home for the holidays

We made it to Kirksville last night. It was the best road trip that we have ever had since we had Jamie. He is so much more interested in books and toys than the last time we took a trip that he was much easier to entertain. We took a huge stack of books, and I sat in the back and read him stories most of the day. I LOVE that he loves books so much! Between those, his toys, and extra snacks, he barely fussed the entire day. It made the day go by so fast! We are happy to be here and looking forward to seeing everyone and celebrating Christmas!

words

Jamie's vocabulary has recently exploded. To be completely honest, I don't know if anyone but me and usually Thomas would be able to understand most of his words (most of them are just the first syllable or an approximation thereof), but he is now saying or trying to say the following:

Momma
Dadda
no
banana
yuck
boo
boom
uh-oh
apple
rabbit
ball
more
moon
water
food
Elmo
bye-bye
dart
down
door
dirt
Popple
Max
popcorn
baby
bread
bed
fish
key
ho ho ho
beep
mad
sock
whoa
yay

. . .and maybe some more that I don't remember right now! I am more thankful than ever we've done signing with him because, for example, when he says "baba," he might be saying "bye-bye," "baby," "ball," "rabbit," or making a sheep noise, which could be confusing, but he usually does the sign at the same time. Some other words are much more clear, though. It has been so amazing watching (hearing?) him learn to talk in the past few months! At 15 months he was only saying 5 or 6 words!

O Christmas Tree, O Christmas Tree . . .

Happy Thanksgiving!

Jamie the Thanksgiving chef

Happy Thanksgiving yesterday! We sure had a great day. Though it was Jamie's second Thanksgiving, it was his first where he could eat the food. He LOVED the turkey, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, applesauce, cranberry sauce, rolls, and pie, but did not like the stuffing or green bean casserole. One of Thomas's friends from school came over and had dinner with us, and we all got stuffed. We had a wonderful time, but we did miss our families.

One of the things we were most thankful for this Thanksgiving: our new table!

We purchased our former table and chairs at Goodwill right after we got married, and they were seriously falling apart, so we decided to ask for a new table as a combined Christmas present this year. It's a long story, but we had some problems with the table not being delivered when it was supposed to be and ended up with no table at all for 2 weeks. It was only just delivered on Wednesday, and 3 of our chairs are still on back order. I am so grateful that we were able to get a new one and that we didn't have to eat Thanksgiving dinner while sitting on the floor around the coffee table.

dinner time!

It just so happens that Jamie also got a new table for Christmas this year. He loves it and looks so cute sitting in the little chairs! Since I can sit in the chairs and remain reasonably comfortable, I'm pretty sure it's going to last him a long time. Thanks Grammy!

Though the table is wonderful, I believe his favorite part has been the box that the chairs came in.

Thomas still had school the day before Thanksgiving, so I sent him to class with some treats I wanted to try making. These were taken straight from my favorite food blog, Our Best Bites.

Oreo Turkeys

pilgrim hats

And finally, just because they're cute, a couple more shots of our little man.

Jamie's posed smile

why are babies in overalls so stinking cute??

Hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving! We are putting up our Christmas tree today. This is my favorite time of year!!

turkey day

why I can't get good videos of Jamie

Jamie's first haircut

Jamie FINALLY had his first haircut today. It was seriously overdue. He had some very cute curls for a while, but recently it has just been scraggly in the back and, worse, his bangs (which reached all the way to his mouth) were constantly in his face. I tried to get some before pictures today but he didn't really cooperate. These are the best I got.

front

back

This one is from a couple of weeks ago, but this is pretty much how his hair was all the time. I had to push it out of his eyes all day long.

Jamie did a great job today! I made sure he had his rabbit and his pacifier, and he was totally good to go. He kept moving his head around to try and see what was going on, but otherwise he sat still, and he didn't fuss at all.

I was sad at first after the cut, even though I hadn't been beforehand. He just didn't look like my baby anymore! But I'm very happy with it now that I've gotten a little more used to it. He looks great, it's not in his face, and he shouldn't get mistaken for a girl now!

all done!

Halloween festivities

Last year, Jamie wore his Halloween costume for a couple hours, we took several pictures, and that was the extent of our Halloween activities. This year, we did so much more! We went to a Halloween themed story time, a community Halloween event, Boo at the Zoo, and a corn maze, and we made Jack-o-lanterns and roasted the seeds. We had such a fun weekend!

Jamie was a Jedi. I made his costume, and for those of you unfamiliar with Star Wars, this is basically what I was going for:

Here is our little Jedi:

We go to story time at the library every Friday morning, and this past week, all the kids dressed up.

On Friday evening, we went to a community Halloween event. Jamie's favorites were the golf and the bean bag toss.

We let Jamie have some candy for the first time ever. He loved it (and drooled like mad with this dum-dum).

Jack-o-lanterns! So much more fun with a 1 year old! He loved helping pull out the seeds.

Jamie drew a "face" on his

We also went to Boo at the Zoo.

They had tons of different characters dressed up everywhere, including from Star Wars! It was so perfect.

At the corn maze we went to, we went on a hay ride to a pumpkin patch (didn't get pumpkins this time), went through the maze, and played on their slides and sandpit, etc. Jamie was so cute in the maze, darting down each path and directing where we should go. What a fun afternoon.

On Halloween itself, Jamie wore his costume to the park.

Jamie's new favorite activity. He is throwing
rocks in the creek.

We had our traditional chili and cornbread for dinner, and Thomas and I watched Psycho after Jamie went to bed. We would've given out candy if we had had any trick-or-treaters. We've never had any! You'd think apartments would be good for trick-or-treating, being so close together. Oh well. Otherwise it was a great Halloween!