• You are a solid little boy. As of your 15m check-up, you are in the 90 percentile for height, and in the 70th percentile for weight. When I took you in for pinkeye a couple of weeks ago she said you weighed 27lbs. No wonder I get tired holding you.
• You are still a champion sleep and have been since 5-6 months old. THANK YOU! You were not the best sleeper for the 1st 5 months of your life, so I appreciate the about-face. Up until 2 weeks ago you went down for the night at 6:30pm and woke around 8-8:30am everyday. Just before you turned 1 you began taking 1 nap per day. It usually last around 3 hours. You are just like your Dad. You both love require hours and hours of beauty sleep. Now you are hitting the hay around 7:30pm.

• You love spinning and spinning and spinning. It’s so cute. Sometimes you fall down and that’s when it gets really funny. You find falling on your bottom hilarious, and so you will repeatedly spin just so you fall on your tush.

• You are a grandpas’ boy to no end. Mommy and Grandmas just don’t get the massive smile out of you these days like Daddy and your Grandpas do.

• You at times have a nasty litte temper, but usually only show it when we are at home or getting in or out of the car. Don’t worry you still have the masses fooled into thinking you are a sweet little angel. I on the other hand know better.

• One of your favorite things to do is take either your bubble mower (sans bubbles) or one of your riding toys and push it, while running and screaming “run, run, run, run” “run, run, run, run”, around the the house chasing the dogs or ramming these toys into doors or walls, and the baby gate. The dogs are less than thrilled about this game. You are all boy I tell you, all boy.

• You still love your Giggy (that’s what you call Wrigley and Cohen sometimes) more than words can say. I truly believe you leave food on your face/body just so she will come and lick you. Anytime you are near her you smile real big, squench up your little face, point your fingers at her, and start squealing her name over and over her. Then you hunker down, tuck your chin into your chest, in hopes that she notices you and comes to lick your face. Sometimes you even walk like that towards her to help her out a bit. LOVE. THIS. As a matter of fact, most of the time you call BOTH of the dogs “Giggy”. You can say “CoCo”, but I guess you choose not to.

• You love to vacuum. It use to be that you made me hold you when I vacuumed, and now you won’t let me touch the thing at all until you’ve had your fill. It’s quite cute really. You turn it on and off and push it anywhere your little arms can carry it.

• I’ve been working with you a bit on sign language. You don’t know a ton of signs, because I don’t know many and forget what they are to often to use them all the time when I talk to you. You do know a few basics that help us know what you want. So, that’s nice. I’ll continue to work with you in effort to help you tell us what you want instead of throwing a fit. That’s always nice. Here is a list of the ones you know currently. There might be a few more, but I’m drawing a blank.

• more
• all done (a.k.a.- finished)
• eat
• drink
• fan
• hot
• ball
• brush teeth
• bath
• milk
• juice
• apple
• baby
• O’s (for cheerios)

• You love knocking on things: doors, windows, walls, tables. Really, anything that makes noise when your tiny little knuckles hit it. While knocking you also say “knock, knock, knock”. It’s pretty stinkin’ cute, Kiddo.

• You give kisses with your lips puckered, and afterwards you say “mmmmuuahhh!” I beg for kisses these days just to to see you pucker up. I love it.

Looks like I may want to rethink my pantry organization I tackled yesterday. Within 10 minutes of waking someone had already helped himself to two GIANT graham crackers. Maybe he was just trying to tell me that he wanted breakfast………….nah.

This head tilt cracks me up. It started last week. If he thinks something he is doing is funny or when the theme song to Mickey Mouse Clubhouse comes on the head tilt comes out. I crack up everytime.

jan 8 – Other than Gray acting like the class clown in sunday school nothing much happened this Sunday. His teachers love him, because he is one of the few that don’t cry when he gets dropped off. This boy is just happy to be somewhere other than home playing with toys other than his.

jan 9 – We went to visit and eat dinner with my folks. We went to a small family restaurant, and were one of two tables (w/ customers) in the entire place. It was odd, but kinda nice. Unfortunately, we figured out why we were one of the few people eating there…it wasn’t that good. I hate saying that, because it is their livelihood, but neither Derek or I enjoyed our meal very much.

jan 10 – My poor baby had to go to the doctor today, because he had a mild case of pink eye. Which meant I got to fill his very 1st prescription! I know, weird…right? I guess that’s not something you write in a baby book. That meant a trip to Target! Since he was such a good and sick boy we picked him up a super awesome Blue’s Clue’s DVD for the car.

jan 11 - I had to get a little house work done and Grayson always makes me hold him when I vacuum, so I strapped him in the Boba and got to work.

jan 12 – This is the day that my massive migraine started. That means Grayson and Daddy time began. I stole the next 3 photos from Derek’s phone. Here are my boys playing with some stickers. This boy loves stickers.

jan 13 – Day 2 of my nasty migraine. The boys continued to survie without me, but Derek did have to take of work to take care of Grayson. Looks like the boys played in the yard strolling around in Gray’s wagon. He knows exactly where we keep it and runs straight to the shed to pull it out when we walk into the backyard. Derek’s parents kept Gray this night so the house would be quiet and so Derek could take me to the minor med.

jan 14 – Day 3 of the migraine. I’m still in bed with all the windows covered by bath towels. Thanks to the prescriptions I got the night before I at least wasn’t nauseous anymore. I still didn’t want to eat and it felt like I had an elephant dancing on my skull. From what Derek tells me once his parents dropped Gray back off they just hung out played a little Xbox and watched tv all day.

Since Gray hasn’t been throwing things as much lately and the kid was in desperate need of having a poopy diaper changed, so I allowed him to play with my iPhone while I changed him. Lets just say he knows how to unlock it and access the camera. I say this because I opened my photo stream to find a photo play-by-play of what it looks like to have your diaper changed by me.

