Well at least until tomorrow. Thanks to all our wonderful friends and family who provided chilcare, meals, visits, phone calls, and prayers- we couldn't have done it without you!
WARNING: if you are someone who get queesy you may want to look away now. Nathaniel wanted me to post pics of his battle scar for proof:


One of his restrictions is no lifting for 4 weeks- so picking up Judah is out of the question. However, Judah can pretty much climb all the furniture around the house and get where he needs to get. We had to go ahead and move him into a big boy bed so when I am working Judah can take naps and go to bed at night etc. Thankfully, he got a bed for Christmas from my family. This bed was hand made by my mom, Danny, and Maggi.....even the comforter was sewn by




Maggi and Danny (my aunt and uncle.) We couldn't have asked for a better bed, this one is perfect and Judah loves it soooooo much! He has spent most of the last 2 days climbing up and down on it, jumping on it, and rolling around laughing and yelling on it! I think he loves the freedom he as on it- this morning I hardly heard him get up, but when I came in to check on him he was already up reading his books.

SPRING IS IN THE AIR...

......wait it's only January, never mind.

We took advantage of the warm weather today by going to feed the ducks at Lake Julian. This is one of Judah's favorite activities by far. In fact, most days he just walks around saying ducks..quack..quack..and on and on. It is also pretty relaxing for us as well, as long as we keep a hold on Judah's hand so he doesn't go head into the dirty, murky water!



And yes, we did learn that ducks and geese actually like tacos- go figure. I don't have much to say about that, but you can tell what I had left in my cabinets :)