Hey - I got them on before February!

I got Sam back yesterday, he ate lunch and took a two-hour nap. Once he woke up and played for a little while, it was supper time. I sat him on the counter to put his meal in the microwave. He decided to just SLIP down off the counter! I was RIGHT there, so I threw my hands out to grab him... somewhere between him going down and me reaching, he banged his head on the drawer pull. He nearly never stopped crying! He has a HUGE goose egg... I felt so bad! I gave him Tylenol (for the 'headache') in hopes that would "make him feel better." No such luck! By the end of the night, he was telling us "Head hurts a little." So pitiful! Needless to say, Mama and Daddy are ready to come back and get him since I am 'hurting' him!!!!

OK, so, I need to post some CHRISTMAS pictures BEFORE it's February...

The tree... and presents!

Sam got started early!As did Bo and BJ!

Christmas morning... had to have a clean diaper to see what Santa brought!AND the hat!!! So he'll probably hate me for this outfit, but I thought it was SO CUTE... and I'll probably never get him to wear stuff I want in the future, so I'm milking it now!SANTA CAME!!!!

Not sure what to think... Ummm, guys, I think the toy store exploded in our living room!!!Sam LOVING his slide!WOW! A stocking too???? It's bigger than Sam!

The Magna-Doodle that this lady in Wal-Mart made me feel awful about buying - b/c it's made in China! I bought it anyway... and Sam LOVES to play with it - so does BJ!!!And he's in the wagon... Along with all of his new toys! Uncle Bo was THE man - along with Pop Pop... Sam and Bo played all week long!!!No time for pictures, MOM!Jake loved Christmas and Santa too... his jammies (kinda) matched Sam's!

Sam loving presents!Jake - loving presents! Well, he was tired... again!Bo was even Rock Star with Jake too!

Sam happily playing...Jake happily sleeping...All of us happily eating!!!

Jake was at the table too... =)Sam decided he needed a new pair of boots!Happy, happy Jake!

Sir Agony... later re-named PURE Agony! (Yes, it took me and Bo both to play the drums!)Can I PLEASE go upstairs now? I can't listen to this terrible music any longer!!!Lulled them right to sleep... or are they in a coma?
The whole fam...The nucleus - less the doggies... where were they?The Laterveers...Bo and Jen... ummmm... I'm ready for a SISTER already!!!!! =)

Beware of the big white SUV's...

So BJ was following me the other day - we were on the phone with each other - and I pulled into Quick Trip. I hear him yell, "Oh! My Gosh, Babe! You just cut that car off!" I replied, "huh? Are you talking to me?" "Yes," he exclaimed. To which I said, "Was that horn I heard blowing at ME???" "YES!" he yelled, "You need to pay more attention!" So now I wonder how many times something like this has happened and I had absolutely NO IDEA!!!??? If he hadn't been behind me and told me, I would have never known that I had put both of my children in harms way just then!? OH MY GOSH... I am THAT driver!!!!! I'm not just blond, but I'm a blond MOTHER of TWO, who is running on little sleep... I am literally scared now! I think too that I have slowed down a lot (well, I KNOW I've slowed down), and that makes me (amongst other things) pay attention less. Maybe I should go back to my aggressive driving...

That being said, please have compassion on those 'soccer moms' in their big white SUV's... we know not what we do, and are really trying to be EXTRA careful!!!

In the past couple of weeks, Sam has been sick, Mama and Daddy have been sick (b/c they kept Sam again for us), BJ got sick, I have been sick, and now Jake has caught it! I have been freaking myself out ALL DAY! I look at him and think he's turning blue, he's running a fever, and/or he's panting... it's just a cold, but these doctors have me scared to death that it can turn into pneumonia in no time. That being said, the last two nights, he has slept on my chest. I have gotten pretty much no sleep (which obviously makes for even worse driving experiences), and Jake is doing ok. I just hate that it's the weekend, and he's just at the beginning of this cold; it's his first; and he's a 'heart baby' which puts him at higher risk for everything. Ugggg... I am SO not a 'worrier' but Jake has brought out the best (or worst) in me, that's for sure!

I thought that Jake had lost a pound in the last month... turns out that I got a little dyslexic, and it took BJ hammering me with questions to get me to look it up in his records (I 'didn't have to b/c I could remember, thank you very much!') to find out that I had switched his L-B's with his O-Z's... OOPS!!!! My bad! Again, blaming on lack of sleep! Looking back: Like I wouldn't notice a 13 pound baby losing a whole pound... man, I'm a little slow sometimes!!! He's a chunk (a happy little chunk, I might add) and doing just fine - except for this little cold business!

I have some good pictures that I will post another time... I'm TIRED, and going to bed - SOON! Mama and Daddy have Sam, and BJ is feeding Jake so we can retire momentarily! Who am I to keep the bed waiting??? Obviously, I need some quality time with my pillow to get my sanity back!?

Finally got the pictures!

