Mission: SANTA!!

Even thought I knew handing him over to a strager was going to result in a cute little crying picture like this, I was on a mission this year to find get his picture taken. I heard of all these good deals so I was set on getting a good santa at a good price :) In other words, I didn't want to pay a lot of money for a crying picture of Julian and Santa. We decided to go to Walgreens. My friend Selina brought her little girl Ava over and we went to Walgreens. We walked in and quickly made a Uturn when we saw this skinnies most GHETTO santa ever sitting on a rickety chair in front of a really bootleg get up they called a "background." It was funny so we just got in the car and set off to find another Santa. I had heard about Santa being at Old Town Spring so that is where we went. The picture quality was horrible but we have scanners and it's just the fact that I wanted his picture with Santa. Mission accomplished!!

Julian's #1

He's ONE!! (and one day) We had such a fun time yesterday for J's birthday party. He's not that big of a fan of crowds (especially crowds of people he doesn't see that regularly).. So we had that working against us but he did great. The weather was great. We had tons of great friends here to celebrate with us. His party theme was the foam hand number one thing "Julian's #1." I love being his number one cheerleader :) All the planning and anticipation was well worth it. Praise the Lord!! Julian got a ton of new toys which were awesome!! I, being the genious I am, planned his party from 2-4 which is his afternoon nap time. God is good though and let him take a 3 hour nap in the morning so he was still good but by the time 4 got here, he was out! But he got to wake up to all his new toys. Here are some pics from the party. The video is from today. His cousins, Riley Paige and Carson, gave him the rocking horse and you can tell he loves it.

Thank you everyone! Not just the people who were able to be here but everyone, all of our family and friends who read this (the ones who don't read it too). Everyone who loves our little man and prays for him and supports!!! We love you!

Julian's #1 (a Lacy Carver original)

Julian loves loves his grandma

Enjoying a little birthday cake.

He loves his Lightening McQueen power wheel. But he's too busy trying to figure out how to be a stunt driver and stand up on it to figure out how to push the button and go.

With my great friend from Dallas' little boys, Grant and Blake

Like everyone says, his favorite toy was the gift sack. lol!

Thank you everyone!!

I hope everyone had a happy Thanksgiving!! Ours was wonderful with a very short trip to Jackson, TN. It was Julian and I's first time in TN. It was such a blessing to get to introduce Julian to all the family that he hadn't met yet. The food was wonderful. I think I am pretty open minded to trying new food. I tried my first taste of "chitlins" (i have no idea how to spell that). Let's just say... I will never be having that again. EVER EVER!! "Try it with hot sauce" they say.. (for all my people, this doesn't mean picante sauce) :) haha. Well all I can say is that at least i was open minded and tried it. Moving on. We had a great time getting to see where Jerry grew up and went to school and did all his hoopin and all that but most of all getting to enjoy his family. Here are a few pictures from the trip.

Uncle Maurio

Jonathan (Terri's son)

Jordan (Maurio's son)

Caterious (Terri's son)

Great Grandma Carrie

Jerry's Great Niece, Anyah

Grandaddy

Favorite picture of the holiday

2nd favorite picture

This is at home before we left on Wednesday morning. Just sharing cuz it's funny. Julian thinks all toys are more fun if he's standing on top of them.

Hope everyone had a blessed Holiday.

Thank you, Thanksgiving!

I love Thanksgiving and everything it stands for. Not just the food but the reminder that we have so much to be thankful for.

Have I ever mentioned that I love this little boy. He is a big mess an'd into everything, but I am so thankful to be this little guys mommy. I set up the christmas tree Saturday night (early this year because we are going out of town). Sunday morning Julian woke up to Christmas!! He just kept making his happy/suprised sound and pointing. (you'd just have to hear it) But he was more obsessed with the vaccum that was still out. lol! We weren't sure if the tree was worth the fight but has done so well. Plenty of "no no!" but he's doing great. Yesterday his new obsession was the kitchen cabniets. He discovered that if he threw everything out, then it makes a perfect little tunnel just for him.

I washed the carseat getting ready for the 10 hour road trip and this morning he discovered that it was fun toy until he stood up in it and it fell forward and he flattened his face on the floor. oops!

