We are Blessed

Fall Fun!

2009-10-28T14:54:00.010-05:00

So that is how we found them. Sound asleep. This habit started because Harris decided he was not going to sleep in his crib anymore. He started screaming when we put him in his crib so we took his crib apart, put his mattress on the floor, and no more screaming. As you can see this sleeping arrangement led to new challenges. Every night we have to get the boys to stay in their own bed.
These brothers they sure do love each other! I think if we just bought a double bed they'd sleep together.

It has rained a LOT lately and that led to...finding ways to enjoy the outdoors in the rain! First the boys were just throwing leaves into the water then came touching the water and finally they were all in. The boys ran through this ditch over and over again until Dad finally said that it had to be naptime (for like the third time).

Besides this guy's nice overalls, this pic has some other fun stuff...like Maddox with a giant snake. Some kids might find this creepy or something, but Maddox just went right up and grabbed it.

Although the snake was pretty cool the real reason we went to Lifeway in Shreveport was to see Bob and Larry from Veggietales. The boys were pretty excited and quite surprised since we didn't tell them what we were going to see and just let them see it for themselves. Harris was a little unsure at first but then he warmed up and enjoyed poking Bob in mouth.

Normally you can't pull Maddox away from a firetruck but this picture was taken just moments before Maddox flew through the air into his Dad's arms. The fireman on the other side did not see us and blew the air horn (which was right below Maddox's feet) and we all jumped, though none quite as far as Maddox.

First Day of Preschool

2009-09-16T15:08:00.002-05:00

Maddox had his first day of preschool Tuesday Sept 15! He had a great first day and great first week! He really enjoys his school and is never ready to leave. Everyday when he asks if he is going to school we tell him yes and he replies with great enthusiasm "I get to go to school AGAIN?!!?"

Jamie and Harris have enjoyed their time too! Harris is not used to all the one on one attention, he absolutely loves it!

Not much to report over the last month. We had some friends visit for a few days which was really fun! The boys all had a great time together and Michelle and Jamie got to hang out and visit which is always fun!

Last week it rained all week long, everyday. And it didn't just rain a little, it poured, we probably had about 14in of rain last week. Thankfully it was only rain and no thunder and lightning which means we can still play outside! The boys love to play in the rain!

The new baby is doing great. We are now 23 weeks along. We had an ultrasound a few weeks ago but the pictures turned out really crummy so we don't have any to share. And we are not finding out the sex this time. It was so much fun not knowing with Harris we decided to do it again. On a side note we are not having another baby because we wanted to try for a girl. We are having another baby because we thought it would be fun to add another little blessing, boy or girl, to our family.

Jamie has started sewing again and opened up an etsy store you can check it out here. She also has a new craft blog where she documents all of her crafty things she makes. You can find it here

Summer is Drawing to an End

2009-08-04T09:18:00.007-05:00

It seems like our summer months were a blur,and it is now the middle of August!! We have kept so busy this summer and have enjoyed the warm weather, it makes for great swimming and slip and slide days!
The boys are both now sporting some pretty impressive tans, the darker Maddox gets the more he reminds us of Jamie's brother, Eric (uncle E),who we have concluded must be part mexican.

Maddox is getting ready to start preschool in September!! We have all been looking forward to it for quite some time. He'll go 9am-noon 5 days a week. He is more than ready for it and so is Jamie, although it will be quiet and a little lonely without him around. Maddox has always brought a special fun to our days, he has a great personality. Harris will be very lonely without Maddox around. Those two play so much together. But, Harris will definitely love the one on one Mommy time, at least until January.

Speaking of Harris, what a hoot that boy is. He has a very funny sense of humor. He is talking a lot now and has some new words the ones that come to mind are "more cracker, bubble and cow. He has lots more but it is always hard to remember what they are. He also likes to say "uh uh" and shake his head no anytime you ask him a question.

He is our master climber and knows how to climb onto the couch now along with many other things. He tries to do everything Maddox does and has no idea he is two years younger. Harris is a full blown toddler now complete with throwing fits and everything. It's funny how they can go from baby to toddler in about 12 hours.
He has 6 teeth and 2 more coming in. He is finally getting some hair and will most definitely be a cotton top, his hair is very very light.

We have had some great rainstorms the last few days. The boys love to play in the rain so the rain is a great playtime activity. Brian enjoys playing in the rain too so he is always very eager to take the boys out in it.

Brian's birthday was in July so Jamie and the boys made him a cake. Maddox put the sprinkles on! Maddox has also been saying that Brian wanted swords for his birthday, so daddy got 2 light sabers for his birthday. This is a picture of Maddox showing off the light sabers.

Maddox also thought daddy needed a new firetruck, helicopter, and ambulance but we stuck with just the swords.

We took a trip to the park with our friends the Cavin's the other day. This is a picture of Maddox and their little girl Caroline. They are too cute together!

Stay tuned for some video of Harris slip and sliding....that as a hoot! We'll put it up as soon as we get it uploaded to the computer.

The Timeout Copycat

2009-07-22T20:18:00.003-05:00

So lately Harris copies everything Maddox does! We noticed the other day Harris putting himself in timeout. What's really funny is the fake cry that goes with it! We thought we would catch this on video to share. Harris does a pretty good impression of Maddox in timeout!

Enjoy!

Wowzers!

2009-07-08T13:53:00.004-05:00

This blog has not been updated in a long time! Sorry, the whole month of June was a crazy whirlwind of activity! We had trips to Lafayette, vacation bible school, swimming lessons, camping, playdates, etc etc. We look forward to July, we have an empty calendar!!

