Splish splash

I like to think of this as some sort of redneck backyard riviera. To add to the redneckness of it all, he swam in a swim diaper alone.

Jones, however, couldn't care less about any of that. He loved it! We passed the time yesterday afternoon waiting for Trey to come home by swimming and playing with stickers. Jones was so happy to see him, and so was I. Three nights used to not seem so long. I will be happy when we have a relaxing weekend... I am sure there will be one in about 15 years, right? In the meantime, I am trying to enjoy the busy that is our life!

Stay-cation

Who ever coined that term? I don't know, but I like it. Because on vacation you don't clean if you don't want to, you eat what pleases you, and you lounge. I like to lounge.  And on stay-cations you get to do those things plus sleep in your own bed. Score one for me.

I declared this long weekend a stay-cation since a proper summer vacation is not likely in our immediate future.


We spent a good deal of time at the Country Club. Jones was super nervous at first and would declare "this way!" and point to the chair where he would then demand a snack.

But by Sunday afternoon, he was comfortable again in the water and had a blast. He would yell "kick, kick, kick" the whole time.

Hooray for summer days.

Saturday morning we woke up and drove to the Buffalo Park to look at the animals. Jones has a deep appreciation for farm animals. He loves Charlotte's Web and carries a plastic cow with him most of the time. So the Buffalo Park seemed like a grand idea.

It. Was. Hot.

If you thought for a second that monkeys, giraffes, kangaroos, and goats smelled nice with zero breeze and 100% humidity, you are dead wrong.

Jones didn't seem to mind. He loved the animals. He even fed the goats and mini horses. And he still talks about the giraffes.

I am sure we were a sight at Chick-fil-a after our little adventure. We were hot, sweaty, and smelled like wet cows. Oh well.

Then on Monday we met my parents for a little Memorial Day breakfast downtown. Followed by the park and a little playtime in the fountains on campus. Then afternoon at the pool.

Oh glorious four day weekend. Come back to me soon.

To top the weekend off, we are SEC champs. Seriously, in the words of jones: goooo buuuldogs!!! Both of my sisters were there for the weekend So much fun.

For real, though

Trey and I have lived in more than a few homes. 

If you count our three month stay with my parents last fall, we have moved 8 times. We are moving into our 9th home next month. We will stay put for a while. Mark my words.  

NINE.  In 6 years of marriage.

Since 2001, when I left for college, I have moved, on average, three times a year. Every year. 

I am tired.

Each home and each move has happened for a specific reason.  We have only owned two of those homes.

The first home, our first home, we bought with the intention of flipping and selling.  We lived there for two years (the longest I have lived in one place in 11 years) before we sold our flipped home and moved into a slightly larger home in the same town.

That is when craziness started.

That home. 

We lived in that home for three months. Maybe 4.  Who cares. All I know is we only lived there long enough to unpack the last box. Then we moved towns.

We still own that bleepity-bleep home. 
Did you know that?

Not fun, by the way, that whole mortgage thing for a house three hours away that you lived in for three months three years ago.  

Not fun at all.

But glorious day.  We have an accepted offer on that bleepity-bleep home. 
(I hope posting this doesn't voo-doo jinx it.)

Assuming the inspection goes well and crazy doesn't hit our life yet again, we will close at the end of this month.

Praise God.

Are you the praying type? That would be totally awesome if you were.  Then you can pray with me that this sell goes through. 

For real, though.  I may need to be medicated if it doesn't.

words.

Jones' speech is improving every day and never ceases to amaze both me and Trey. There has been a drastic change in his speech since he first began speech therapy a few months ago.

He will be two on Tuesday, the 17th.

That's a whole different post. (Where did my baby go?)

He now tries to repeat most things we say. It is pretty hilarious, and I don't want to forget a thing.

We are not sure where this child came from - Germany? China? England? His accent is hysterical.

He can put several words together now. We can understand him, but I am not sure others can.

Some of my favorites:

"Heee Ma!"
Here, mama. Or Da. He does this when he hands us something.

"Tantu, Ma!" "Tantu, Da!"
Thank you, Mama! Thank you, Daddy! He says this for everything and is always unprompted. Sweet!