He thinks that crawling up onto the fire place and standing up is fun and we are very consistant with NOT letting this happen. Julian is a little sneeky though. He backs up slowly and sits and smiles and thinks that is ok :) too cute not to take a picture. Then the NO NO and off the fire place came.
Happy Thanksgiving everyone!!

soooo thankful.....

...... for my healthy baby boy

Here are a few pics of our "ALMOST ONE YEAR OLD"!!! WHAT?!!! I can not even believe that Julian is almost one. When I watch him running around everywhere making our lives a living... JOY, I can't even belive he was inside my belly last year at this time. He's supposed to be my little baby but he's becoming more and more independent everyday. Don't get me wrong.. he's still a momma's boy and needs his daddy time too. Here a few picstures we've taken the past couple weeks. Some may be blurry because they were taken with my phone and he never stops moving.

The boy LOVES to be outside... he loves watching Odis outside too but he would much rather be out there with him. I would love to take him out more but this town is INFESTED with mosquitos.. It's miserable.

The plunger is his new favorite toy.. As disgusting as it is, it was too funny not to take a picture of it.

Julian joined me at a bridal shower this week and while I was distracted, Ms. Sweet discovered that my man LOVES him some cupcake icing.

This is Julian's new swingset from Grandma. He really loves to swing and watch odis play but we don't get out there as much as we'd like because of the darn mosquitos. errrrrrr

Julian's schedule used to be: Go to bed at 8, up at 6:30 ish. I wished then that he would sleep a little later on the weekends but I was used to it. THEN>>>> the time changed. It has been rough. We are still going to bed at 8 or 8:30 and now we wake up at 4:30 or 5. NOT FUN!! I can't get the boy to sleep his regular 10 hours. It's crazy. So this picture above was taken one morning about 2 miles from the house. He woke up 4:30 that morning and then he needed a nap. I was just laughing and telling him... He could have stayed asleep and then he wouldn't have needed a nap and everyone would have been happy. :)

HE CAN CATCH A BALL!!

So I am really not as good at this posting thing these days. It's hard to use the lap top because the little man is obsessed with trying to pound on it.. and then it's definitely hard to grab a second to sit at the other. "Why not when Julian goes to sleep?" you might ask... WELL I seem to have a little trouble staying awake longer than him. We usually lay down together and i have every intention to get up and put him in his bed in about 2 mins but never fails 2 or 3 hours later i wake up and there ya go... and then.... now that we do not understand this little time change thing and since we wake up at 4:30 most mornings, well I try to take advantage of any extra sleep I can get...

Yeah so the day before yesterday he said "ball" for me like 3 times but he hasn't said it to anyone or me since. So yesterday Ms. Shiloh was trying to get him to say "ball" and discovered that the little dude can seriously catch. No I didn't believe her at first but he sure enough can. He throws it back to you too! Well he throws it somewhere? When we got home he did it a few times for me but he had to shoot the ball in his goal before he would throw it.

Ok so Julian had a great first Halloween!! A friend of our had a party for their kids and their friends and families and so we grabbed our little Spiderman and joined in the fun. Here are a few pics of the cutest spider man ever! He wouldn't keep the mask and hat on at all. He found a little girls "old granny" wig on the floor and thought it was hillarious and then he found her cain. Since he wouldn't wear the mask i tried to put the hat on him but then he just looked more like a doctor dressed up like spiderman so we just went with the no mask. We are looking forward to next year!!

Hope everyone had a great Halloween!!

Can you believe Julian is 11 months today! It's so crazy to think he was in my belly last year at this time and now he's running around everywhere bringing so much joy to our lives. We adore this little guy so much.

Take care!

Updates

1. julian is walking everywhere. trying to run
2. julian is going to be Spider Man for halloween!! whew hew!!
3. his two top front teeth are the biggest (cutest) baby teeth i've ever seen
4. his birthday is coming up soon.. invites are ready.. Dec. 5th. Be There!
5. he is definitely improving his "momma" and his "bye bye" . he's had his "dada" down for a while
6. he is getting a bit of a fro going on
7. he's loves to swing
8. he can shoot baskets!! in desperate need of a bigger goal for him cuz his is for when he was barely sitting. :) so he more like hover's it now
9. speaking of baskets.. Kansas Basketball is starting next week!!! ROCK CHALK
10. both bff's are prego at the same time again- Kel in January and Mandy in May
11. no ESL stipend next year. boo to budget cuts
12. HAPPY HALLOWEEN EVERYONE!!!

one month of walking

Walking one month after the first steps:

He is now walking everywhere and really doesn't crawl that much at all. Please ignore my phone conversation in the background. Bad timing for a phone call but just wanted to share my cute little boy walking. Notice the video has to be cut off early because he picks up a leaf and decides to eat it. There are so many different kinds of baby food that this little boy will not touch but anthing off the floor is delicious!!

