Family Update and Belk Fundraiser

Last Friday Joel had his one year checkup. Again, I can't believe I now can say I have an almost 6 year old, 4 year old, and 1 year old. Moving on though, his appointment went great. He weighed 27.5 pounds and is 32.5 inches long. I asked the doctor if he was going to be big guy and she said it looks like it, you've got a linebacker on your hands. What is funny is that we have heard that since the moment he was born. The doctor held him immediately after birth and said "you've got a linebacker." So it will be interesting to see what his future holds for him. He got four shots: chicken pox, flu, hepatitis, and measles. Well he ended up having a horrible reaction to one or more of the shots and the band-aid they put on him to cover up where they gave him the shots. Later that evening when I pulled the band-aids off his legs were welted where the band-aids had been. The next morning he woke up with a fever and a rash from top to bottom. He still has remnants from the rash. Poor guy.

After his doctors appointment I met Joe and the girls at MeMaw and Paw-Paw's for Aunt Angie's birthday party.

The next morning the girls were up at 5:30 a.m. and so I took them to Wal-Mart to pick up some food for our church Homecoming and so they could pick out their Halloween costumes. As hard as it was, I let them pick out their own costumes. I am trying to teach them to make decisions for themsevles, and so they picked out what they wanted. Neither want is a costume per se, but more of an outfit. Jolie's is kind of like a spider witch. She has a fluffy dress and a hat with a spider on it. The dress is fiber optic, so hers will be pretty neat. Josie's is a ladybug outfit. There isn't much to it, and I told her if Halloween is cold this year, she will be cold and have to cover up, but that was what she wanted. Joel will be a bat. I have a costume Josie wore 2 years ago that fits him, so we'll have Joel the bat, Josie the ladybug girl, and Jolie the spider witch.

The rest of the weekend we spent at church for our Homecoming. It was an awesome weekend and it was so great to see people I haven't seen in years. I did end up leaving early with Joel Sunday because he was just too fussy and needed and a nap.

Monday I was off but the kids' daycares were still open so I took advantage of a free day. I cleaned and slept. I think I really needed it :)

This week we have had some behavior issues with Jolie at school. She has been hitting, biting, and back talking the teacher. I'm not sure what is going on with her but I reached my breaking point yesterday and told her she couldn't go on her campout Saturday night. She was supposed to have a campout, so now just Josie would go. I had just bought them new flashlights too. But yesterday was the third day of getting a bad report and I told her 3 strikes and you are out. She took it pretty hard, so hopefully we got through to her that she can not hit, bite, or back talk. We shall see.

Today Josie goes to the pumpkin patch at school. She was really excited about. I think we will try to go to ZooBoo tonight. Jolie got a family membership for her birthday and so I want to take advantage of it as often as we can! Tomorrow Joe works, but the kids and I will be at a family reunion. Josie then has her campout. I told Joe this punishes us just as much Josie, because we almost had a kid free night (we still would have had Joel) :)

Sometime in the near future we are going to take Joel's one year pictures. We have not had any made since he was born. Poor boy, at least I have taken regular snap shots throughout the year, probably more so than I did with Jolie.

I'm going to end with Josie's newest fundraiser. Tickets for special event at Belks. Since she started school it has been back to back to back fundraising. Thank you to those who have helped out so far, and please no one feel obligated to do any more than what you want to do.

Joe & Jolie at the Pumpkin Patch

Joe is on his first field trip with one of the kids. Jolie's preschool is at the Clanton Pumpkin Patch and Joe someone managed to get off to go with her. I think they are both having a great time:





Josie was also very excited about today because she got to wear her pajamas to school. Who knew something so small could make a person so happy.

We left earlier than we should have (I didn't time it right since I only had 2 kids) and so Josie and I played with Joel at Ms. Debbies for a little while before I took her to school. He took another step for me and we all clapped for him. He was such a happy boy this morning. Crawling around every where, smiling with that adorable dimple, and just being a rambunctious little boy.

Happy Birthday Joel!!

I can't believe my sweet little boy is one. Where has the time gone? The older we all get the faster time passes me by. I try to remind myself to slow down and enjoy moments, but sometimes that is just really hard to do.

Joel has changed so much in the past year and I'm not just talking about his hair color. He is coming into his personality, and I feel so blessed that God has allowed me to be a part of his life. I have three amazing children and I am so grateful for the precious gifts God has given to Joe and me.

Wednesday and Thursday Joe and I worked on stuff for Joel's birthday party and Friday was the big day.

Joe got to pick out the theme (I thought it was only fair since Joel is a boy), and Joe picked dinosaurs. I ran with it, and I think I/we did pretty good for this being our first boy party.

We had dino-dogs on a stick (corn dogs), stuffed dino eggs (deviled eggs), herbivore treats (veggie tray), stegosaurs spikes (cheese puffs), dino teeth & spicy lava (chips & fiesta ranch dip), Rex (watermelon carved like a dino with watermelon & grapes inside his mouth), dirt cups (oreo pie with gummy worms) fossil cups (orange jello with a sweedish fish in it) and cupcakes.





Of course Joel had his little smash cake made by Joe:


We decorated with lots of green and plants:




And as you walked up to the front door this is what you saw:



As you walked in from the front door to the kitchen you passed the goody table~ Dino masks and dino ducks:


And when you got to the kitchen you found the birthday boy!!




He learned to say "cheese" that day. You can see him saying it here:


We had coloring sheets and balloons to keep everyone occupied until everyone was there:







Once everyone was there I explained the egg hunt game to them. Momma dinosaurs had come to help me decorate and left colored dino eggs on the front lawn for the kids to hunt. Here I am explaining that everyone is only to get one egg of each color:


Look how well everyone is sitting and listening:


Let the hunt begin:



Look at all the dinosaurs that came to Joel's first birthday:





Next it was dinner and dessert. I love watching the kids dig into their first birthday cake:










After a quick bath in the sink and wardrobe change it was time to open presents:






All in all I think the party was a great success even if almost every kid there had a meltdown at some point :) Thank you so much to everyone who helped pull the party off, thank you for the gifts, and thank you for your love and support of Joel in this past year.

After the party Joe took the kids home and put them to bed while I stayed and cleaned up.

Saturday morning we took it easy. It had been a long, long, long time since we had been able to do that and it was so nice. We did take a walk to take some boxes to recycling. We went out to lunch and headed up to Joe's grandmother for a visit with some relatives we have not seen in a while. The girls got to feed Uncle Lynn's horses and went fishing with Joe. The most exciting thing of the day was when Joel took his first steps. He has taken a few since then, but pretty soon he will be running right along side his big sisters. We had a good afternoon and we got home in time to watch most of the Alabama game.

Sunday we had church and then the girls went home with Other Mama. This was a much needed break and we can not thank Other Mama and Pap-paw enough. We had just been talking about how we had not had a date since May, and so we went to lunch and had a semi-date (we still had Joel.) After a very yummy lunch we went home and took naps. That was the best sleep I have gotten in a while. We got up just in time to meet Other Mama at New Home with the girls for Awana.

This week is an exciting week for the girls at school. Jolie has a field trip to the Clanton Pumpkin Patch and Josie gets to wear pjs to school one day.

This weekend is a huge weekend for our church. We are celebrating the church's
175th birthday. We have activities all weekend long. At lunch on Sunday Joe were talking about how neat it will be to be around for the 200th birthday celebration. By then hopefully we will have four generations at First Presbyterian: My parents, Joe & me, the kids, and at least some of our grandkids. It is was neat to us when we thought about it that way. We are all part of something larger and we are blessed for the life we have.