LIfe in Phone Pictures

Time for a photo dump session from my phone. I don't think I've done one since I got this phone back in the fall after I destroyed my other one... I need to do this more often in case something happens to this one.

reading his TarHeel Monthly.

McDonald's play date with mommy.

oh lord...

reading Thomas

eat. sleep. football.

TJ's old outfit.

I know this is super blurry but he busted through the door like this and i had to grab my phone quick! he got himself dressed and was so proud!!

Kenan Stadium sure is beautiful!

I could watch him sleep all night long.

Wearing mommy's sweatshirt.

Fresh haircut, with clippers.

he got this horse for his first Christmas and he loves to ride it now.

A little Southpoint Christmas shopping.

Shooting hoops on his new goal from Santa.

Carolina v. Elon

Hanging out in the kitchen on his new skateboard.

TJ celebrating New Year's with his sparkling cider in his "fancy glass."

Putting on daddy's shirt.

He wanted it to have a hood so he pulled it up on his head.

We love to brush our "tee."

Relaxing all on his own.

He was literally giving Big Bird a high five and saying "fye."

First night in the toddler bed.

Watching toodles in his hat.

We love Olivia!

Reading Twinkle, Twinkle from Nana.

Reading a bedtime story to Elmo.

Time to Convert.

I think that we will be converting the crib to a bed this weekend. Last night I put Deuce down for bed like normal. I went back out to the living room to finish watching the Carolina game with Ed. After about 45 minutes or so we heard Deuce whimpering. Kind of unusual for him but we didn't worry. He started flicking his light switch on and off over and over again. He does this sometimes and then falls asleep after a little while, usually with the light on. After about 10 minutes of whimpering, we heard the door knob. I immediately looked at Ed and said, "he can't reach the door knob from his crib!" I jumped up and there he was. Dragging his blue blanket behind him in his footie pajamas like Lioness in Charlie Brown. He said "Mamaaaaa!" Then cracked a little grin.

So I took him back to his room, turned out the lights and we tried our routine again. I knew he was tired. It was about 11pm by this point. Again, he went down just fine. So I went in to the bedroom to observe the whole thing on the monitor. This is what I saw:

And then this morning, when I woke up I saw this:

And when I went to look for him, this:

I pray that this is not a difficult process to get him to stay and sleep in his own bed now. We've been so fortunate so far... I know every kid does this at some point but still..... I like him contained! :)

Boys and their Games

Nooooooooooooooooo! It's already starting and he's not even 2......

 Really? How long until Spring when I can get him outside to run around and not become one of those crazy, obsessive video game kids!?! But seriously, I had to snap some pictures when I walked in the living room and caught him slouched down all low like TJ, pretending to play the PS3.

Silhouette Cameo Love

So I mentioned before that I was fortunate enough to receive a Silhouette Cameo for Christmas. I haven't had too much time to use it yet but it is the coolest thing ever! I have learned that I have to use it late at night after little hands have gone to bed because those little hands want to "help" with my projects and that results in pretty much a 0% completion rate. So I have only used it for 2 things so far but I was super impressed with how easy it was to use.

I take this water bottle with me to Zumba class. I love the new monogram that I added. It was a little tricky using this font because the serifs are so intricate that it was a little difficult to separate but if I had some nice tweezers it wouldn't have been too bad. Those will be purchased soon. I also mis-measured the height slightly but it still came out fine.

I also purchased these 3 plastic buckets from the dollar tree. I labeled them and put them above the washing machine to hold all detergents, light bulbs and cleaning stuff. This font was very easy to work with and this project took me no time. With the Silhouette you can use any font that you have on your computer, which is amazing because I have hundreds of great fonts to choose from that I have downloaded over time.

I see much more labeling, organizing and crafting in my future. That is, if I can keep myself awake at night...

Vacation in Chesapeake

I mentioned before that Laura and I took Deuce to see my dad in Chesapeake for a few days back in December. The purpose of the visit was to get away from the chaos at home and spend some relaxing quality time with dad. We had such a good time. Laura had to work on Thursday so we waited at mom's house for her. We walked to see the horses, visit Rascal's grave and played in the grass. When we got to Virgina, Pop had a spaghetti dinner already made for us.

We took Deuce to see Santa on Friday and did a little shopping. We ate lunch at the Picadilly (aka K&W for you Chapel Hill folks) and then headed over to Hampton to make a special visit. We went to see the lady that kept me and Laura when we were little. We lived in the house across the street from her and she watched us every day until we made the transition to daycare. I can't even tell you the last time that we saw her but she looked just as I remembered. Deuce was so loving to her and he gave her hug after hug after hug. It was so neat to think that her memories of me were from when I was the same age as Deuce...29 years ago!

After we left Hampton, we stopped to pick up dinner and then went back to dad's. We stayed in for the rest of the night and watched some Christmas specials on TV. We were in bed at a decent time and I woke up at 7:30 feeling relaxed and refreshed. Saturday we went to Yorktown to my Uncle Ricky's house. It was a treat to see him two weekends in a row {he was in Knoxville with us the weekend prior}. That is rare. Uncle Ricky lives in a waterfront home on the Potomac River and he and Alice prepared a yummy Mexican lunch for us. My cousins were all there and we even got to meet Baby Carter. It was strange to see Deuce with another baby and him be the toddler and not the baby. He kept wanting to hold Carter. Then when I was holding Carter, he would immediately want my help with something or would want to get in my lap. I got a brief taste of what my girlfriends with 2 under 2 go through. And that's why I'm not planning on having another baby any time soon, lol!!

After we left Uncle Ricky's house we went to a Christmas party for one of my dad's best friends from childhood. He lives in Washington state now but was home for the holidays so there was a holiday gathering. We met several of my dad's friends from childhood and Deuce had a great time running around and being the center of attention. He was not shy at all! After we left the party, we drove around Hampton to look at all of the Christmas lights. I really wanted Deuce to see them because I knew he would enjoy saying "oooooh and ahhhhh" but he conked out as soon as we got in the car. So he missed them. But we still wanted to go because Laura and I have memories of going to see the lights every year when we were little and lived in Hampton.

We spent most of the day Sunday hanging out and watching TV before we left about 2:30 to head back home. I think I will be making more visits to Chesapeake in the near future. I really enjoy seeing my dad hang out with Deuce and I think my dad may enjoy it even more!

he ate just about the entire bag of goldfish in one morning.