let's redo this..

the last post about us going to florida on vacation was deleted by my child who loves to gets his hands all over the keyboard. so...we are leaving for destin in about 8 hours and I can't wait!!! please pray that we will have a safe roadtrip and that graham will do really great!

it's a stare down

graham has a really funny quirk that i've noticed here lately. last week when i dropped him off at daycare, i noticed that he would crawl up to the closest baby and touch foreheads and get eye to eye with them and have a stare down. this past weekend i got down on the floor with him and he did the same thing to me. he is such a funny little dude.

graham and his quirks.

moving on up

yesterday was graham's first day in the bigger kids' classroom at daycare. all of the babies (i guess i shouldn't call them babies anymore because 80% of the 'babies' are walking and running everywhere and well, that just doesn't seem baby-ish to me)...dang it. now I lost my train of thought. i don't even know where i was going with that now. hmmm. well, most of the kiddos in that class are girls. i sure hope graham acts like a gentleman at all times. he does love to pull hair though.

he no longer eats baby food. :( makes me sad. number one, because it means he is growing up and number two, we have a TON of baby food left so what in the world do I do with it??? Yesterday for breakfast they gave him a chewy cereal bar. for lunch he had meatballs, pineapple and green beans. and then he had nilla wafers for a snack. i really just want to plop my big bootie on the floor and pitch a fit because i don't want my baby to grow up so fast. he won't even take more than one nap a day anymore. *sigh* *big ole frown* *tears welling up in eyes* this past weekend, I started to incorporate whole milk in his bottles with his formula. his middle bottle, i put just whole milk in it. he seems to be digesting it really well. looks like we may just quit his formula all together pretty soon. now I just need to work on him drinking it from his sippy cup. i think he thinks that sippy cups are just for juice and water because when I try to put his milk in there, he gets pretty upset with me.

graham has started to throw fits when he doesn't get his way. he will lay his head on the floor and gently bang it or he will rub his forehead across the floor. poor thing had carpet burns on his head when I picked him up from school yesterday. he does that if he is tired too. i don't know where in the world he learned that.

Birthday Invitations

i just couldn't wait any longer to post his bday invites. i got graham's invitations in the mail today and they are soooooo cute!!! Marie is so awesome and I can't wait for the next event in our lives cause she will definitely be the one that documents it. Marie also did graham's birth annoucement and our holiday cards.

haircut? is it time?

what do you think? mimi and i think so. daddy is on the fence. these pictures were taken about a week and a half ago and now his bangs are almost to his eyebrows. it's OUT OF CONTROL!!! but i've always heard to wait til he is a year old. isn't that just some myth or something? or maybe a superstition? it's just long ALL OVER. it's growing like crazy. it's starting to look like an afro.

what are your opinions of the "waiting til a year" thing?

should we go ahead and get him a lil trim?

the old mill

a few sunday's ago chad and i took graham to the old mill to take pictures for his one year birthday party invitations. we thought of several places but ultimately really wanted them to be there since that is where chad and I got married. for those of you that aren't familiar with the old mill, it was featured in the opening scene of Gone With the Wind. It's believed to be the only remaining structure from that film. It's just absolutely beautiful! graham had fun eating rocks and crawling in the grass.

Happy 1st Birthday, Sweet Caroline

last Saturday we went to Caroline Mae Kelly's 1st birthday party!! Amy and David did such a fantastic job planning her birthday party. I can't believe how much energy Amy has for being 9 months pregnant. But I guess she has to always have that kind of energy chasing Caroline around.

We had so much fun and we are so honored to be a part of it!! Unfortunately graham never made it to the baby pools. After two hours of being there, he was wiped out and ready to go home for a nap. As soon as we put him in the truck, he was OUT.

We are so lucky to have such amazing friends like the Kelly's in our lives. They are such special and wonderful people to us. They are the kind of friends that everyone needs in their life. So genuine. We always have so much fun together and we look forward to watching all of our children grow up together.

Amy and Caroline




Graham and Caroline: Their First Year Together

Challenge Update

The weight loss challenge that I have been doing since April is going sooo well!! I can't thank Tanna enough for starting this. She is so awesome and is genuinely the sweetest person. This challenge has made me change my diet, my eating habits, what i put in my body. I've just been living a lot better and a lot healthier of a lifestyle and I LOVE IT!

To date, I have lost 10 pounds and 6 inches. I don't have my chart with me but I believe it's 6 inches. 10 pounds was my ultimate goal but now that i'm there, I'm gonna keep on going. I haven't been able to work out as hard as I would like to but i've still been getting my workouts in even if it's 10 - 20 minutes here and there. even though i have been eating right and drinking so much water that my eyeballs are floating, it's still been tough for me to get my energy up. i don't think my dosage of thyroid medicine is really helping so i feel like i am back at square one. I go back at the end of August for lab work again and i'm sure my levels are still off and hopefully she will up my dosage again. i'm so ready to feel normal again. but really, what is normal?

so there's the update!

