I thought I might bless you all with a little video. This is Gray and my mom giving each other interesting kisses.

We finally got Gray out to the lake this year. We had intended to take him over a month ago, but a dog that will remain nameless (Wrigley) decided that she wanted to swallow a squeaker from one of her toys and be rushed to the emergency vet. Fun. Fun.

So, we finally made it on Memorial Day weekend. To make certain Gray didn’t absolutely spaz when we put him in the lake we decided to take a dip in the pool first. My parent’s marina (they don’t own it they just dock there) has a pool which is so nice after a long day out on the lake. I mean barges use that lake. I don’t want barge pee all over me. Eww grose!

The pool was a success. Although he doesn’t look like he was thrilled about the pool. I promise you he LOVES them. These photos are of his very 1st dip in anything larger than his ducky tub he bathes in at home. It makes sense that he looks a little reserved. The next day however, we took him to a friend’s house to swim and I don’t know if I’ve ever seen my child happier. That boy was born to swim.

After swimming we headed back to the boat because the lake was calling our names. How precious does he look in that tiny life jacket? I can answer that. VERY.

I mean just look at him. The kid is a natural.

Unfortunately, the lake was a tad too cold for a 9 month old. Heck, that lake was too cold for me. He did hang out on the swim deck with Aunt Toof for a few. So, at least he saw the lake.

I did hop on the jet ski for awhile, but made Derek swear not to throw me off. Nobody knows what’s lurking under the surface of that muddy lake. I mean Nessie, could have made her way in there all the way from Scotland, and could easily be hungry for something that taste just like me. Legit fear, for sure.

Since the lake was a bit too cold for my liking I stayed on board with my teeny tiny while he napped, ate, and pooped in way too many diapers. Occasionally, I would pop up to the top of the boat to take random photos like this one.

After we showered we decided to take a walk down the pier. We even managed to sneak in a half way decent family photo. Yay us!

I tried to let Gray dangle his feet off the pier and let his toes dip in the water, but his legs are still a good 12 inches too short.

That night we slept on the boat. Derek and I crashed in the bedroom and Gray was laid out in his pack-n-play in the main cabin. The next morning we went to breakfast with the folks at the marina’s restaurant. And of course, every single person knew my parents. I think they might eat there a tad too much. Nah, I’m the same way. Stick with what ya’ like.

After we stuffed our faceholes we packed up and headed home. It was a short trip, but it was nice to get away even if it was just for the night.

Don’t quite understand the last picture with the duck? You’re welcome.

Okay, so it’s my only Mother’s Day, but my favorite still. Yes, Derek gave me a present last year when my belly was looking like it was about to burst, but the day feels totally different when that tiny little bun is out of your oven.

My 1st Mother’s Day started off with my boys waking up extra early and making me breakfast in bed. Cinnamon rolls to be exact. They were perfectly gooey and delightful, and polished off by a super cold glass of milk. Then came the present.

Derek says that Gray designed it himself, but I have a feeling he had a hand in making it. They used iPhoto to layout and order this sweet book FILLED with photos of the reason I get to celebrate Mother’s Day….Grayson.

(The caption reads: Our First Mother’s Day)

On the first page of the book I found this sweet message from my little dude….

My book was filled with photos of Squishy during his 1st 7 months of life, and I couldn’t have asked for a better present.

Since it was Sunday we headed off to church, and of course I brought my book. I may have even passed it around during service. Sorry about that God.

After church my boys took me to lunch, we visited with our mothers, and went to dinner with my parents. Then we came home and crashed on the couch and vegged.

Derek was originally scheduled to leave for North Carolina for work on Mother’s Day, but his trip was rescheduled. That would have been a bummer of a Mother’s Day. I am thrilled that things worked out and I was able to spend a beautiful and fun filled day with my two boys.

Life is good.

You know, like in The Godfather. Doesn’t Don Corleone make his goons kiss his ring because he’s the leader of the mob (a.k.a. – The Godfather) I think I will now request that my engagement ring be kissed by all that approach me in conversation. I’m thinking it will catch on. Don’t you? Wait, we are here to talk about a baby. Sorry.