"Wheres Russ?"

Ever since our friend, Russell, came to visit a couple of weeks ago, he will randomly look at us and ask where's Russ? He says it perfectly, but does have a precious lisp.

He also recently started asking "wheres Ray?" I found out that the little man that cleans his school his named Ray. Every time we see Mr. Ray, Jones lights up and says HEY RAY. My friendly child.

"E-E how" (china?)
Henry's house. He says this a lot. It's his favorite place to be.

And just the other day he said his longest sentence:

"where E-E go, da?"
Where did Henry go, Daddy?

He adores Henry so much. Talks about him all the time. He calls Henry "E-E" and Noelle Adams "Baa-bee".

Jones can also say the following colors:

Boooo (blue) yeeeoooo (yellow), pink, geen (green), white, black, red, and brown. He tries orange, and it is funny. I am not sure I can even attempt to spell it.

When asked what color something is, he more times than not answers with BOOO. But if you ask him to point to yellow, blue, etc. he usually gets it right.

He can pronounce most letters. This week the letter at school is C. I should record him trying to say C C C C over and over. Again, not sure where this kid is from. It's for sure not Mississippi.

He likes to count with Elmo, but just says Teeee (for three) over and over.

He still refuses to call Sophie by name. Only "dog". He will call Laura and Kristen's dog by name, but not Sophie. I think he does this on purpose, out of spite. They do have a love/hate relationship.

He also calls all dogs "BUULLDOOGS", which I love.

His favorite thing: DA. Or DAAA-DEEEE!

Keepin' it real Friday

Happy Friday to you! I don't know about you but I, for one, am glad to see this day come. Onward to the weekend!

Today I want to keep it real by sharing some things with all you bloggers.

Before I was a mom, I had plenty of "I will never...", "my child will or will not..." blah, blah, blah.

Guess what? I am eating my words. Everyday. And that is ok. Jones is happy and healthy, and that is the most important thing, no?

Here are a few of my pre-mom crimes I have committed just in the past week:

1) My child will never ride in one of those disgusting cars/carts at the grocery store.
FALSE. My child will. And will love it. And I will be able to get in and out of the store without Jones having a giant-size toddler meltdown or me having to chase a very active boy around the store. Or both.



2) I will never. EVER. bribe my child. What parent would do that?

Pa-lease. This parent would. Just yesterday I used a juice box to coaxed Jones into getting in the stroller after work so I could go for a mini-jog. Worked like a charm and we were both happy. Win-win.

3)My child will love all vegetables and will happily eat whatever I lovingly prepare for the family.
What fantasy was I living in? First of all, I have yet to conquer this preparing a meal for our family gig. Now that I work, we are lucky to have a cooked meal two times a week. Secondly, my child hates all vegetables and meat. So guess what? He eats cheese, fruit and yogurt at almost every meal.

4)TV? Whatever. Not until he is at least 2, and even then no more than 15 minutes a day.
Trey leaves for work around 6:30. Which means I am left alone in the morning with Jones to get both of us ready for school and work. (Props to all of you single parents out there. You are my hero). We both need to be somewhat presentable and without tears (noticeable tears, at least) and out the door by 7:25. The TV has saved me many a times. I can either chase him around the house, scoop shoes and toys out of the toilet, come into the kitchen to find the pantry items covering the floor all while trying to clean my teeth OR I can put on a DVD and brush my teeth in peace.



5) I am not buying into all that cartoon character memorablia crap.
Jones has discovered Elmo. And there is no turning back. Give him his plush Elmo or give him death.

I read an article this week about pre-mom judging. I am guilty. I even was a stay-at-home mom judger (yes, it is a word. On this blog, at least) of working moms. Why would you put your kid in daycare?! Make sacrifices for the sake of your kids, people!! Sorry, moms out there. I was wrong.

We are all just doing our best in this scary thing. Nobody has it all together and we all feel like we totally suck at mothering at times. Good days/bad days. We all have them.

No judgement here, people. Do what works for you and let's all just be happy.

That's me keepin' it real today.