Feeling Funky

it's been over a week since i've posted anything and to be quite honest, i'm just in a funk...yes, a blog funk. i really don't have much to say. about anything. hmmmm. fumbling here. trying to figure out what to type next.

graham is saying "Duck" all of the time now. Mimi taught him that while we were in Texarkana over the 4th of July weekend. it's so cute. he hasn't quite mastered the last "K" sound but it's still precious. but what isn't just precious about this little boy? even when he wants to headbutt me, or poke me in the eye, or slap me on the cheek. it's still all precious.

he will be moving to the bigger class at his daycare on monday. i thought that was going to be a good thing since he will be the youngest and won't be bulldozing over all of the other babes. but i think i'm gonna be wrong about that. i went to visit with his new teachers and i took one look at all of the babies and well, he's still pretty much going to be the biggest kid in class even though he will be the youngest.

what else?

I'm in the process of planning graham's birthday party and i'm getting so excited!!! it's going to be so cute! we were going to go with the "firefighter" theme but decided to do that when he is a little older and maybe we can have a firetruck come to the house. so now we are going with the alphabet zoo theme. We decided to do the zoo/animal theme because we LOVEEEEEEEEE going to the zoo. we went all of the time when I was pregnant and graham has already been NUMEROUS times in his 10.5 months here with us. so it just seemed fitting. marie at autumn's creek created graham's invitations and they are so AMAZING!! she left me speechless and in TEARS!! she is so good!! She is so laid back and easy to work with...I HIGHLY recommend her for all of your custom card needs. She did Graham's birth announcements and also our holiday cards.

I'm not going to post his invitations yet. I will do so after I receive them and send them out. BUT if you are itching to see them, you can go to her blog. it's so much fun to plan his party but so stressful too because i want everything to be absolutely perfect!!

well, i guess i did have quite a bit to say.

dear graham

every weekday morning, your daddy and i wake up at 6am to get ready for work. your wake up time is at 6:30am and i always rush in there as soon as 630 rolls around because i want to get to you before your daddy does. most of the time you are already up because you have an internal alarm clock. mommy is NOT a morning person WHAT.SO.EVER. but you are. you always wake up with a big smile on your face and when i come to get you, if you are standing up you start bouncing up and down. if you are sitting down you start rocking back and forth in sheer excitement. it just makes my heart flutter when you get so excited to see me. and it makes me want to just squeeze those plump chubby cheeks so hard. but i restrain myself because 1.) it would hurt you and 2.) it would make your poor eczema flair up. aren't you glad that mommy is so considerate?



you started saying maaaaa. FINALLY! after months of saying dada dada dada dada over and over and over and totally taunting me, you finally called out for maaaaa. it was music to my ears. maybe i have already blogged about this. if not, good. if so, sorry. sometimes my repeat button gets pushed...more so now since my thyroid has my memory ALL out of whack.



you are a rough and tough little boy. the first week at your new daycare, your morning teacher ms. jennifer asked me if we wrestled with you at home. we don't. but she said that you like to pin the babies down like you are in a wrestling match with them and in general, you just play aggresively. i just couldn't believe it. i mean, we have seen you pin your singing puppy down but we never thought anything about it. we have seen you play with other babies before and never have we seen you be rough. and this started to worry me. i stressed and stressed and stressed about it and lost many nights of sleep because i was so worried that you were the classroom bully and tryin to figure out why in the world you are acting this way. i finally just let it go and just thought that maybe she was just overreacting. you are a baby. you are growing and developing and you are ALL BOY. well, this past sunday we stopped in Hope to see our friends, Tabatha and Tal. their son Brady is 15 months old. so i put you down so you could play on the floor with brady. we weren't even there for 5 minutes and you were already on top of him and grabbing/smacking at his face and made the poor thing cry. after that, he was afraid to play with you. graham. graham. graham. it's not that you are doing it in a mean way. you get so excited and throw yourself on top of the babies and then you flail your arms in the air and bring them down with some serious force. you do it to mommy too. and daddy. i hope that as you grow, you will become a lot lighter with your movements. because you are a bull. a big, heavy bull. not a bully though. never.

you give me big hugs around my neck. big hugs. BIGGGGGGG HUGS. I want you to know how awesome it makes mommy feel knowing that you love me. that you need me. that you want me. gosh darn it, i love you child.

thank you for making mommy and daddy's life complete.

a new tooth...

...and they are a'coming FAST!!! if you click on the picture you can make it bigger and see his top tooth better...you can also see his boogers better too. it's our gift to you. for reading our boring blog.
these next ones I just had to post cause they are so cute...graham just LOVES the water and loves bathtime and LOVES his silly daddy.

but doesn't love it when daddy tells him that bathtime is over

a lil boy and his walker

waving hi to mommy! or maybe he is trying to block the flash?




his new fish face that he loves to make