The boys are doing fantastic. Maddox has been enjoying the summer a great deal. He had a week of swimming lessons in June and he also has them this week. Of course, he loves them! He is doing really well and is very confident in the water. Today he decided that he was going to learn to dive after watching some older boys do it during the lesson before him. His teacher got such a kick out of it and he was actually pretty good. We have learned that swimming is a great way to wear Maddox out and get out lots of his energy, He often tells us "I have lots of energy!"
Some of Maddox's favorite things right now are riding his bike, eating popsicles, swimming, and painting. He also likes playing with Harris a lot.

It is so hard to get them both looking at the camera!!

Harris is doing great too! He finally started walking on June 16! He would take about nine or so steps then decided it was much faster to crawl. But now he is completely walking, no more crawling for him. It has opened up a whole new world for him and for us! It is so cute to see him toddle down the hall to his room with paci in mouth and book in hand when we tell him it's time to go to bed.
He has a small vocabulary now. He can say cracker, hot, mama, dada, dog, and wow. He also calls Maddox "maa maa."
Here is some video of Harris walking, you can tell that Maddox gets really excited when we take the video camera out!

Harris adores Maddox and has to do everything he does. They really enjoy each others company so much and play very well together. They do get in quite a few squabbles though, don't want to paint too rosy of a picture!

Jamie and the boys took a trip down to Lafayette early June to visit some friends and family. She stayed with her friend Michelle she also has two boys who are very close to the same age as Maddox and Harris. The boys all played great together and they all had a great time.

Playing with Preston, this picture just screams trouble!!

They also got to visit with MawMaw and PawPaw Bernie. Of course the first thing Maddox wanted to do was ride PawPaw Bernie's tractor. Harris even got to have a ride!

This last weekend for the Fourth of July we went down to H-Town to visit with Jamie's parents. The boys had a great time in the pool! Maddox went swimming about 3-4 times a day, anytime anyone would say yes to taking him he would go!

We also did some fireworks. Maddox liked them ok as long as they didnt make too loud of a pop! Harris loved them, we had to stop him from trying to go up to them.
So, the newest excitement around here is that our new little blessing should be arriving sometime in January! Yep, thats right we have a new little one on the way. Jamie is about 12 weeks along and everything is going great! Thankfully, this pregnancy has not been as hard on her as the last two. We are all very excited and Maddox loves talking about the new baby. He'll ask us out of the blue sometimes "are we going to have a new baby?!"

So life around here has been pretty hectic and tiring but we are making it through!

A Little Vacation

2009-05-24T16:04:00.006-05:00

We took a little family vacation the other weekend to New Orleans. We had a great time and the boys really enjoyed all the fun things we got to see. Brian's coworker was getting married in LaPlace so we thought we would go to the wedding and stay in New Orleans for the weekend. We stayed on Canal St just 2 blocks from the river. Maddox was so excited about all the boats on the river, that's all he talked about the whole weekend.

We had Mother's Day breakfast at Cafe Du Monde and then went to the Aquarium and the Insectarium. The boys had a blast. Maddox especially liked the Insectarium. He got to see lots of cool bugs and even eat some too! The Insectarium had a little cooking room where they would cook bugs into different recipes, Maddox was very willing to try them and even asked for more! All of this excitement eventually led to the very rare moment where both boys fall asleep in the stroller while Jamie shhopped for some Louisiana type books to help us remember the trip.

Did we mention there was a firetruck?? It was Maddox's lucky day as we walked down to the French Quarter rigt past the firestation. The firemen were happy to let Maddox see whatever he wanted. He got to wear a helment, hold the ax, open up all the compartments on the truck and even got to play with the hose!

Before we left on Monday we took Maddox on the ferry over to Algiers. It was a free so that ment free entertainment for Maddox! The ride on the ferry was probably the highlight of his trip!

We have been working in our garden the last few weeks and we are very excited about all the things we have growing. We have tomatoes, carrots, potatoes, watermelons, squash, cucumbers and peas. We have had lots of rain over the last few weeks and the plants have loved it. We should have some tomatoes, squash, and cucumbers ready pretty soon! Here are some pictures so you can see how much our garden has grown!

Happy Birthday Maddox!

2009-05-01T20:46:00.004-05:00

Yay! It is Maddox's 3rd birthday! He is SO excited! We will be spending the day doing lots of fun things. We are planning to go to Sci-Port, a discovery science center, in Shreveport and then going to eat at Chick-a-laid (aka. Chick-fil-A).

We are so thankful and blessed to have Maddox! He is such a joy to be around.
Some fun things that are going on in his life right now: He loves to talk and ask questions. He talks a lot and very well. He is a very inquisitive little boy and likes to know how and why things are the way they are.

He says funny and cute things all day long, Jamie was tickled the other day when he told her she looked like a princess, she was dressed for church in a flowing skirt, he was so cute and serious when he said it. He also likes to tell us "stop frustrating me!" Our telling him to use his words has kind of backfired on us a time or too! ;) We try to remember funny things he tells us but he says so many throughout the say it is hard to remember.

Maddox is really into meeting new people. Everywhere we go he asks almost every stranger what his or her name is then he'll stick out his hand and say "nice to meet you." Everyone that gets this special little introduction is just tickled by it. Maddox always brightens our day and it is so fun to watch him brighten other people's day too!