First of all, I need to take a moment of silence for fallen breast milk..............

In the chaos that is life, milk got left out in the cooler (that the ice pack melted) all day. I maybe could have saved it, but the safe thing to do was toss it. It was traumatic... that stuff is hard work - especially with juggling two kids while pumping it! On the positive side, I have a child to actually pump the milk for, so I will take that any day over my milk! But I would rather not experience that again! BJ would too... =)

Jake did his part, though... after the milk loss, he slept for EIGHT WHOLE HOURS! He ended up skipping a bottle, so that made up for our loss (a little =)! No worries, he was right back to six hours the next night!

Got the pictures downloaded... loving the new camera! Not hard to love it when you have the best 'subjects' in the world to shoot!!! Oooooo... he looks about like his mommy in the mornings!!!! He needs his milk before you talk to him!!! Sam and Pop Pop ready for the farm... Pop Pop had to wear a hat because SAM had to wear a hat! Sam really thought Pop Pop was funny!!!! And Pop Pop thought Sam was pretty funny too! =)

Sam's new play room is "really taking it out of him!"

GO TIGERS!New Year's Day... look at Jake's foot - he is OUT!!!Sam ready to go to the farm with his Daddy!Sam ready for church... that is, until we told him where he was going! He still gets a little whiny when he realizes he is at church or when he realizes we're going to church!?Jake is just a SWEET baby!

Playtime for Jake... he LOVES "kicky time" --- we just have to do it mostly while Sam isn't around, because Sam is A LOT of help!!!Night time at our house goes something like this: BJ takes Sam to take a bath (while I give Jake a bath or bottle)... this is usually what I witness if I get upstairs to see what's going on - they have such a great time together!

Once out of the tub, Sam runs around like he's got a new lease on life (it's the 'wind-up' before he crashes). This, is a pure blackmail picture, but it's just too funny!Then it's Pajama Time... he steps in and helps BJ get his jammies on.He was showing me his Buddha belly here! He was patting his belly! It was pretty funny! We laugh all the time around here!!!Then it's time to say his prayers. He repeats his prayers after BJ, and he usually can say the next part before BJ even gets it out! Have I mentioned that he's smart? That's great, but that also means I am IN FOR IT!!!

Here is our happy little Jake... SITTING UP!!! Not by himself of course - he's only three months old! He smiles all the time! And he LOVES it when we make funny faces at him! He usually sticks his tongue out at us and copies us! It's so cute!With the realization that Jake likes to sit up, we got the Bumbo out... and this is what came of it! Sam was so excited about it, and LOVES to sit in it!? He's obviously watching Sesame Street here, which is the ONLY show that he will even slow down for a second to watch... literally!

Jake finally got his chance, and he loves Bumbo too! Sam, however, thinks it's fun to tip Jake over in the Bumbo! YIKES! No worries, I won't be leaving them alone anytime soon like that!Isn't that cute? I love the little feet sticking straight out!Well, Jake likes Sesame Street too! He just has no choice as to when he gets up... until he starts crying, of course!!!And this was a split second before Sam was up and going again!

I still have Christmas pictures to post, but these will do for now!

Stalling now...

I just put Sam down for a nap (only took 45 minutes - that seems to be our average these days), but he has discovered the art of stalling! He would lay there and talk, then he said, "Take you outside?" (You being him). Of course I answered him, and by the 10th time he asked, I remembered that I am the adult and told him to hush. Then he started telling me he had a poopie diaper. I checked; no, but it was wet, so I changed his diaper for him (mind you, he could care LESS if he runs around in a dirty diaper all day). MAN, fell for it again! THEN, he started putting his fingers in his mouth and telling me his teeth hurt and he needed medicine (again, he NEVER tells me his teeth hurt - I always have to figure that out on my own!). So, I got him some medicine for his teeth... yep, I fell for it yet again! After he asked me about 10 more times for teeth medicine, I had to get stern and MAKE him lay down which eventually leads to sleep! So I've created a monster, I'm afraid!!!

BJ took Sam to the farm on Saturday then to McDonald's for his first Happy Meal. All of which brought him up to ROCK STAR status for the weekend. No tee tee-ing in the grass, though... much too cold for that on Saturday! Jake and I stayed home, and I cleaned house... well, Jake helped vacuum in the Baby Bjourn!!! Next time, I'M going to the farm! I was wiped out - Jake's a whopping 12 pounds now - killer on the back!!!!

I took Sam for a ride in his new wagon outside this morning - it was SO NICE outside... I had him in the wagon and Jake in the Baby Bjourn - and Stormie following (with no leash, b/c I had to carry my coffee too - my liquid crack!). Sam looked up at me and said, "Sam excited!" I said, "About what?" and he replied, "Sam excited 'bout WAGON!" He is so good at communicating... I just don't think this is typical of a normal 21-month-old!? Yesterday, he had Ernie in his hand in the carseat, and he told us Ernie was excited... we asked about what, and he said, "Going to Target!" It's the little things!!!!