Talk about cuddliness wrapped up in a blanket of cheeks surrounded by a fluffy cloud of melt-my-heart perfectness. Meet my precious, most perfect, adorably sweet, and tiny Godson, John. And yes, I mean the Catholic kind. As I’m sure most of you don’t know, I grew up Catholic. Yep, I even went to Catholic school with the mean nuns with rulers, uniforms…the whole bit.

When I found out that my brother and his wife were expecting I knew I wanted to take some newborn pictures for them. So, at 13 days young John and his mommy granted my wish.

This kid rivals Grayson in the size of his cheeks.

Just look at those tiny toes peeking through. I just wanna nibble them off. But, I won’t. I think my brother might get mad if I did.

At the end of the shoot my sister brought Gray in so I could get a few shots of the boys together. However, by this point John was just about fed up with being the center of attention, and certainly let us know.

Have I ever mentioned that Grayson LOVES other kids? He does. He is totally amazed by other tiny humans of the kiddy persuasion. Often times you find him just staring at random kids with wonder in his eyes. And know that waving is his new favorite thing to do he waves at every kid he sees. Even the ones in photos and on tv.

Here is my sweet little sister, Toof, (or Stephanie as her birth certificate states) with her two youngest nephews.

Thanks Mike and Katie for letting me annoy your child with the sound of my shutter. That’s not true, I turned that annoying beep off the day I got my camera. Who wants to hear “beep beep…beep beep” every time they focus on a subject? Not this chick, that’s who.

I was in heaven with how adorable my little guy looked on Easter. This picture was taken at the end of the day, so you will have to forgive all the wrinkles.

I decided to go with a non-traditional Easter basket for Grayson. I found these adorable little pales at Target and picked up a large one for Gray and two small ones for Mommy and Daddy. Gray’s is hiding behind the book. I was kind of hoping to get a Circut for Mother’s Day so I could add his name to the pale next year, but since we are officially in “saving” mode around here, due to all the expensive disasters we have been through lately, I have a very strong feeling a kiss and some flowers may be the only gifts I get this year. I’m not complaining, I love kisses and flowers from my boys…they are all I need, I’m just being a realist.

The Easter Bunny really loaded up this little boy on his 1st Easter. The Easter Bunny shops a lot in the $1 section at Target. There was no candy in his basket, but he received a couple of books, some bubbles, a bright and fun sprinkler for summertime fun, a beach ball for the pool, a bath toy, and something called a Zhu Zhu pet. It’s that little raccoon looking thing. It makes noises and zips around the room on it’s own. I thought it would be fun for him to chase once he starts crawling. Which looks like it may happen any day now. I’m so not ready for that.

The Easter Bunny stopped by the grandparent’s houses too. This is the basket he left at Derek’s parent’s house. I didn’t get a shot of the basket at my parent’s house.

Uncle Davis helped Gray tear into his 1st Easter basket.

At my parent’s house we took pictures of all three grandkids since everyone was so dressed up. Grayson was a ham for the camera, as usual.

Gray will only give kisses to me, his stuffed animals, and other kids. It’s so weird. He just will not kiss other adults. Derek has only received one kiss so far. I asked him to give the baby a kiss and he had no trouble laying one on him. The baby, John, did not enjoy the kiss. Can you tell?

So that was our first Easter as a family of three. I hope all of your Easters were just as wonderful.

Well, Squishy’s 1st Christmas has come and gone, but I want to share some of the highlights with you.

Now, this year’s highlights aren’t quite the high level of excitement as last year’s. Last year we gave both of our parents small gifts to open with onesies to reveal that we were pregnant.

Since both mine and Derek’s parents live in Memphis we had to figure out how to maximize baby time with each set of grandparents. This year we decided to spend all of Christmas Eve with Derek’s parents and Christmas Day with mine. It worked out smashingly.

Christmas Eve morning we woke up and took out time getting ready. Since we were spending the entire day over there it made no sense to arrive at the butt crack of dawn. Which was nice, because the past few Christmas mornings we were up at 6:30am. We didn’t even have a kid then….no fair! So, this year we took our time in the AM. We woke around 9am showered and then Derek gave me my gift. People, I got me a new camera. A Canon EOS 60D.

[source]

Now, by no means is this the camera of the pros, but for the shooting I do…it’s a beast. My new little nephew is due this March and I can’t wait to shoot his teeny tiny adorable newborn pics with this bad boy.

