Cute Little Shepherd

Apparently not everyone is as fond of Sara Grace's SNOT picture as I am. I've had numerous requests to replace it. So, here you go!! :)

Last night Jaybird had his Christmas performance at school. He was a little shepherd and did such a good job. He sang all the songs and did all the motions! I was so proud of him.

This picture is of him right after he got his costume on in his classroom.


This shot is of him on the stage. He's just below the REALLY tall cherubim. As a side note, Autumn (who I've watched since she was 8 weeks old) is on the row below Jaybird and one to our right. She's the middle of the three angels on the front row.

I thought this picture was sweet. It was during Away in a Manger. "The little Lord Jesus lay down His sweet head".....

I think this was Jaybird's favorite song. He was very emphatic about the "GO" part! :)

Silly Sara Grace

Just thought I'd share some of Sara Grace's silliness. This first picture wasn't really her fault. Actually, I kinda felt sorry for her. Poor little girl. She didn't really seem bothered by it! (The joys of motherhood!!)





This video captures a fairly regular occurance in our home. Sara Grace loves to put her blankie over her head and wander around the house. Sometimes she does it to be funny and try to get a laugh out of someone. And sometimes she does just because. This was one of the just because days.....

Fruit of His Labor

About six weeks ago, Jaybird was looking through a magazine of mine and saw an advertisement for Build-a-Bear. He often sees things in magazines or on TV and says he'd like to have it, but this particular day was a little different. On that Build-a-Bear advertisement, he saw a picture of a cheetah and went balistic! He was hopping around, saying, "Mommy, Mommy, I really really really want this. Mommy, REALLY!"

So, not being the kind of mom to just go buy it for him, I told him maybe if he wanted it that bad, he could start doing some jobs and earning some money to buy the cheetah. So, we made him a chart listing his daily jobs (feeding the cat, putting silverware away from the dishwasher/setting the table, making his bed, and watering the plants). We also had a part on the chart marking how much money he had saved. The cheetah's picture was at the end as the final goal.

Long story short, he saved up enough money and after several trips to go "visit" the cheetah at the mall, he finally got to go build his cheetah today. He had a BLAST! He was so excited. He had even earned some extra money and wanted to buy it a shirt or hat or some type of accessory. He ended up picking out a Batman t-shirt. Sooo, his new best friend (as he calls him), is a Batman t-shirt sporting cheetah named Furry.

This afternoon, Sammy had a really great idea. He said that since it was Furry's actual birthday, we should go get a birthday cake for him. So, Jaybird, Furry, and I went up to the grocery store to get a birthday cookie cake. The lady at the bakery/deli section was really nice and even wrote "Happy Birthday Furry" on the cake. She thought it was really cute. When we got home, we put a candle in the cake and sang Happy Birthday to Furry!

Sara Grace anxiously awaited her slice of cookie cake!!

It was a really fun day for us. We were a little silly, I guess, but Jaybird had a great time and it was so fun to see the sheer joy in his eyes as he finally saw his hard work pay off and his goal obtained! :)

Last Soccer Game and Team Party

Jaybird had his last soccer game on Oct. 25. He didn't seem to really enjoying playing that day. It was more like the first game he played where he just ran around in circles and was more concerned with how and where he was running rather than getting the ball and scoring. He has since told us that he doesn't want to play any more soccer right now. He wants to play baseball. And he says maybe he'll do baseball-soccer-baseball-soccer. I guess he means the order he'll play things?? Maybe we'll play spring baseball and fall soccer?? :)

Here's a shot of Jay and his trophy. He was quite proud of it. And, I was impressed they actually provided fairly child friendly trophies. The soccer ball is like a foam material and spins on its axis.

Jay's team: Back Row (L-R): Jordan, Will, Jaybird. Front Row (L-R) Lyndsey, Chase, Grant.

Jay and Chase enjoying some air hockey. That's my boy!! :)

Jay had a blast playing in the McDonald's playground with all of his little teammates. It was quite fun to watch him!

Cute (and oh-so-yummy) team cookie cake:

Happy Halloween!

We had a fun time tonight at the Harvest Festival at church. Here are some pictures of the kids. Sammy snapped this one of the kiddos on the porch before we headed over to the church.

Here's a sweet shot of my little ladybug.

And, here's a shot of Sara Grace and her skunky friend, Ellie, checking out Ellie's loot!

Some Sara Grace Pictures

Here are some pictures of Sara Grace from the past few weeks.