We had a little birthday party for the boys last weekend. The boys had a great time with all of their little friends! Maddox was super excited about his birthday party and his cake! Jamie made him a LarryBoy cake. Larry Boy is a character from Veggie Tales, a show that he really likes. We enjoyed visiting with everyone and getting to spend some time with family too!

We hope you all have enjoyed keeping up with this blog for the last 3 years! We'll continue to post here, especially since it serves as the boys baby books!

A little note for Maddox~
Maddox, you are so awesome and such a joy in our lives! We thank God for you every day and the blessing that you are. Keep up your feisty little spirit, God will use it in big ways!
Happy Birthday!

Happy Birthday Harris!!

2009-04-15T13:02:00.005-05:00

On Saturday Harris turned a year old! What a wonderful day it was! We were at Jamie's parent's house for the Easter weekend so we celebrated Harris's birthday and Jamie's birthday there. We had some yummy crawfish, and icecream cake.

Harris especially loved his cake! We ended up having to take the cake away from him because he was trying to eat the whole thing. He would have been one sick little boy if he would have eaten all of that cake.

Some one year stats: He weighs 18lbs and is 28in long. His blue eyes have definitely stayed blue and he still has very little hair. What hair he does have is so blonde it looks white.
He knows how to blow kisses now and how to woof like a dog. He LOVES his big brother and likes to do everything that Maddox does. When Harris sees Maddox his face lights up with joy. The two of them together are quite a sight and they definitely keep Jamie on her toes during the day.

Harris is a such a sweet sweet blessing. We are so thankful that God has blessed our family with him.

Here are some pictures of Maddox dying easter eggs. We stripped him down to his skivvys to try and avoid any dye on clothing.

Expect some great new pictures soon. Jamie got a new camera for her birthday and has been very busy trying it out and learning all of it's features. We also got a new video camera so hopefully some video will get posted soon too.

Days Outside

2009-03-22T14:56:00.004-05:00

Time for another update and some more pictures....

Most of our days are being spent outside, the weather has been beautiful! The boys love being outside and getting all dirty.

The boys have been so fun lately! They really interact with each other now, which can be good and bad. Harris loves to follow Maddox around and do everything he does and Maddox really enjoys this. They also like getting into trouble together and Maddox has realized that he has the perfect little partner in crime.

Harris will be a year old in a few weeks. That is so hard to believe! He is such a fun little boy and is always so joyful. He is always smiling and laughing. He does so many new "tricks" too. He can wave bye bye now and say dog. He has also started signing "more" when he wants some more of something. He also loves to play peek-a-boo. He has started standing some on his own but we think he is still a little way off from walking.

Maddox is wonderful and loves to keep us on our toes. He always says the funniest things. He is at the age where he really just says whatever he sees or whatever he is thinking. This always makes for some interesting conversations! The other day he asked where a certain cat was that we always see when we go work out. Jamie told him "I don't know where the cat is Maddox" to which he replied "maybe it's dead." He has also become quite the bargainer and likes to try to talk babysitters into things he is not allowed to have by saying "my mommy said I could."

Our life still feel crazy all the time! Our house remodeling is almost finished, we promise to post some more before and afters as soon as we complete the rooms. Now we are trying to move on to some yard work and gardening. We won't be building our big garden this year because we don't have time, but we will be planting a few things. We are also cleaning up flower beds and getting the outside of the house looking good.

Pretty sure that is about all that is going on around here! Thanks for keeping up with this blog even though we don't post to it much!

This past month...

2009-02-03T13:56:00.004-06:00

Wow it's February already!! January seems to have flown by.
The new year is getting off to a great start for us. We have been enjoying the boys so much lately!
The boys have had their fair share of sickness over the past month. They both had RSV in early Jan. and Maddox narrowly escaped a hospital stay because of it. Thankfully, the wonderful doctor allowed us to do all treatment at home. Here is a picture of Maddox taking one of his breathing treatments. At one point during the sickness both boys were having breathing treatments every 2 hours around the clock, it was miserable. All we could say was "this to shall pass.." It eventually did pass and the boys are doing great now.

We took a wonderful little trip down to Lafayette the other weekend to do some visiting. We got to spend some time with MawMaw and PawPaw, visited family, and went to a birthday party. We all had a great time and Maddox is still talking about riding on PawPaw's tractor! That was the highlight of his trip!

Harris is crawling!!! Ahhhh....we knew the day would come but we don't know if we were ever really ready for it. He is into everything!! He pulls up on everything too so that adds a whole other aspect to it all. He and Maddox make the perfect team too. They really enjoy getting into a lot together. Harris is very eager to go everywhere and freely explores the whole house.
He went for his 9 month check up at the end of January. He weighs 17lbs and is 26.5 inches long.

Harris is such a sweetheart and is a very content baby. He's a charmer too and can easily melt your heart with his sweet sweet smile!

Maddox is great. What can we say, he is a typical 2 1/2 year old. It is hard to get decent pictures of him because he is always on the move so the picture is never in focus. He talks non stop and asks questions about everything. VeggieTales (a kids video series) has become a recent obsession and he can sing the whole theme song. He loves signing it to Harris when Harris is sad or upset. He has also become the mother to Harris and tells him when he can or cannot do anything and loves to change Harris' diaper too. Speaking of diapers, Maddox has been potty trained for a few months now, we are so thankful for that!
Maddox is a sweetheart too, he gives great hugs and is never shy around anyone. He likes to meet new people and will stick his hand out for a handshake and say "nice to meet you!"

Stay tuned for more ridiculously cute boys in the next post.....