Today, I stuck my tongue out at Jake to play our usual game - he always smiles at me when I make faces - and he LAUGHED at me! It was his first real laugh! It was the most precious laugh I have ever heard! Absolutely melted my heart! I can't believe he is 3 months old already! And last night he SLEPT for 7 straight hours! We're getting there! I didn't, because I woke up at 4:30 like clock-work... Jake had started moving, so I just knew he would be awake by the time I could get the bottle warm. By the time I got back, he was asleep again. I was up, so I went ahead and pumped and went back to sleep!? My darling husband woke up with him at 5:30 and fed him and put him back to sleep so I didn't even have to wake up! I have to adjust back to sleeping again, I guess!!!!

Happy New Year!

A new year always requires a reflection of the past year, what I liked, didn't like, would like to do better, etc. I'm changing it up a bit - why look back, when you can look forward? Last year at this time, we didn't know we would even be having a child, much less what all God had in store for us! It was a great year and a very hard year, and we'll just leave it at that!


We rang in the new year at the Peach Bowl (Clemson vs. Auburn) game... well, in the parking deck. We had backed in so as to have a quick and straight shot once we were ready to exit. Everyone went left, so we went right - like we knew something they didn't. OK, so we toured the rest of the deck we had not yet seen, then found ourselves back in line... at the VERY END of the line! We could see where we would have been, and realized that we would have been out of there at least 30 minutes sooner had we just stayed put. What's the fun in that? Had we not toured the deck, we would never have met drunk guy... there was a group of people that thought ahead and were ringing in the new year right there at their car. Their minivan was decorated inside and out for the new year! We first noticed them as this lady was trying to pop the cork of their champagne bottle not one foot away from this guy and had it aimed directly at his head. She got lucky (well, he did) and it didn't pop off and clock him in the head. One of the partiers in the group was drunk guy - not his real name, but the name we gave him =). They were throwing a football, and it bounced into our car (we were in BJ's little commuter car). He came over to apologize, so I let my window down a bit and we talked a bit - he had VERY slurred speech - he offered us a shot, drink, etc and went on his merry way. Later, after the new year had rung, we were still sitting in the same spot (all the cars where we HAD been had gone already), and drunk guy came back over to talk. I rolled the window down again, he offered us more drinks, talked and was about to walk away - thank goodness, because he wreaked of cigarettes and was spitting ALL OVER me by then (and I only had my window 1/2 way down) - and he saw me reach to crank the window back up. He said (amongst some choice words), "You have crank windows!? I haven't seen those in forever - HEY Yall, you gotta come see this! They have crank windows!" It was hysterical! We laughed about it the whole way home! At first, I could see BJ start to defend his little commuter car, then he just decided to let it go and roll with it (or crank with it, I guess)! I suppose it wouldn't have been as funny if he was making fun of us and that was all we had - again, God has blessed us with things AND a sense of humor!!! We love our little car with crank windows, though!!!!!! Especially when BJ pays $30 to fill it up!!! Nonetheless, it was a great story!


This year, we plan on nothing big - that's our "resolution" if you will. No moving, no more kids (ever), no new cars, nothing major... just maintaining and surviving... that's it!


Sam and Jake are cute as ever. Jake is smiling and kinda laughing at us - he sticks his tongue out at us... it all just makes us melt! I love that little guy! Sam is a mess! We moved my office to what used to be the formal living room (which got moved downstairs) to make a playroom for the boys... seems to be the trend amongst a lot of our friends, I hear! We were just over-run with toys - so, that was the answer! I love it - as does Sam, and I'm sure Jake will too one day!

Funny story from before Christmas that I couldn't tell... I got into the shower while Sam was playing in my bathroom. He got quiet, which is usually not a good sign - but I just thought he was playing with his book. I stepped out of the shower and he was sitting there smiling at me and held up a diamond earring that Daddy had bought for Mama for Christmas!!!! I freaked out and quickly grabbed it and told him thank you and immediately looked at the box for the other one that I just knew was in the toilet or in his belly! Luckily, it was still in the box! OH! MY GOSH!!!! I just knew I was going to have to go buy some new ones! Daddy had entrusted me with those to bring to the house at Christmas, and we had put them in our closet. Sam had gone in there, UNWRAPPED them (it was shiny gold paper that must have caught his attention), and took them out of the box! And in his defense (once he had opened them), Mama had let him play with an EMPTY box that looked just like it at their house! This child misses nor forgets NOTHING!!!! It's funny since nothing happened!!!

I have lots of pictures from Christmas (well, Mama does - they're still on her camera) that I will post soon. We bought a new camera with our Christmas money, and I have already taken a bunch of pictures... just gotta download them! I am so excited about my new camera! Guess I'll be taking even more pictures this year! YAY!!! I have two PERFECT little subject... that I need to get pictures of before they get old enough to tell me to stop!!!

Happy New Year!