This first one is from right after we went to the beach. We had borrowed baby floats from two different people to see which one we'd like to take with us to the beach. This is the one we didn't take, so we had just left it in Sara Grace's room. She LOVED it. I was in the kitchen one day and I heard a squeaking noise I didn't quite recognize. I walked down the hall to find her sitting in the float rocking her baby doll. The float apparently makes a squeaking noise when you bump the head of it.



These next two are from the weekend we went to Sammy's parents' house for Susan's wedding. Poppa was swinging Sara Grace on the front porch. Apparently, that has the same effect at the ocean breeze and the beach chair.

This is Susan's new husband, Lee's, grandfather, Papa, with Sara Grace. He quickly became her friend because he let her push and ride on his walker. She really enjoyed it--and him!

And this last one is one of Sara Grace's newest favorite things to do. It's pretty self explanitory. Just look carefully at what she's putting on.....

Beach Pictures---Finally!

Okay, sorry I've kinda fallen off the face of the earth in the blogging department. Between our trip to the beach and getting Sammy's baby sister married off, we've been quite busy. I'm finally getting around to posting pictures from our trip the beach Sept. 20-27. We went to Panama City Beach. Sammy's aunt was gracious enough to invite us to join her on a trip to her timeshare there and we were thankful she did. We had a wonderful time. The weather was really nice. The wind was coming in from a strange direction the first few days and we had lots of sand blown on us in the beach chairs, but it was still relaxing. Then on Thursday, the jellyfish came in. Big, nasty gray-ish ones. So, we didn't get in the water the last two days, but the wind had died down some and it was still extremely relaxing!

Both kids liked the water a good bit. Jaybird was a little fearless in it when he had his floaties on. Sara Grace liked to splash in it, but didn't want it to be much deeper than and inch or so.

Sara Grace had two big accomplishments while we were there. She started walking some. I think she was intrigued by the new surroundings of the condo. She had taken one or two unassisted steps before then, but took numerous ones while we were on vacation. Never many more than two at a time, but still it was progress! :) She also cut a second tooth--top, front right tooth (for anyone who cares).

One day Sammy decided to turn the kids and I into mermaids. He dug nice little holes and we all hopped in....I wasn't a big fan. :) Sara Grace wasn't too fond of it either, but went along with it quite nicely.

Jaybird loved digging and building in the sand and collecting shells. The man that was in charge of the beach chairs and umbrellas (cabana boy??) even helped Jay "plant a garden" one day--complete with sea oat carrots and squash!

Sara Grace sporting her sunglasses! I thought she looked pretty cute in them!! :)

Sara Grace absolutely LOVED the beach chairs and breeze. She is not one to fall asleep while being held very easily--in fact, it's quite rare. But, just about every day she took a nap laying on me in the beach chair. She fell asleep almost immediately as soon as she got still. One day she even took two naps like that. She was the same way last year when we went to the beach. She was only 3 months old then and I just thought she still liked to sleep a lot. But, apparently the beach breeze has some sort of effect on her. :)

Still to this day, when she sees that pink striped towel that she's laying on, she puts it on the floor and lays down on it and tries to cover herself up with it (all at the same time) and lays there looking completely content. (What drugs did you put in that towel when you made it, Jennifer??)

When the jellyfish moved in on Thursday, Jaybird picked up on my anxiety aobut them and didn't want to let the water touch his feet at all. Granted, there were several of them washing up on the beach. Those were the clear ones. The big gray ones were all in the water--you could see them from our room even. I'm sure there were as many, if not more, clear ones, too. Yuck. This picture is from the morning of our last full day there. Sammy and I took the kids on a morning beach walk. This is Jaybird not letting the water touch his feet. And, to explain the hat---we attended the welcome meeting at the condo at the beginning of the week. They had doorprizes. One of our tickets was pulled and Sammy claimed a giant black and orange witch had--thinking the kids would enjoy it. Jaybird almost fell apart crying. He, aparently, had wanted the blue visor he had seen in the batch of prizes. Thankfully another ticket from our group was pulled and Jaybird was able to get the blue visor. He wore it all week and LOVED it. Why he preferred it sideways--who knows! :)

Here's one of the huge, gross, gray jellyfish. This was the first one that had come in. We had seen it from our room and couldn't tell what it was. I had guessed a turtle. This one started to wash in and a man actually went and grabbed it and pulled it closer to the edge. Of course, I took advantage of the photo opp! :) By Friday, there were tons of them. I counted eight from our room one time just in the area I could see--and that was just the gray ones!