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!!!!