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

2008-12-28T20:16:00.005-06:00

So we are a little, ok a lot, behind on this blog. We must have gotten caught up in the busyness of the holiday season.
Lots has been going on including some remodeling on the house.
We had a great Thanksgiving and Christmas.
We spent Christmas at home and Jamie's parents and sister and brother came in for Christmas day.

The boys had a great time. Maddox was really into Christmas this year and especially opening gifts.

We also enjoyed teaching him about the true meaning of Christmas, Jesus' birthday. This was an easy concept for him to understand because he is all about birthdays and birthday parties!
The boys have been doing great. They are both growing great and are such a joy! They have been passing colds back and forth for about 2 months now and that is no fun. Hopefully cold season will be over soon!

Harris got his first tooth! It has just popped out (bottom left) and can barely be seen but it can definitely be felt! We first noticed it the week before Christmas.

He isn't crawling yet but he makes his way around in his own way. He likes to scoot backwards and he also does a good job of moving around in a circle. Jamie has mixed feelings on his not crawling yet. While she really wants him to crawl she has started to realize that the longer he waits to crawl the longer she has before she has to start chasing little boys around!

He loves to babble and "talk." He and Maddox talk back and forth to each other every night while they are going to bed. It is so cute!

Maddox makes us laugh everyday. He is so smart and picks up on everything going on very quickly. He listens to everything we say and often interrupts our conversations with "mommy, what did you say to daddy?" and vise versa.

He talks non stop, literally! And everything is very understandable. He has to know about everything and has tons of questions. He has entered the "why?" stage too! This gets annoying especially once you get to the end of the why and the answer is just "because." Apparently, because is not a suitable answer for a 2 year old.

The boys are really starting to interact with each other and we love watching them together. The other night we were in the kitchen and thought it got a little too quiet in the living room, we checked on them and found this:

Maddox had gotten into some baby food that a friend had given us and decided that Harris needed to eat some. We just laughed so hard it was so cute!
We can't say enough how much joy the boys bring us. It is the crazy moments like these that keep us going!

We wish everyone a Happy New Year!

Thanks to Crystal for taking our wonderful Christmas card pictures and allowing us to put some of them on this blog! You're the best!

We bleed bulldog blue!!

2008-11-10T13:05:00.004-06:00

Recently, we have been attending the Tech home games! Maddox loves to go and really enjoys watching football and getting to see Champ the mascot. There are usually lots of other kids around for Maddox to play with so he stays well entertained. We have gotten some really cute pictures of us all in our blue and thought we would share.

We had a great time at Halloween. Maddox was dressed as a fireman and Harris was the dalmatian! They were absolutely adorable, but we are kind of biased! ;) Maddox really got into the whole trick-or-treating thing and really got into the candy. He talked about and asked for candy for a whole week!

We have been busy at work with our house. Once we are finished remodeling we will have experience with all sorts of projects! Our current project is remodeling the bathrooms. Hopefully, we will have them done by Thanksgiving, we have company coming!

The boys are doing great. They have really started to play with each other and the sibling rivalry has started too. No one told us it would start so soon. Recently, we have been in the car and heard "no look at me Harris!" And Maddox can't stand it when Harris is touching him or plays with his toys. Maddox is really going to get an eye opener when Harris starts crawling soon!
Harris is getting big! He weighs around 16lbs now and will be 7 months old tomorrow! He is on the verge of crawling but hasn't quite figured it out yet. He is great at pulling himself up and we have to really watch him because he is not super steady on his feet.

We are all ready for the holiday season and excited about getting to visit with lots of family. And it is really fun to decorate our new house with fall and soon christmas decor!

Rub a dub dub 2 cuties in a tub......

2008-10-09T13:29:00.004-05:00

We are in awe of what an amazing blessing these boys are! They are so much fun! Our days are pretty wild and crazy, the laundry is always piled up, dishes are always in the sink, and we are always tripping over toys. We get frustrated and down sometimes but then we look at the smiles on these two boys faces and we just laugh and forget about everything else. They are such a joy!

So what is new:
We went camping last weekend and had a blast!

We went up to Arkansas with some friends and stayed right on the lake. The weather could have been better but we had a good time anyway. And yes, we do tent camp, is there any other way to do it??
Maddox LOVED it! He really loved all the attention he got from everyone and he especially loved his "catchin pole" aka fishing pole! We even let him reel in some fish which he thought was so neat. It took a few fish before he finally decided to touch one.

The boys are doing great! We are all enjoying this fall weather and spending lots of time outside.

Maddox keeps us busy and has been really talking up a storm lately, as if he didn't already! He is now telling complete stories and has an amazing memory. He is always busy doing something and he also has a crazy fascination with firetrucks that doesn't seem to be going away.

Harris is a super cutie and he is always smiling. He'll be 6 months on Sat! He sits up really well and reaches and grabs anything in his sight. He is acting like he wants to start crawling too. He is totally fascinated with our drinks and food, every time he sees a cup or anything else he wants he makes this face:
The boys are really starting to enjoy each other. Maddox loves to call Harris his baby. Maddox does not like to share with Harris and of course Harris is completely fascinated with everything Maddox does.

Enjoy all the pictures!

Hurricanes, sitting up, and new carpet oh my!

2008-09-16T13:01:00.007-05:00

Things have been a whirlwind around here! We have found ourselves so busy lately.
2 weeks ago we had some great (and our 1st) house guests come for a visit!

