Warning Label Needed

Jack stole a piece of blue streamer and when I turned around, I saw this...




We all know he loves our cats, but this is a bit much...

Memorial Day Weekend

We made it back safely from the Beach. It was a wonderful vacation. Jack loved the Beach. He spent a few hours on it everyday.

It was a double red flag the entire time we were there and the beach patrol would not let anyone get in the ocean. We watched them rescue 4 people on a float right in front of us. The guy swam out on a surf board to bring them in and then two other guards jumped in, in their clothes. Luckily, they were okay. On a sad note, an hour after that an 18 year of boy drowned about a mile down the beach from us. We never heard if they were able to find his body.

I can't believe that Jack has been to the beach 3 times before he turned 1. He was a good traveler. It was a long trip home because we stopped in Enterprise to have lunch with Jack's Great Grandmother, Aunt Susu, and Uncle Jim.

Jack loved the sitting his pool on the beach. We took his diaper off and I think he loved having a little freedom.

Staying hydrated. Jack is only allowed to drink a small sippy cup of juice with breakfast, but I let him have all he wanted while we were at the beach.

Wearing Big J's hat

Getting ready to go out.

Hanging out on the back deck with LeeLee

The weather was beautiful.

I didn't know this picture was being taken

Don't worry, we kept a t-shirt on him most of the time. We took it off when he was in his baby pool, in the shade.

Wishing they could get in the ocean.

Jack made friends with some girls from the neighborhood.

Jack loved being in the pool with them.

He crawled in to this chair and right after I took the picture, he did this...

Eating a snack on the beach.

Finally, like father like son...

Off to the Beach

Jason, Jack and I are headed down to Sunnyside, FL, this evening.

Here is a picture of what Jason, Jack, and I were doing last year, this time.

Ross Bridge

This weekend was the Regions Golf Tournament. Our friends who live in Ross Bridge had a bunch of people over to barbecue in their backyard. You can see the resort and golf course from their house. It was a beautiful day we had a lot of fun.

Jack and Marina played in the pink Barbie car.

Jeff and Jason playing washers.

Fionnuala pulled Jack and Marina in the wagon.

It's About Time

Well, our 11 month old son finally got his first tooth. I noticed the little ridges peeking through his gums, while changing his diaper. Jason saw it too.

On another note...
Congratulations to Aunt Jen who graduated from Vet School, today. My parents and David drove to Wisconsin for her graduation. We wanted to go, but decided 14 hours was too long for a baby.

A Little Bit Bored

Bored on a Dreary Day...

Our First Busted Lip

It might be small, but Jack got his first busted lip. He slipped on drool on the hardwood floor and hit the floor face first. We've had many bruises to the face, but no busted lips.

A Beautiful Monday

I do not like bath time. It has become a huge struggle, with Jack, to take baths. He absolutely loves them, but he wants to stand up. Every single time we bathe him, we fight to keep him sitting. His baths rarely last longer than 5 or so minutes. I can't believe that he has not cracked his skull on the tub. He's fallen many times, but we have never had a serious injury. Tonight, we decided to bathe him in the sink and it worked out perfectly...

What are the Chances?

I wasn't sure that I was going to get around to a Mother's Day post, but this could not be ignored....

Uncle David is visiting, so Jack and I headed to Huntsville this afternoon to spend a few days with him, before they leave for Aunt Jen's graduation from Vet School. Jack was definitely going to bed on time because we've all been a little cranky since I made my family sleep in the basement, last night, because the weather was supposed to get really bad around 2am.

My mom was going upstairs to rock Jack to sleep and I followed, so that I could turn off all the lights and tell my sweet little boy goodnight. She sat down, with him, and I took the hair brush out of his hands so that he would suck his fingers. He got very upset, started crying and said, "mom, mom, mom, mom"! My mother and I kept convincing each other that he just spoke. Since he was reaching for me, I took him, calmed him down and gave him back to my mom. I kissed him on the forehead and started to walk away; he reached for me and said "mom" twice, again. To be honest, it took me about 10 minutes to realize that he said "mom" on Mother's Day. That was such an amazing treat for me and I'm still trying to convince myself that it happened.