We ate lunch at my in-laws and then dove into a pile of presents.

Here is my lovely hubby attempting to open a gift with his new ski gloves on. Oh, and see the pants he’s wearing. Yup, those are ski pants. Can you guess what type of vacation we are about to take. Go ahead guess. I bet you’ll never get it.

(Side Note: I can not wait to go on this ski trip. We are going with 2 other couples in just a few short months. We had intended to go to Whistler this month, but I got knocked up and we had to call off that trip, but now there is a new vacation planned. A vacation to Utah! Real snow here I come.)

This was Derek’s big Xmas gift. A Boxee Box. For those of you who aren’t quite the major geeks me and the hubs are I will be posting an unboxing and and overview post of what this little black box does.

This kid was over the moon about this gift. Yes, I just used the phrase “Over the Moon”. Cuz, I’m old school like that. BOOM!

Me and my bro-in-law Davis

We had to take a break from the gift opening to change a dirty diaper. Babies….sheesh!

Grayson seemed to love the ornaments on the tree. Many of them ended up in his mouth. Looks like we may have a little issue next year with a 1 year old and ornaments. I have a feeling it will be very much like having cats and a Christmas tree.

After all that excitement it was time for a nap…

Later in the evening we sat down to a delicious steak dinner. Yum.

The next day, Christmas Day, we headed over to my folk’s house for presents and food.

Oh, the presents. We are so blessed.

The little dude was kind of the center of attention…this year.

Opa

Oma

Gray’s Great Grandma

His cousin Jerry

Aunt Toof

Notice how I said this year? That’s because in March my SIL is expecting. See that baby bump in the picture below?

Not that you were wondering or anything, but yes that is a bottle in my son’s mouth, and yes I am still nursing. Yet, my kid seemed to get hungry right in the middle of gift opening time so to the bottle we went. I didn’t want to miss out on all of the merriment, and no one really wanted me whipping out the ole’ breastages in the middle of everyone.

Like much of the South we too received snow on Christmas day. However, our Christmas was not quite white. It snowed all day, but nothing ever stuck. Boo. That’s pretty typical of Memphis….a big weather tease. I know it looks more like the trees have dandruff, but that’s snow…I promise.

My grandmother made all of our stockings, but no longer can do the extensive stichwork she use to. That meant my mom had to find Grayson a stocking. She found the cutest stocking for Gray at LL Bean.

Then it was present time….

Gray did really well with this. I was quite surprised that he was able to rip the paper off of a few gifts. I think it was more that he wanted to eat the paper rather than see what was inside.

His favorite toy of the day (besides the paper)…

My favorite gift I gave was to my little brother, Michael. While checking my email I came across a brother Xmas gift suggestion on Cool Mom Picks. It was for a personalized ornament. I mean super personalized! The ornament is made to look like anyone you want. My brother is hard to buy for and I didn’t want to go the gift card route again this year so I sprang for this bad boy. I found it at the Sklep Etsy Shop. I sent her a picture of my bro and she did the rest.

That was Squishy’s 1st Christmas. Not very eventful, but full of family and fun.

Wait!

I forget to show you his Christmas outfit. It was my brother’s when he was a baby. I swapped out the shirt for a long sleeve white onesie because it was a tad bit 80′s and because polyester should never be put on a baby. The red overall portion of the outfit was velvet. “What is that, velvet?!?”

The outfit is supposed to be worn with little white knee socks, but I didn’t have any. We just went with our church socks. It worked.

I myself am not an Arkansas fan, but Derek’s side of the family is from that neck of the woods and they are HUGE fans. Late one evening a special little outfit was dropped off at our door from Derek’s aunt and uncle.

Sunday was my mother-in-law’s birthday, so we invited them over to eat some BBQ and watch the Arkansas game. (We did not realize all the irony going on until after we decided on BBQ for dinner….Hogs, BBQ, baby hog outfit….geez!)  Since the game was on, we dressed Squishy up in his super adorable outfit to root on the Razorbacks. Even if you hate Arkansas, you gotta admit this outfit is outrageously adorable.

Since Derek’s aunt and uncle requested photos of the little dude sporting his hog outfit I snapped a few way too many photos during the game.