Trip to Mandy's

Julian and I drove to Waco Friday night and spent Saturday with my best friend from Tech, Mandy, and her little boy and family. We had a great time. It was so great cathing up. Julian did great on the way there and then woke up and was ready to go once we got there at 11:00 at night!! Needless to say Julian and I did not get that much sleep but we had a great day Saturday with Mandy and her family. Here are a few pictures from the weekend:
Here is my baby J with his "Baby J" :)

Julian and I

Mandy getting her some Julian lovin

It is not that easy to get 2 little ones to look at you, smile, and then actually get their whole heads in the picture. Julian had a great time with his friend Brett.

Julian's first time sitting forward in one of Brett's carseats. For some reason he kept his hand up like this. I guess he wanted to be ready to wave at any time.

Updates:

Julian is walking more than crawling

He has 4 teeth.

He crawls a set of stairs very very fast

He is awake so gotta go because he is OBSESSED with this laptop and thinks it's a drum. GEEEEZ!!!!

WALKING!!!

He broke is "8 step" record today. Well on camera at least! I'm sure he's broken it several times but I finally got it on camera. I can't believe how big he's getting. Oh and don't mind the mess in the background. That is called "JULIAN!!"

I've always heard stories of babies falling asleep in the high chair while eating but I really couldn't image Julian ever settling down enough to do that. But I was proven wrong tonight. Julian makes recovering from the flu so much more enjoyable :) Even though I am sure i have exposed Jerry and Julian, I have tried to wash my hands a million times today. I'm praying they don't catch this crap.

My mom is on her way tonight!! And Jerry is leaving tonight to drive to Tenn. I'm sooo glad my mom is coming. This was a very inconvienient time to get sick but sooooo blessed to have Jerry who is amazing and then did i mention.. MY MOM IS COMING!!! yay looking forward to a restful weekend.

Hope everyone is great! Take care

8 STEPS!!!

My little baby just sort of started walking today. Last night he took 2 steps towards me.. When I got to the babysitter today she said he took two steps for her today and she thought I had missed it but I was proud to say he did it for me last night. So I wanted to see and he took 4 steps! then a few mins later on the kitchen floor i tried it again and he took 8 steps and i actually think he would have taken more if i could have moved back anymore. I CAN NOT BELIEVE MY BABY IS STARTING TO WALK!!!!

Prayer request:
1. Jerry and his job search
2. Julian being introduced to milk protein again.. pray that his tummy has developed enough to handle milk products!!!

9 months!! Dancing!! Standing!!

Julian was 9 months on Sept. 5th. We had a great Labor Day weeknd. We traveled to Rotan for a family reunion and had a great time with the gang. Jerry and I decided to start out Friday about the time Julian would be getting sleepy. It was a great idea because Julian slept the whole 7 hours there and then a few more when we got there. Not so great for Jerry and I being awake the next day :). We got in around 3 and didn't get hardly any sleep but we managed to have a great time the next day with countless games of volleyball, softball, kickball, basketball, etc... We came back on Sunday afternoon. Julian took a great nap but then he was awake. He doesn't seem to be a fan of his car seat after 4 hours awake in it. To make a long story short we got 15 mins from home with a sleepy sleepy baby that was TIRED of being in his car seat and we ended up having a car seat, back seat, a baby, and a mommy covered in PUKE!! fun times!! Car seat, back seat, baby,and mommy are clean now and all is well. :)

Julian had his 9 month appointment on Tuesday morning. He weighed in at 22 lbs 9 oz, he is 31 inches long, and his head is still in the 95th percentile. So we are so thankful to have such a healthy happy baby boy. Here are a couple videos I took one day this week after school. He is such a hoot to hang out with. I love being this little guy's mommy.