Jamie's MawMaw and PawPaw evacuated Hurricane Gustav and came to stay with us a few days! We had a great time and they were a huge help with a bunch of things around the house. Thankfully they had no damage.

We did get a lot of painting accomplished while they were here in preparation for the new carpet! They were a wonderful help and it was a blessing to have them come. They also got to meet Harris for the first time and got to hang out with the wonderful Maddox. Maddox of course followed pawpaw around like a shadow and was constantly asking him what he was doing. Maddox had a great time with company and so did Harris. I think Harris got a little spoiled by being held all the time ;) He's not used to such luxuries.
Thanks, MawMaw and Pawpaw for a great visit and all the help!

As mentioned earlier we got new carpet! Yay, it was definitely needed and has made a huge improvement to the house. We wanted to paint all the rooms before the carpet and we had to take up some wood flooring. The wood floor was a pain and has gone on our list of things to never do again! It was mismatching parquet wood flooring, for those of you wondering why in the world we would take up wood floors. Plus it was randomly laid in the hallway and only one bedroom. The other bedrooms had nasty stinky carpet. It was a lot of work to get things ready but it definitely paid off.
Here are a few before and afters for you to see.
Our room:
Before

After

Hallway:
Before

After

Please realize that we still have no decorations on the walls yet and there is still painters tape in the hallway.
We'll post more before and afters next time.

The boys have both been sick with colds this last week. Thankfully they both seem to be on the better end of the cold and we should be done with runny noses soon.

Maddox has been thoroughly enjoying the beautiful weather the past few days. He loves to play outside.

He is doing great and has been keeping us on our toes with all of his climbing adventures, exploring, and non stop talking.

Harris turned 5 months on the 11th. He weighs 14lbs. He has been sitting up really well by himself lately. He loves to sit on the floor with Maddox and play with toys. Maddox is learning what little brothers are like and he's not too sure he likes the whole sharing thing.

Harris is in awe of his older brother and loves to laugh and smile at him. Harris also encourages Maddox's not so great behavior by laughing when Maddox hits him, or jumps off of things, or spits his water etc, etc.
Harris is a super sweet little guy and he definitely puts up with a lot from Maddox. One day he will be big enough to get Maddox back.

Here is a picture of our new stroller too! Jamie took it to the mall last week and she loved it! The people who invented it are geniuses! It can be a single or double stroller. It's called a Phil and Teds Sport Buggy.

Thanks to all of you who stick with this blog even though we are sometimes very slow to update! Our house feels like a zoo sometimes but, that's what having kids is all about right!

We know everyone has been waiting.....

2008-08-25T14:23:00.004-05:00

So, we are finally sitting down to update this blog.
We have had a lot going on in the last few weeks so we will quickly sum them up and then get on with the pictures.

We got moved into our new house. We like it a lot. We have a lot of work to do on it but it looks 100% better after being cleaned and getting our stuff moved in. We have a lot more space which is SO nice. We also have an amazing backyard that we all love, especially the dogs! We'll post some pictures of it soon. We only have pictures of the inside and that is not pretty so we will wait until we can get a few shots of the outside. We'll save the inside pictures for before and afters. We also really like our neighborhood. It is a quite loop of houses where everyone is outside in the evenings cutting grass, doing yard work, and visiting. It is full of kids and they all play outside afterschool and in the evenings. We have already met a lot of neighbors and they are all so nice.
Maddox really likes that 2 school buses go by our house each day. So we are always on the lookout at 3:30 and at 4:00! He thinks it is the best thing, well, unless a firetruck would go by our house but we don't want that to happen.

We had a great time at the beach!! Maddox loved hanging out with Mimi, Pawpaw, Angie and E. He liked the beach but only sand the ocean was a little much for him. It didn't help that the waves were crazy while we were there. Harris liked his beach trip too. He figured out just what to do on the beach, sit back and relax! We all had a really good time and were sad to leave.

Starting him out early on Guitar Hero!

Maddox is as crazy as always!

He is so full of energy and has quite the sense of humor. He talks in full sentences now only omitting a few connecting words. The other morning while we were all hanging out in bed and Harris was nursing Maddox tells us "I used to eat a boobie now I grow and climb ladders." We thought this was hilarious and so out of the blue! He does love ladders and anything else he can climb too. He keeps Jamie very busy during the day!

Harris is a sweetheart.

He went for his 4 month check up the other day. He weighs 13lbs 12oz and is 24' long. He is doing great. He is always smiling and loves to laugh now too. He is fascinated by Maddox and squeals at Maddox to get his attention. He is a very laid back baby and is content to just sit back and watch things happen unless he is hungry or tired. He is still very blonde and only has a little peach fuzz. He's a cutie pie!

We celebrated our 3 year anniversary last Wednesday! It was a great day! Our gifts to each other were a new weedeater and a double stroller...how romantic! The double stroller is super cool though. We'll dedicate a whole blog post to it when it comes in. It is supposed to be here tomorrow! Brian thinks the weedeater is super cool too! :)

Well that about sums everything up in a condensed form.
We hope everyone is doing well!!

A bunch of pictures

2008-07-24T13:04:00.003-05:00

We have been crazy busy lately! We are buying a new house so the last few weeks we have been busy trying to sell our house (done) and get things together for the new house. Not to mention packing too. We close on both houses on Aug. 6th! We are so very excited! Our house now is getting pretty snug. We found a bigger house with an amazing backyard. The house needs some work, especially on the inside, think 80's wallpaper in every room, but we are all set to get started with some renovations!
The boys have been great! Maddox has been enjoying going to Mothers Day Out. His last day is next Thursday, it has been a great time for everyone and we will be sad when it is over!

