13 Months

 I keep telling myself or people in passing that you just turned 1 and here you are another month down the road in growing up! You are hilarious and I love your little giggle and your giant teethy smile! You have been a ball of fun this past month. You are walking (on your own terms and only when you want to). You still crawl most of the time. You are babbling more and more and can say words like mama and dada clear as day but do not associate them with me or daddy -ha! You did however make your first word association. You now know that nana is a banana and you go crazy when you see bananas! It is soo cute and I love that you have decided nanas are your new favorite!

 I can't even get enough Crawford time in. I find myself wanting to wake you up before I go to work at 8 just so I can get some cuddling in but then I feel bad and let you sleep. You still sleep from 9-10 PM to around 9:00 AM

 I took you to your first Gymboree play class and you loved it. It was so cute to watch all the girls and boys of the same age play. All the girls were so sweet and sat with their mommies and all the boys were off in 10 different directions. You loved all the "ball" activities we had. We got to play with the parachute and pop bubbles. You were having a great time!

 You make all sorts of clicking noises with your mouth and you are doing another mouth sound in this picture. You loooove Mickey and I love how excited you get when he comes on tv.

 You visited mommy at the pharmacy and went crazy over the bottles. I am sure I had to throw out like 10 bottles covered in your slobber.

 You are great with playing with toys and can literally entertain yourself forever.

 It doesn't look like you are giving up sucking those fingers anytime soon!

 Playing with your cousin Hope. You just get a kick out of her and she is soo sweet with you!

 You are not a big fan of your stroller but a walk downtown around nap time does the trick!

 You are always getting into trouble. Always finding the box of open wipes, toilet paper, tv remote, or something that you know you shouldn't be playing with and you give us a grin!

13 Month Stats:

• Weight-
• Height-
• Size 3 diaper
• 12-18 month clothes
• Size 4 shoe
• You drink whole milk now and you love it! We go through so much of it every week!
• It is definitely difficult to come up with things for you to eat. You will not eat anything off of a spoon. So we are always thinking of new finger foods. Some favorites-still mandarin oranges and grilled cheese. You now loooove bananas. You will eat strawberries, pomegranate, blueberries, grapes, watermelon, peas, turkey, chicken. You are not a huge fan of vegetables and you don't really care for beans but I keep trying to give you small portions so you at least get some of their nutrional value.
• You love your blanky and it is definitely your little sense of security. You just need that and your fingers and whenever you grab for either we know you are getting sleepy.
• You are a breeze to put down (knock on wood) --but we just lay you in your crib and out you go
• You love baths and just play and we practive floating on your back
• You take two 1-2 hour naps still. Usually one nap from 11-1 and the other from 4-6.
• I love that you wave bye bye to everyone.
• You are starting to loove books. While you may not sit through a whole reading you will just flip through all the pages over and over again
• I love watching your fine motor skill. Seeing you play with toys you can push all the buttons to pop things open and you are a whiz with the iphone already.

We are so excited to see your face in the morning. I just can't wait for my lunch break each day to come home and see what you have gotten into that morning. And I give you a bath every night and it is mommy and Crawford time and I just adore watching you play and get more brave in the water. I hope you continue to be our happy little boy who won't sit still for a minute but is a ball full of energy. We love you so very much and look forward to you taking off in your walking and continuing to say new words for us !

NYE 2011--Sylva NC

We were so excited to spend NYE in the mountains wih Hewy and Jenny and some others. We were thinking our trip with Crawford woule be a breeze a quick 72 miles. Well lets just say 72 miles took us 3+hours as this was 72 miles straight up mounain roads. But it gets even funnier because as we lose cell service we are still thinking we are prepared with written direcions. However, there are no road signs when we get to a dead end. We decide to go right and about 15 minutes later I feel my tires start spinning and I look straight up to see that the road has ended. Yes, we are on an inclines I am staring at trees and we are stuck. I start freaking out and we finally by the grace of God get one bar of cell service. We call Brad's dad who still doesn't believe us and then finally get the mapquest to work. We realize we should have gone left at the unmarked road and we are only 8 miles away. We are thinking 8 miles --piece of cake. Well about 20 more minues into our drive I see a deer out of the corner of my eye and then we hear boom....yeah stupid deer darts into the side of our car. We keep trucking....finally made it there after 9. We arrive feeling defeated but then Hewy pulls out a giant diamond on her hand and announces that she got engaged earlier that day. So it really was a great surprise and we were so excited to be able to celebrate.

