Summer 2010

Summer...What can I say?  It has been the rest that I very much needed from school.  I have been blessed to be able to spend so much time with my beautiful baby little boy.  We have gotten really attached to each other and I'm afraid the transition back to school is going to be very difficult. Along with the literal strides that he has made with his walking, now considered a gallop, he has made tremendous growth in his talking.  We like to refer to his language as "Jackonese".  It's really funny to hear his interpretation of words that he hears and to hear that nice southern draw come out.  He can say a lot of words and will attempt most any new word if the mood is right.  Some of the Jackonese that we have heard this summer is: ga-ga (grapes) which also closely resembles gone-gone, na-na (banana), go-gu (yogurt), nanna (granna), paw (grandpa), pawpaw, momo (mamaw), ma-e (Maggee), co-co (Courtney), ba-uh (bear), bo-bo (hippo), dye-dye (bye-bye), namen (amen), dog, momma, dadda, baby, owside (outside), whassat? (what's that), whosat (who's that?), and cah (car).  It's been such a fun time to watch him grow and change and experience new things for the first time.  How does that song go?  "These are the best days of my life..."

It's summer and some idiot still has this on his window!

Father's Day 2010

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Jack's first trip to the beach- he really liked it!

My sweet family!

Happy Father's Day Grandpa!
PawPaw wasn't here, but we love him too and are thankful for all the Godly men in Jack's life.

First trip in the ocean!

First four wheeler ride with Uncle Wayne and Harlee, Griffin, and Jake.

Chilaxin' in his pool at home!

The beach was fun, but most of our summer was spent doing things like this.

Jack's First Birthday Party...Finally!

My sweet baby turned a year old on April 27th.  I cannot believe that it has already been a year!  I am so sad at how fast it has gone by and yet so excited to see what fun times we'll have raising our little baby boy.  We didn't get to have the party until this weekend due to the tornado and sickness.  It turned out to be a beautiful day filled with precious family and friends.  Jack LOVED getting to be outside and play with the other kids.  So, without further ado, Jack's First Birthday party...

  He thinks he might just have a bite.

We had blue snot for a couple of days...

                                          

                                         

After cake...paper, it helps clean the palate.

                

Jack's fun new Radio Flyer push toy...it was a big hit. 

                                     

April 24, 2010

I've had this written for weeks...just had to wait for the pictures...

The tornado's path directly behind my parents' house.

God showed his amazing power and grace this weekend in Albertville.  An F3 tornado touched down in our town and caused major devastation.  As I was surveying the damage at my parents' house, I was in awe of how powerful our Lord is.   It's amazing to me how He can control the wind and guide its direction.  All praise and honor is owed to Him for his amazing protection of my family.  Honestly, the way the damage is, it's as if he placed his hand over my parents', grandparents', and aunt and uncle's house. Almost as amazing, was the outpouring of love from neighbors, church family, and complete strangers.  At one point during the day, all you could hear was the buzz of chainsaws and tractors running.  My heart was so filled with love and I thought, "Lord you did this to show us what love is..."  Although there was total loss in parts of our city, not one life was taken.  That...is how great my God is!

The beautiful oak tree that was in my Grandparents' front yard.

A storage building in Mom & Dad's backyard.  It used to sit where the ground is bare.

Another one of my parents' storage buildings was destroyed.  Amazingly, Dad's new lawn mower is left unharmed.

Jack's First Easter

Okay, so somehow this is the only picture that I managed to get of us on Easter.  What kind of mother doesn't even make a picture of her only child is his first Easter outfit?  It's the kind that runs around like a chicken without a head on Sunday mornings just trying to get to church on time.  This picture was made after church.  I am angry with myself as I'm typing this because it's such a blah picture.  Jack and I had already been through wrestlemania during church and it shows. But, I'm sure that years from now I won't care and I'll just be saying, "Look how young we look!" :) 

Thankfully, I made a bazillion pictures the day before at the Oliver family Easter egg hunt/Grandmother's 80th birthday party.  What a great day to visit with family and celebrate Grandmother's birthday!  The pictures say it best.  Remember, I made a bazillion. So even though I'm posting a million, it's still only a small fraction!

My favorite ladies...

I love this picture because it looks like he's really hunting!!

Why do you keep making sooo many pictures???

Who cares about the eggs!  I'll take the bucket!

All the "greats", we tried several times!

I LOVE this picture of Brannon showing Grandmother his cool face!

All of the grandkids (except for Lance) with Pop and Grandmother.

Happy Birthday Grandmother!!!

M&M Time

Last Thursday, as soon as I got out of school, we headed to the Magic City with Granna and Grandpa.  The purpose of this trip was for some M&M time.  I don't mean the chocolate kind, I'm talking about Mackey & Maggee.  Mackey is my cousin's beautiful baby girl born on March 31.  She weighed 9 lbs. 3 oz. and she has a head full of beautiful black hair.  Mackey is Jack's third cousin and we can't wait until they can play together.  Mackey made a very dramatic entrance into this world and gave her family a huge scare.  She stopped breathing during birth, but thankfully everything turned out okay! 

                                           Courtney, Jack, Mackey, and Granna

Me, trying to fight off the baby fever!

She was born at St. Vincent's, the same hospital where Jack was born.  Memories came rushing back to that precious time and I suddenly became aware of how much time has passed.  It's been almost a year!  I can't believe that MY newborn is almost a year old! What a blessing this past year has been.  I hope that Andrew and Coby enjoy this next year because IT WILL FLY BY!

The second part of our trip was to visit Jack's favorite Aunt Maggee (formerly known as my sister.)  Aunt Maggee is in pharmacy school at Samford and we miss her so much!  We went to watch Aunt Maggee get inducted into an honor society.  She works so hard and we were very proud to see her honored!  We had a great time and finished the evening with a delicious meal at Cocina Supreme (not on the weight watchers plan :) ).

I Scream, You Scream, We All Scream for Ice Cream!

Jack had his first taste of ice cream about a month ago.  When I say a taste, I mean just a taste!  I know, he's almost a year old, but I'm a stickler for the rules.  He loved it, as I knew he would.  Ice Cream is my favorite, I smile just thinking about it, and I'm afraid I've passed that on to Jack.  This week, I was eating a weight watchers chocolate ice cream bar. "Yuck!", you say. But, oh no, for a dieting woman it's like heaven!  The ice cream was covered in ground up oreo-type cookie pieces.  I opened it and Jack made a mad dash for me.  He didn't know what it was, but he knew I was eating and that's enough for him.  So, as I let him taste it, he would make the worst faces.  It was hilarious.  He didn't like the cookie coating, but he could taste the ice cream under it. 

 He decided to take one for the team and brave his way through those cookie crumbs.  When it was all over, I think I ended up with about 1 point worth of a 2 points ice cream bar and Jack got my other point. Oh well, I guess it's all in the genes!

So Much Time...So Little Said

Unfortunately, as you can tell, "blogfear" set in again!  I am so disappointed with myself for not documenting these past 8 months.  But, after encouragement and a long guilt e-mail from another blogger friend, I decided to give it another go.  In the past 8 months we've gotten teeth, learned words, started crawling and WALKING.  Oh my...how time flies.  It has been so amazing to watch Jack grow and see his personality develop.  The jury is still out on who he looks and acts like, but I like to blame the stubborness on Andy. :)