Maddox is a blast to be around and we are learning 2 is a very challenging but fun age. We have been having a lot of success with potty training! Hopefully we can have that done and over with very soon! He is very active and always want to be on the go and playing outside.

Harris is great! He is such a happy baby all of the time. He'll be 4 months on the 11th of Aug. He has started laughing and rolling over. Maddox is the best at making him laugh, Harris loves his big brother!

We won't be posting a new blog for a while. We are busy packing right now, then we move into the new house and then we are leaving for a beach vacation 3 days after we close on the house. We have a busy few weeks ahead. A week at the beach will be the perfect end to all the house buying stress!

We hope you enjoy all the pictures!

A big fish and a little fish...

2008-07-02T12:57:00.004-05:00

We decided to put Maddox in swimming lessons this summer because we thought he would really like it and that he really needed it. Well we are so glad we did. Apparently we are parents to a part human part fish. Maddox is crazy in the pool. He LOVES to swim and is very good at it. His teacher was blown away by what he would do in the water. And, we are very pleased with how well he can hold his breath underwater and come up for air when needed. He can hold it well enough to dive for quarters at the bottom of the pool. He really enjoyed jumping off the diving board and the popsicles he would get after every lesson. We learned a lot of ways to help him with his swimming and his technique. After his swimming lessons we went to Jamie's parents for the weekend and he got to swim around some more and practice his new skills.

Harris go to go swimming for the first time while we were at Jamie's parent's. He seemed to really like it and was very content in the water. So now we have a big fish and a little fish.

He went straight to sleep after swimming!

It seems like we have been so busy this summer. We have Maddox in Mothers Day Out right now and that is a huge help to Jamie. She is now able to get more things done around the house and run errands with just one little one in tow. She hopes to get started on some new sewing projects soon.

Here are some more pictures that we have taken the last few weeks:

Happy 50th Birthday PawPaw!!

Quick Post

2008-06-19T08:00:00.003-05:00

This is just a quick post with a few pictures.
We are headed to Houston this weekend for Jamie's Dad's 50th birthday!

This will be the second time this month that Jamie and the boys have traveled to Houston. About two weeks ago Jamie went to say goodbye to a very special person, Liz. Liz was Jamie's long time babysitter and basically a member of the family. She lost a very courageous battle with cancer on Monday June 9th. Thankfully Jamie got to have a very nice visit with her before she passed. The service is tomorrow so we will be attending that while we are there.

The boys are doing great! Maddox is in swimming lessons right now, more on that next post. Harris went for his 2 month check up yesterday. He weighs 10lbs 11oz and is 22 1/4 inches long.

Here are a few pictures to hold you over until the next post

Time for an Update

2008-06-05T12:21:00.004-05:00

Summer is definitely here....it is so HOT!! To beat the heat lately we have been playing in the water a lot. And last night we decided we needed a bigger kiddie pool so that we could join Maddox in it! Our backyard now looks like a kids playland or something!

On Memorial day weekend we decided to take the boys on a little hike so we drove over to Driskill Mountian, highest point in Louisiana! They both had a good time, Harris slept and Maddox had fun picking dewberries along the path. We captures a few pictures along the hike.

The boys are doing great! We all finally feel settled in since having Harris and feel like we have a good routine down. Maddox has become accustomed to having Harris around and the days are going a whole lot smoother.

Maddox is getting so big! He is such a little boy now and he sure is ALL boy too! He has such a fun personality and makes us laugh all the time. He is putting lots of sentences together and repeats a lot of what he hears, which can be very funny especially when he uses it in the right context. He heard Jamie say the word weird the other day so now he says when things are weird!

He loves to help "make" in the kitchen. This means he feels the need to help with every meal breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snack!
He no longer says his name "Makeek" it has now turned into "Maddock." So everything is now "No, Maddock do it." Everything is always all about them when they are two! Gotta love that egocentricity!
We signed him up for swimming lessons next week. He is such a fish that we decided some formal instruction would be good for all of us. He has no fear of the water which can be a good and bad thing.

Harris is doing great too! He is so cute and such a sweet little guy. He is very content and happy all day long. This is new for us since Maddox was a little( insert sarcasm) high needs.

Last time we went to the doctor (last week) Harris weighed 8lbs 12oz. He is definitely eating well, gaining over a pound a week!
This week he has been going to Vacation Bible School with Jamie and just peacefully hanging out with her, like we said he is a very content baby.
He smiles a lot now and has started cooing at us when we talk to him. Last night he slept for 7 hours!! That was a first and may be a last but we sure did enjoy it!

The blueberry farm is now open so stay tuned for pictures of blueberry picking!

Fun in the Sun!

2008-05-22T09:53:00.004-05:00

The weather is HOT, so Maddox has been spending a lot of time outside playing in the water. Here are a few pictures.

Harris is doing great. Last week he started smiling and the other day he smiled SO big. It was adorable! The smiles don't come very often, and are hard to catch with a camera, but we promise to post a smile picture as soon as we can. He will be six weeks tomorrow and is oh so cute!

Lots Going On....

2008-05-13T12:59:00.005-05:00

This post is going to be a little lengthy. We have done a lot of fun things the past week so we have a lot to blog about!

This past weekend we took Maddox to his first Air Show!! He LOVED it, we knew he would! The boy loves airplanes and helicopters! He also got to see police cars and motorcycles there, more things he loves. It was a rather warm day to be out but we had a great time.

