Chattanooga Zoo

Wednesday we took a trip to the Chattanooga Zoo with the children's and preschool department from church. It was REALLY hot, but we had a good time. Thankfully, the zoo in Chattanooga is small, so we were pretty much done by lunchtime. Jaybird had more fun spending time with his little friends than seeing the animals, I think. :) Here's some pictures from the petting/feeding area of the zoo.....

Here's a group shot of Jaybird and some of his little buddies.

This is a really close up of a cougar. It was pretty cool to be that close to it! And, yes, it was alive....it was very sleepy, but not dead. :)

Sara Grace really liked the cougar. I think it was mostly because she could actually see it pretty well because it was on her level, unlike most of the other animals. She kept saying "woof woof" to it, though. In her world right now, most furry animals with four legs bark. At least she's categorizing....she doesn't bark at people! :)

Sara Grace's First Ponytail!!

Here's some pictures of Sara Grace's first ponytail. I thought it was cute! It's probably her last for a while. Sammy doesn't like it. I'm not sure Sara Grace was really thrilled with the whole process of getting her hair put into a ponytail anyway. So, until she gets a good bit more hair, we'll stick to just the hairbow (minus the ponytail!).

Chattanooga Lookouts Game

A few weeks ago we got free tickets to a Lookouts game from one of our church members. It was rather spur-of-the-moment. Sammy let me know about 3pm that we were going to a Lookouts game that started at 7:15. We had a great time, though! Sara Grace was a little fussy. She decided baseball was boring--plus, the majority of the game was past her bedtime. Jaybird had a blast, though! Another little boy at the game was sitting right by the dugout of the visiting team (the Montgomery Biscuits!). That little boy got several foul balls given to him by the opposing team. He gave one of the balls to Jaybird....which, of course, Jay was quite proud of!

This is a video of Jaybird cheering for the Lookouts. To grasp the total effect of this video (and it's irritation to the opposing team and their fans) you must take into account that our seats were on the third row by home plate on the visiting side. We were right by the visiting team's on-deck circle. They were quite....umm....amused?.....by Jaybird's cheering!

Jay's 4th Birthday!

After several attempts to upload the video of Jay's class performance from his last day of school, I have finally given up. I think the file was too large. (Is there a way to shrink a video file?) So, since I couldn't post that, I figured it was past time to post pictures of Jaybird's birthday party day! :) It's only a month after his birthday! Hope you enjoy!

This is Jaybird on his new bike that Mommy and Daddy got him for his birthday! He's also sporting his new sunglasses that he insisted on buying himself. He wouldn't let someone get them for him for his birthday. He wanted to pick them out HIMSELF. So, he bought them with his own money. He's quite proud of them! :)

Gram and Grampa gave Jaybird a remote control truck. It's a Tundra like Grampa's truck!

The cake.....

The pool party.....

The big splash!! :)

SMILE

Sara Grace and I went to a friend's baby shower Friday night (actually, it's Sara Grace's birthday friend) and my friend sent me this picture of Sara Grace today. A church member was holding her. Sara Grace loves to ham it up for cameras! The picture makes me smile so much I just wanted to share it with everyone! :)

Our Little Ladybug Turns One

We had Sara Grace's birthday party on May 3. We felt fortunate that all of our immediate family members on both sides of the family we able to come. It was quite fun. Of course, I had to do a ladybug theme. Sammy asked if it was for me or if it was Sara Grace. I figured at this point, it really didn't matter. Sara Grace didn't know the difference and I REALLY enjoyed the ladybug theme! Here's some pictures from the day:

She was somewhat tenative at first--not sure about this frosting stuff. Although, she did touch the cake as soon as we put it in front of her. We had to make Jaybird touch his first birthday cake.

Pretty soon, she decided it was pretty cool and started digging in.

She decided it was quite tasty! Lemon cake! *As a side note, her Uncle Lee (Susan's fiancee) has the same birthday (28 years older) and his favorite cake is lemon cake with chocolate frosting. We had made Uncle Lee a birthday cake of his own for the party and I used some of the batter to make Sara Grace's cake. That's why she had a lemon cake. :)

A word of warning to anyone thinking of putting red frosting on their child's first birthday cake--it WILL look like a crime scene when you are done! :)

Aunt Missy wanted to be the brave one to get Sara Grace out of the highchair and into the tub. More power to her! I wasn't really looking forward to it, myself.

All clean! I don't know if you can tell or not, but the water was red from all the frosting that washed off of her! And it left a nasty dark ring around my tub that I had to scrub to get off! :)

Just a shot of the balloon we got her. Not a "birthday" balloon, but I thought it fit the occaision quite nicely!

This is the ladybug cake I made for all the adults to eat

(butter fudge cake with cream cheese frosting)

This was Sara Grace's own personal ladybug.

And baby ladybugs for the kids at the party and any adults that didn't want chocolate cake (like me! :) )

My How You've Grown!

Sara Grace turned a year old on the fourth and I just thought I'd post some "then and now" pictures. The first picture is from when she was four days old. The second one was taken last Sunday (two weeks after her first birthday). She's grown quite a bit! When she was born, she weighed 5lbs. 15.45 oz. and was 18.75 inches long. At her one year check-up, she weighed 20 lbs. 2.5 oz. and was 30 inches long! Now, if only it was such an accomplishment for adults to gain almost 15 lbs. in one year!! :)