Check out the great article here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kara-gebhart-uhl/mom-judgments_b_1319775.html

Here is a picture of us from last weekend. We went on a date! First to the symphony, then out for drinks and appetizers. Cute boy. I like him.

dinner date

I used to think Valentine's Day was a super cheesy made-up holiday. I guess it kind of is.

But my view of this holiday has changed drastically over the years. Maybe it's because I am older now. Maybe it's because I have a child now. Or maybe it's because I like any excuse to celebrate seemingly otherwise ordinary days. At any rate, it is nice to actually set aside a little bit of time and effort and show those you love that you, in fact, love them. Effort, people. It's all about effort. And celebration. And candy. So really it is all about putting effort into celebrating with candy.

It is far too crowded to go out to eat on Valentine's night and I didn't want to cook so we decided to order take-out after Jones went to bed. We ate on our fine china and lit candles and had the rule not to talk about money (or lack thereof), how dirty the house was, or work. So basically we talked about Jones and football. It was nice.

My plate had enough food to feed a small army. It was delicious.

My gift to Trey was concert tickets to see one of his favorites: The Avett Brothers. In Trey's words, paying for memories is far better than paying for items. I agree. Sometimes.

Here is the card I made him letting him know what his gift is. I am glad he gets my humor.

one last birthday party shout out

Sweet Trey.

In our neighborhood park, there are three pavillions but only one big pavillion. Obviously that is the one I wanted for Jones' party. You can not reserve them; it is first come, first served. I have heard from other moms that if you want it for a Saturday, you better get there early. It's a popluar birthday spot, apparently.

Trey woke up at 5:45 the day of the party and was at the park by 6:00 to reserve the big pavillion. And thank goodness he was - by 6:30 a mom showed up wanting it! He never complained, never thought I was crazy (or never spoke it anyway) and I really didn't even have to ask for him to do this.

Love him. I think I'll keep him.

one for the books

Jones and I spent the night away from each other. Three actually! Do you know me? This is a big deal. I have a bit of an obsessive/paranoid nature. This used to not be the case, but my mother instincts are a bit much. At any rate, we did it. My sister's 30th birthday party was planned months ago, so I knew Jones needed to be on a sippy cup by the time I left. My child never took a bottle of anything, so I thought it would be an uphill battle. It wasn't! He was perfectly OK with my milk in a cup. I was the weak one, not him. But with me out of town for three days, he had no choice but to take the cup. And he was perfect. What a relief. He slept great, ate great and played hard. And since I knew he was with Trey and my mom, I was able to relax and have fun. Can't thank those two enough!

So in my opinion, this trip was one for the books in many ways. Yay Jones and the sippy cup!

spring has sprung

Well, maybe not officially but we are loving this spring-like weather around here!

Park with friends in Ocean Springs -

Park in our neighborhood with Daddy -




Swinging in our backyard -

(He likes to eat things.... )

Please, weather, stay this perfect!

1st Valentine

This is how Trey and I spent our Valentine's Day:

Both sick. Both Still kinda sick. It appears Jones generously gave us his cold.

What's not pictured is the Benadryl we were taking. I saw today that it expired in 2006. It's no wonder we are not yet feeling great. Needless to say, I tossed it this morning. Also needless to say, I am cleaning out my medicine cabinet tomorrow.

So while Trey and I were no fun this Valentine's, little man had a great first one. The weather here this week has been be-a-utiful. I strolled Jones for literally 3 hours. Thank goodness he loves being outside and in his stroller. I was strolling him for that long for selfish reasons - it takes less energy to walk than it does to chase him around the house. Terrible, I know. I just was really not feeling well.

But look at that smile! I can't feel too guilty. He was so happy.
Here is the Valentine that Jones made for his Daddy. Isn't he creative?


This picture cracks me up. Jones got a Sesame Street DVD as a V-day happy from Trey's parents. I popped it in while I cleaned the kitchen. He was occupied for about 5 minutes. Not a TV guy, although I am not complaining. (I mean, we don't even have cable. Did you know that?) But he looks so festive sitting there with his balloon from his grandparents tied to his chair all under a terrible excuse for a homemade banner. I had to take a picture.