Mother's Day was a really special day. Brian and Maddox cooked Jamie a great breakfast and made her a yummy cake! Then, at church we had Harris dedicated! What a special day! The rest of the afternoon was spent taking naps, something Jamie rarely gets to do! Here are the pictures from the dedication. It was our first time to bring Harris to church, we kept him with us the whole time and he did great!

Picture in the church bulletin:

Yesterday, Jamie Maddox and Harris, went to the zoo with some friends. It was a beautiful day! Maddox really enjoyed seeing all the animals. He was most fascinated with the geese, turtles, and the peacock, go figure! Forget that there were giraffes, a hippo, lions and many more exotics. All the kids had a great time. It was a fun way to get out of the house for a while.

Trying to take this picture was like hearding cats!

Today Maddox and Harris both had checkups. Here are the details:

Maddox
At 2 years old he weighs 25lbs and is 33in tall. For those wondering, it puts him in the 15th-20th percentile, right where he has always been. He is right on schedule for everything!

Harris
At one month old he weighs 7lbs 9oz and is 20.5 inches long! He is in the 25th percentile. He is doing great and the Dr. said everything looks wonderful. We can definitely tell he is getting bigger and becoming more baby-ish and not so newborn.

Happy Birthday Maddox!!

2008-05-06T07:43:00.003-05:00

Maddox had a great birthday! He is obviously of the age where he knows the day is all about him.
Friday, after Brian got off of work, we took Maddox to the Fire Station. He LOVES fire trucks! He got to see the fire engines and the ambulance. The firemen were very sweet to show him around and they gave him a special fireman's hat! After we went to the fire station we took him to the toy store to spend some of his birthday money. He picked out some great motorized cars to build (thanks mawmaw and pawpaw!) Brian tried to convince Maddox he needed a marshmallow gun too, but Jamie informed him that the guns were for ages 8 and up. He had a great birthday day!

Saturday we had his birthday party. We had it out at the park and Maddox got to celebrate with lots of his friends. Of course he had a fire truck cake (Jamie made it) that he loved, and he got lots of fun gifts. He was a very tired little boy that afternoon after all the excitement.

Sunday morning he had to get up at 5:30 to play with all of his new toys and he informed us it was still his birthday!

Of course we have to include some pictures of sweet Harris too!

Can You Keep Up....

2008-04-29T15:35:00.004-05:00

With all these blog posts???!!
We have been pretty good about posting lately especially considering we have 2 little boys taking up a lot of our time these days.
Hopefully we can keep up the regular posts and pictures since we know this is the only way some people get to see these adorable boys.

Maddox decided the picture needed to be only of him.....

Life at our house has been going pretty well. We are all adjusting well to having Harris around. Maddox is a great big brother and has recently been quite fascinated with Harris. His new things are changing diapers so he can see poo poos and taking Harris' clothes off. We also have to keep a watchful eye on Maddox to make sure he doesn't try to pick Harris up, since apparently that is a fun thing too.

Maddox will be 2 tomorrow!! Wow 2 years! He is such a blessing and such a 2 year old! He loves to be outside and would probably live out there if we let him....naked of course since being naked is another favorite past time of his. He talks constantly and repeats everything we say. He can throw a really good fit when he doesn't get his way. The fits are always fun when walking through a crowded store! Let's see what else?? He loves his Daddy and talks about him all day, Daddy is the first thing he asks about when he gets up from his nap. He likes taking care of his baby Harris and making sure baby Harris always has a clean diaper. We could go on and on about all the fun things he does. Two is such a fun age! We have a birthday party planned for this weekend so stay tuned for pictures from that.
He fell asleep reading before a nap...

Harris has been doing great! He'll be 3 weeks old tomorrow. He eats every 3 hours sleeps in between and is content as can be when he is awake. Everyone loves to tell us how much he looks like Maddox and how blonde his hair is! He sleeps as well as babies sleep at night. He is definitely not sleeping through the night...but most babies don't at 3 weeks.

Harris got his first bath this last week. We have learned that there are quite a few things you don't do quite as eagerly if at all with the second baby, a bath is one of these things. A newborn just isn't that dirty, a two year old on the other hand, is a whole other story. Harris did great in the tub and was just as content as can be.

Things are pretty much back to normal around here. Jamie is feeling great and has been since she had Harris. She takes the boys out on all the normal "outings" her and Maddox had before Harris. Getting around with two is not as hard as getting two out of the house. The boys both sleep at the same time during the day so Jamie has a great break for about 2 hours. That gives her time to relax and do some things around the house.

So that's life at our house......check back for more updates!

2 cute boys

2008-04-19T12:42:00.004-05:00

Wow! We have been blessed! We have 2 wonderful and super cute little boys! We thought we would share some pictures with you.

Everything at home has been going great. Maddox loves his baby Harris and likes to check on him a lot. He is very gentle and loving with him and really doesn't notice he is around until Harris cries. Maddox likes to do a great imitation of Harris' cry too. Harris is a pretty laid back little guy. He likes to sleep and eat and hardly ever cries. He is doing great at night too.

We think Maddox and Harris look a lot alike so we thought we would post these pictures to see what you think. Can you tell which one is Maddox and which one is Harris??!!

Isn't that crazy??!! They definitely have some differences but in some pictures we take you can hardy tell them apart.
By the way the picture on top is Harris and the one below is Maddox. :)

We hope everyone is having a great week! Keep checking back for more updates!

It's a BOY!!