See that big green empty wall to my right? I’ve got big plans for it.

And the grand finale…

Wow! I look like Shrek.

Love them. I just do. These two are the sweetest, friendliest couple. Seriously. Besides my two redheaded nephews, cutest redheaded baby. Period. Oh, and this girl can cook and sew like nobody’s business. She’s like the second coming of Ree. You know, The Pioneer Woman. These three are truly a go-with-the-flow kinda family, and you can tell in everyone of their photos. Don’t they just ooze cuteness?

These were, of course, taken before xmas for holiday cards. Even for what seemed like a split second shoot the moments captured that morning are some of my all time favs.

This is where Baby C decided she was just about done with taking photos, and was letting it be known.

Wow. That was a giant weekend of NOTHING for me. If you consider nothing a blinding, mind numbing, I can’t even function to care for my own child, trip to the minor med (but only at night) migraine nothing.

Wednesday evening I felt my standard “a weather front is coming through” sinus headache coming on so I took some Advil and hit the hay. Thursday I woke up thinking I wasn’t going to make it though the day. This bad boy of a sinus headache, we’ll call him Karl for kicks, had intensified. Derek had a dentist appointment that morning so I told him to give me a call once he was done to see if I needed him to come home.

I guess I should tell you a bit about my sinus headaches. They are intense. I am like a human barometer. I can tell you if it’s going to rain or if a low pressure front will move though the city I am in typically within a 24-48 hour window. My more severe sinus headaches, in my not-at-home working days, required me to take a sick day because I just couldn’t function. Now that I have no sick days as a SAHM I rely on the availability on my super busy husband to take a day off from his job and take care of Squishy Baby.

Now back to Karl. On Thursday afternoon I decided to pop a couple advil and take a nap while the kiddo napped. Karl no-likie. Luckily, Gray decided to take a 5 HOUR nap that day. I know right?! Derek arrived home around 4:30pm and Karl was rockin’ out full force on my brain-hole. I stayed in bed the remainder of the evening. Derek even slept on the couch to make my night a bit easier.

Here’s a peak at what my windows looked like for about 5 days.

Yup, them my good bath towels blockin’ out that ole sunshine.

Friday morning it was ON! Oh, I forgot to mention that all night long this stupid sinus headache was morphing into a full-blown migraine, and kept waking me up every 2 hours or so. Not cool, Karl. When the alarm when off Friday morning Karl was large and in charge. Derek called into work for the day off and began life as a single daddy, and nurse to my pending doom.

For whatever reason I could only sleep on my sides. I couldn’t sit up, walk, see any form of light, even the normal smell of my husband made me want to blow chunks. Gross, I know. That night my in-laws picked up Gray and kept him over night so Derek could take me to the minor med. By this point, taking a swig of water made me do what my husband’s musk almost made me do a few hours before. Ugh! I told Derek I would try going to the doctor, but only at night. Even the light from the screen of his cell phone made Karl put on his clogging shoes and dance a little ditty on my eyeballs AND brain.

After the peps at the minor med put two shots in my tush, three prescriptions in my hands my husband’s hands, and sent me on my not so merry way I was home and back in bed still hating Karl. Needless to say things slowly started getting less painful, but weren’t even remotely tolerable until Monday morning. I was in a black hole for days on end. No phone, no computer, no TV…I mean nothing.

So that’s where I’ve been.

The good news is my boys had a blast together. My sweet hubs to pics and videos of the two of them hanging out so I could see what they were up to while I was having my brain abused. They had a blast with stickers. Of course a fit or two occurred. I mean that’s a given.

They did a little gaming.

They played in the back yard. Gray even did a little yard work. I can’t wait till this “fun game” actually works in our favor.

They went to the zoo Sunday morning since going to church was out of the question for us. The zoo is super close to our house, and we have a annual family pass so it was really easy for Derek to get home to me if I needed him. Church…not so much. Sorry God. Next week.

Dang, that kid is even cuter than a panda.

And as always…Grayson took a ton of self portraits of himself with Derek’s iPhone.

I just have to say, there is no way I could have taken care of that sweet little butterball while enduring the pain I was in. I am so thankful to have this amazing man in my life that is there for me when I fall, or when I just can’t stand at all. I love you, Derek. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for taking care of not only me everyday, but our little guy too. You totally win the Husband of the Year award.

Now that the holidays are over I can breathe again and finally get around to post about some of the shoots I went on in October, November, and December. Yay!

Meet, Cari and Scott. They are new to the south, but fitting right in. Cari is as sweet as can be, and Scott (once you break him from his shell and talk about biking or the Oregon Ducks) is just as fun loving as his wife. Originally, we had intended to shoot their session in a cotton field, but we missed the harvest. Don’t worry they were able to get a few shots in a cotton field when they ran out to one for a quick session with a friend one day. I’d never thought to shoot in a cotton field. Such a cute idea. Cari I now blame you for getting that thought stuck in my head. I dream about cotton now, and can’t wait for the fall so I can go take some cotton pickin’ pictures. I had to. I’m sorry.

Anywho, we found a suitable location, and captured some sweet moments. Here’s a few of my favorites.

The pesky town square decorated the barn all harvesty. Is that a word? Harvesty? Oh well. I could have lived without the corn stalks in the shot, but what are ya’ gonna do? I do however love the light in this one.

Look at this girl jumping right on into the southern culture, and sporting her a pair of cowboy boots.

If you are a fan of Bella Vita and/or Itty Bitty Bella you might recognize Cari from shopping there. If not, go there and shop. You won’t regret it. The shops are awesome!