And here is Jones playing with his Valentine train from Lita and Grandaddy. Throws it off his chair, waits for me to pick it up, throws it off, picks it up....fun little game he plays with most anything.
Here are pictures taken Valentine's night. He has been showing interest in feeding himself with a spoon so I let him try. I was feeling wild I suppose. He was so proud of himself. Messy, but proud!

(I love how wild he looks in this picture)

So that is a wrap-up of our Valentine's Day 2011. Romantic, huh?

no, no, no?

In a matter of one week my child has mastered opening the fully closed pocket door to enter our bathroom and has discovered that splashing both hands in Sophie's water bowl is loads of fun.

While this is entertaining for my almost 10 month old, the combination of these two new discoveries has kept me on my toes. The little booger is fast. And he is very proud of his accomplishments.

Trey thinks he is old enough to understand the word "no". I am not so sure. But to make my husband happy - and to prove him wrong - I have been telling Jones no when he takes off at full speed towards the dog bowl.


Jones thinks "no" is one of the funniest things he has ever heard. He just laughs and then crawls faster and splashes the water harder. Now, a couple of weeks into the No Stage, Jones crawls towards the water bowl, stops, looks back at me, shakes his head no, then proceeds to splash the water.

I think that is a step in the right direction. Trey says he knows what he is doing and has outsmarted me. I think he is brilliant for being able to sign "no".

Baby steps, people. We will master discipline one day at a time.

Now for some cute pictures of recent happenings:

1. Jones' friend, Hayes, and his mama, Hope, came over for Valentine craft time one day last week. Have you tried to paint with a 1 year old and a 9 month old? Clearly I was not cut out to be a preschool teacher. There are no pictures of me and Jones. We were far too busy being covered in red paint to have our picture taken.
On a different note, we are so thankful Hope and Hayes moved to the coast! Wonderful friends already.

2. Jones had a cold (again) last week. Woke up Sunday in a great mood feeling fabulous but by the time we picked him up from the nursery at church he had 102 fever. Ugh. Hurry up spring.

Sunday sick day? I thought snuggling on the couch (in Christmas PJs) while watching a Disney movie was in order. Jones is not a TV watcher - much too busy to sit still - but he did sit for about 10 minutes and watched Aladdin. It was fun. My snotty nose snuggle man.

3. Hope, Hayes, Jones and I joined Kindermusik. It is so much fun and Jones seems to really get into the egg shaker. Here are some pictures from Kindermusik last week. I promise Jones' outfit is not that short on him. A bit high rising in these pictures.

4. And, finally, pictures from this morning at breakfast. Mealtimes are getting messier and messier. This morning he smashed an entire handful of bananas in his hair. Then died out laughing. Boys.

past few days

Friday night Trey and I went on a much needed date to Halfshell. It was as wonderful as I remembered. It had been a while. Trey ordered desert, if you are wondering. Cinnamon Roll Bread Pudding. Necessary? Absolutely not. Delicious? Absolutely.

Saturday morning I spent a couple of hours getting a pedicure and manicure thanks to a sweet, sweet friend. Heavenly. Coffee in one hand, sleezy gossip magazine in another while a man whose name I cannot pronounce massaged my legs with hot stones. Oh glorious day.

I chose You Don't Know Jacques! for both my nails and toes. It's a go-to color.

And I feel glam.

We took Jones to the park Saturday afternoon. A cold front came in this weekend. No fear. Jones came prepared:

We worked some more on Jones' playroom. Have I mentioned I live with a real life Handy Manny? Trey made this bookcase out of recycled wood. I love it. We are in the process of converting the sun room into his playroom. Rug has been ordered. Pictures of finished room soon.

In the meantime, I lay down a blanket on the hard floors for Jones to play on. It was made by Jones' great-great grandmother. Trey played on it as a child. I think Jones approves.

We finally got Jones a highchair. I was being picky. I really want a wooden antique one. But I want it to look a certain way. I have not had much luck with that. Well, Jones isn't getting any younger (or smaller) and that Bumbo seat eating was getting a little out of hand. So we opted for a space saver highchair, because, let's face it, we need to save space around here.

Jones pretty much loves it. He sat in it again tonight while Trey and I ate dinner. He just watched us. Big boy.

We've been having a great time - hope you have too!