Video 1: Just a little bit of Julian and Odis playing together. Notice he stands alone now. They didn't know I was in the kitchen with the camera. Of course Odis thought he was alone so the video ends with Odis steeling some of Julian's treats off the table.

Video 2: Julian is a big dancer these days. It started with a singing toy but now he'll dance to anything- even his mommy being silly. I can not seem to get a video of him really "gettin it" but this is just a sneek peek of his dancing. :)

Happy Birthday Odis!!

Tomorrow Odis is turning 5. Can't believe it's been 5 years. Just thought I would give my little Odis P. a shout out. I'd post a pic but he's in trouble right now coming in this house acting all crazy. (imagine that) Plus the dog is in the background of most pictures i take of Julian so if you wanna see him just keep your eye out. :) he's there

Anyways to more important news: Julian is growing like a weed. He is so close to walking and that makes me sad because he's growing so fast. He is letting go of everything and standing there. Then he realizes he's not holding on and slowing sits down. He is also walking behind his little walking toy thingy.

He will be 9 months on Saturday! He will have his nine month appointment on the 8th so I'll update on the measurements then. We had an appointment a couple weeks ago when he was sick and he was already 21lbs 5 oz i think and that was when he was poopin and pukin so we'll see. I wish they measure his hands and feet because they would be off the chart I'm sure :) haha.

He officially has 2 whole teeth now.

OK AND HERE'S THE STORY OF THE MONTH. Jerry discovered a few weeks ago that a co worker got their formula covered. Soooo after a lot of "phone work" we finally discovered that ours is covered too because it's a diagonsed protein sensitivity. WHAT?!?! WE COULD HAVE BEEN GETTING IT COVERED FOR NINE MONTHS??????? That's right folks. Since January we have paid over 1600 bucks for formula. We should be receiving our first perscription of formula anyday now for a months supply FOR $20!!!!!!!! YES $20!!!!!!!! SO WE COULD HAVE PAID 180 SO FAR INSTEAD OF 1600..... We are Thankful for the next 3 + months!!! Pray with us that Julian's tummy will get over this "sensitivity" and be able to transition to real milk with real protein when he's one.

CAN YOU BELIEVE THAT!!!!!! DO YOU REALIZE THAT'S 1400 bucks difference!!!! Why would someone not mention that it was a possibility?? errrrrrrrrrrrrr

We are thankful We are thankful We are thankful!!! I'm trying to not be mad. errrrrrrrr

Ok so in other news: I started school on the 24th... kids cried.... the end :)

Going home for a little family time this Labor Day! Yay

Thats about it. Hope all is well. Here a couple recent (well taken in August at least) pics of our little dude.

I love you Dad!! Miss you!! XOXO

Today makes 3 years since my Dad passed away. I miss him every day. I am so thankful that Julian gets to carry his name. I loved him so much and I feel like he was taken way too early but I am grateful he was my dad and I got to be his little girl.. I just wanted to share a few pictures of Julian's PaPa....

Travis Craig Carver

December 4, 1951 - August 15, 2006

growling

My baby can growl!! :) It's soo funny. We discovered that he would imitate my nephew when Carson was pushing him in the stroller. Now I think it's getting old for him but he'll still imitate us and sometimes even Odis if he starts growling at someone walking past the window.

Monica's her name... Photography's her game!!

I found this wonderful photographer!! Her name is Monica Hernandez!! She lives in Lubbock, TX and if you or you know anyone who lives in Lubbock and needs great pictures taken, she's your girl. http://mhernandez.zenfolio.com/

Oh yeah, she was my roommate for almost 3 years in college and my mom and I were staying with her last night. I mentioned how I was wanting to get Julian's pics taken and she mentioned how she had this great camera and had been taking pics lately and.... shaBANG! she took us downtown Lubbock before my cousins wedding and the magic happend :) SHE is such a BLESSING!! I can't wait to get some blown up and framed in my house. She got soooo many great ones. These are just a "few" of my favorites. I'm too excited about them to wait and really pick out my official favorites. I want to share them!!!

Julian and I are home safe and sound from out week in west texas. We had such a great time. Julian is in MUCH need of his own routine and his own "schedule."

HERE ARE JUST SOME OF MY FAVORITES. THERE ARE SOO MANY MORE GREAT ONES.