Hewy's dog--Huddy. Crawford just loved him and would open his mouth wide for doggy kisses. It was like 2 kids playing together and he kept C quite occupied.

We attempted to find some trails to hike...I mean we were in the middle of the mountains with no cell service and really struggled to locate a good trail. At least we gave exercise a shot.




Crawford stayed busy helping us keep our beer bottles in the trash.

We had such a great time talking weddings and sipping wine and playing games.

the newly engaged couple!

Dominating at flip cup--as usual!

Jenny brought us some Champagne from her trip to France and we all rang in the New Year with a toast.

Happy New Year to Brad and to our year of fun 2012!

Christmas in Knoxville

I loved our Christmas in Knoxville this year. We were so excited to see the girls and they are always soo sweet to us. I will just be sooo sad one day when they decide to longer refer to me as "Aunt kissy"....Ryan is precious with Crawford and sings him songs and plays with him and really is so sweet.Gotta have a cousin bathtime picture to pull out at their weddings in the future!

Loved watching the girls stroll Crawford around in their babydoll stroller.

Crawford was wooorn out from those crazy cousins of his

Once the babies were sleeping Ryan and I did some arts and crafts

Christmas Eve morning started with a dance party in the den followed by tracking Santa on AT&T santa tracker--so cute!

Hayden having a dance party to the sounds of Christmas Carols

Crawford was verrrry entertained watching the girls dance.

We took the kids out for a stroll around the neighborhood

Ryan was the leader and made us "stop and go" and "change directions"

We attended Christmas Eve service at the girl's preschool church. Then we headed to our annual chinese dinner out.

Then we changed into Christmas PJs and played

Practicing walking...not quite there yet.

It was time to make cookies for Santa. Ryan had a ball cutting out cookies

I know I enjoyed it as much as she did. My sisters and I had a decorating contest and Ryan participated as well. Corinne for sure won the prize and I was quite impressed.

All the cookies were ready and we just had to pick out the prettiest ones to leave out for Santa

Christman 2011

Started Christmas morning 2011 in Knoxville with my 2 sisters, 2 nieces and our 2 boys (the husbands were there too of course!) It was so fun to have Hayden and Ryan get soo excited about Santa. We were so excited when everyone was up and it was time to go downstairs. They immediately found their "big" presents from Santa (unwrapped) and were so excited about their first two presents. It was a whirlwind from there as the girls has soo many presents to open and with my crazy little guy crawling around and everyone trying to hand out presents it was chaos (but adorable to watch nonetheless) Crawford was obviously clueless this year and was more overwhelmed by everyone tearing paper and making a mess and I think he was a bit overstimulated.

Corinne had them all the cutest matching PJs (but Blake peed through his) and the girls adorable nightgowns are covered up (it's the thought that counts) I just love how different they all are in the different stages of life! Hayden (2.5), Blake (6 months), Ryan (5), Crawford (1)

The boys in their matching Kentucky gear. Dantley got Brad a Kentucky shirt and Brad loved it (though he's not a Kentucky fan)

The girls last surprise from Santa was on the deck. It was soo cute to watch them uncover it and jump right in. Hayden accidentally stepped on the gas without knowing it and they went flying. It was soo cute to watch

It was then time to pack up (around 8:30 AM) and we headed 3 hours back home to Greenville. Crawford got to start tearing open some of his presents.

He looved his laptop (as he is constantly trying to get on any and all of our electronic devices) and we can't wait till he is old enough to enjoy his cozy coupe.

We all got a laugh that this polo wearing guy is now a fan of lumberjack shirts --what happened to my husband?

Crawford's other set of cousins joined us at Brad's parents house in Greer. Crawford (1) Carter (9 months)

Grandpa is soo great with these boys and I can't wait to see what Crawford decides to call him when he starts talking

Crawford loves anything he can push around the floor and he was having fun with his new CAT truck

Poor Hope ---the boys destroying all of her presents. She is soo sweet and never pushes them away.

Christmas 2011 (oh how different it was from our sleep deprived, crazy new parent stage last year...soo much more relaxing!)

We are so blessed to have had a happy and healthy 2011!