The interesting thing about babies is that they can either change a lot in a few weeks or go months without making huge accomplishments. We had hit a stalemate and then it was one accomplishment after the other. Since last weekend, Jack has clapped, waved, stood for up to 5 seconds, and said his first word.

Jason played in a golf tournament, last Friday, while Jack chewed on his "My First Golf Bag". That was a Christmas present from Aunt Jennifer.

We went to Helena's Buck Creek Festival, on Saturday. We met my Uncle James and Neda there last year, when I was very pregnant and decided to go back, again. Unfortunately, we had to leave before they got there, this year.

Jack would not stay on our blanket. He was more interested in the people around us.

We have been experiencing some major separation anxiety. Jack doesn't look too upset in this pic, but he was crying and staring out the front door because I was doing some yard work.

Jason has "issues" with Jack wearing so many foreign clothes. I think he has set an age at which Jack can only wear Auburn clothes. haha.

Sort of Waving

Here is a video of Jack waving. He has the finger part down, but needs a little practice on which way to turn his hand. Look at how he watches his hand.

Clap Clap Clap!!

Jack clapped for the first time last weekend! It is so cute and he does it all the time. Especially, if Jason and I start clapping.



Check out Jack's new shoes. We were in the mall, this morning, and a toddler asked his mom why "that baby didn't have any shoes on". haha. It is time for shoes, since he can almost stand on his own.

Grandfather's are the Best!

There is no task too big for Jason with the help of our fathers.

First of all, in August (when Jack was 3 months old), we remodeled our downtown condo to sell. Our parent's took turns lugging their tools to bham and we would spend 3 weekend days working on the condo. (The grandmother's babysat jack.) It took us around 6 weeks to complete. We put in baseboards, sanded and mudded walls, replaced all doors (which sometimes required redoing the frame) , put in new faucets, changed light fixtures, painted, and all of kinds of other projects.

Once we realized that our dad's could probably build a house together, we started projects at our home. Two of the recent projects...

I had to have a TV in the kitchen. I love watching TV, while I cook. The problem is that we didn't have a cable outlet, even though I had already purchased the TV. haha. And, the cable cord in our den came up through the floor. A couple of weeks ago Jason and my dad split the cable and rewired so that now we have real cable outlets, in the wall, in the den and kitchen.

Then (and the reason for this post), our deck needed some major changes. The deck is 2 stories high and the gap, at the bottom, was big enough for Jack to crawl under. It was not built to code. So, this weekend Jason and his dad spent 2 days redoing the entire rail. I love it.

A Crazy Weekend.

Jason and I have the opportunity to go out, often, because we have grandparents in town a lot. But, rarely do we choose to go out twice in one weekend. I guess since Aunt Jennifer was in town we decided to go a little crazy.

So, it was a last minute decision to drive down to Oak Mountain, Friday, and see if we could get cheap tickets to Santana with Derek Trucks. They wouldn't sell us discounted tickets, but we got the cheapest ones they had and ended up sitting a lot closer than our tickets. Then on Saturday we met a bunch of friends at the Schaeffer Eye Center Crawfish Boil. We saw Flo-Rida, Corey Smith, Gavin DeGraw, and Fergie (What a combo!). Considering we went out after both of these events, I think we set a record for number of bands heard in Bham in one weekend.

Our Brown House

I told a friend that we could not go to story time, at the library, because we were having our house painted. Her reply, "That's so grown up of you". For some reason, having our house painted does feel like a "grown up" activity. Like I already said, Jack loved every minute of it. The owner of the company would always ask me how "chubby cheeks" was doing.

The final product was not the initial vision. We went with all of our painter's suggestions. In the end, the house is very brown, but we like it a lot. It was Jason's idea to build out the railing on the front porch. I think it looks great.