2008-04-14T15:01:00.004-05:00

Harris Lane arrived on April 11th at 2:14pm!!
He weighs 5lbs 14oz and is 18.5 inches long.

We are so excited to welcome this new blessing into our family!

Keep checking back for more updates and pictures...we are kind of busy right now so it keep in mind may take a little while.

Bad About Pictures....

2008-04-02T14:41:00.003-05:00

So, lately we have been really bad about taking pictures. Neither of us are very camera happy people, and we were doing really well, but we have slacked off a lot lately. Sadly, that means that all of our blog readers don't get to view the super cuteness that is Maddox quite as much. Fortunately new baby will be here soon...sooner than most expect in fact ;) and there will be lots of new pictures to take and show off. So do not fear, more cuteness is on its way!

We have been up to a lot since the last post. We went down to Jamie's parent's house Easter weekend and had a wonderful crawfish boil!! We also had a great time visiting with family. Mimi and PawPaw heated their pool for us all to swim in and of course Maddox instantly turned into a fish. That little boy sure does love to swim...he probably gets that from his Uncle E. He also taught himself how to hold his breath under water. We are very impressed by his swimming skills and lack of fear of the water. Of course, forgot our camera that weekend otherwise there would be pictures to post. Easter Sunday we headed back home to celebrate with Brian's family. Maddox had a great time hunting eggs and was eggstatic about all the candy! We were the horrible parents that took all the candy out of the eggs before Maddox could get to it. He gets a little obsessed about candy so we try to stay away from it as much as we can. After an eggsausting weekend we were glad to get home and rest.

We are all getting anxious about new baby. Now we are trying to tell/explain to Maddox that the baby that lives in mommy's tummy is going to come out soon. So now he lifts up Jamie's shirt and says "baby come out.....". If you ask him if it's a baby boy or a baby girl he consistently says "baby girl," it will be very interesting to see if he is right. Jamie is nesting like crazy. Everyday Brian comes home to a new cabinet cleaned out, carpets cleaned, a purse made...etc etc etc. She never really did this when pregnant with Maddox.
This is a picture of new baby's crib. The bedding turned out great!

We have spent a lot of time enjoying the 2 weeks that is spring before summer comes with full force! Maddox loves to play in the "backard" and our back door is open most of the day as he wonders in and out of the house. He brings in bugs and "capilups" (caterpillars) and plays in the dirt, mud, sand and loves to run around without clothes on. Everything that boys are supposed to do right?
Maddox's vocabulary just keeps expanding and he is very good at telling you exactly what he wants. His new favorite phrase is "I love (fill in the blank)" sometimes it's coke, or candy, tools, bikes, church, backyard, or ketchup. It is very cute when he says it. He makes us laugh so much and is such a joy and a blessing to be around.

Well we hope you enjoy the few pictures and the update. Maybe in our next update there will be a new little Volentine to introduce.

Blessings!

New Baby

2008-03-25T14:25:00.002-05:00

As you all know we are soon approaching the birth of our second blessing. To help celebrate this exciting time we have created a fun Baby Pool for everyone to participate in. You can click on the banner below to participate.

Some info to know for the game:
We do not know the sex of the baby
Jamie's due date is April 23rd, we have a c-section scheduled sometime during the 4th week of April.
Maddox weighed in at 6lbs 2oz and was 18.5 inches long.

That should cover it all. We thought it would be fun to see what everyone thinks this baby is going to be. We'll announce the birth and a winner right here on this blog!

SNOW DAY!!

2008-03-07T13:27:00.004-06:00

Only in Louisiana can it be 65 degrees with not a cloud in the sky one day and SNOWING the next!! This isn't just a little snow either, it is actually accumulating! Of course, the high tomorrow is in the 50's, so this will only last a short time.

What a fun day for Maddox! We have already spent a few hours playing outside in what he calls "no." Jamie finally got Maddox down for a nap. He was very worried about the snowman we built outside and could not settle down. Thankfully the snow is supposed to remain for the rest of today and through tonight so after the nap we can play outside some more.

Just thought you all would enjoy pictures of our snow!

This is our snowman. He has leaves for eyes and a strawberry for a nose. Maddox did not think the snowman should be wearing a hat. We got pictures of it before the hat was removed.

More Crystal Beach and a Camping Trip

2008-02-29T12:20:00.007-06:00

We decided to post some more pictures we took from our Crystal Beach vacation. Maddox has been talking about the beach ever since we got back. Good thing we are taking a beach trip this summer!

Last weekend we took Maddox camping! He of course loved it and loved being outside with boys. We went with another couple and 2 other guys. It was pretty chilly outside especially at night but Maddox was a trooper. He really liked just sitting by the fire at night and roasting marshmallows. It was a great experience and we plan on going again this summer.

The little monster has been very active and talkative lately. He entertains anyone who will look at him wherever we go. He is very much a people person. His vocabulary has been growing everyday. We are surprised and amused by the things that come out of this boys mouth. He also talks non stop during the day and has a habit of narrating his whole day, even if no one is listening. He has also taken to singing. He makes up songs throughout the day, some are very interesting. He definitely keeps us entertained.

The weather has been nice so we have spent a lot of time outside playing with sticks and dirt. We have also been spending some time working on potty training. We introduced the potty a long time ago and have experienced a lot of success in the past few weeks. Of course Maddox chooses which days he will use his potty and which days he wants nothing to do with it....but that's a start right?? Hopefully as the weeks go on this will improve and one day in the near future we will only have one baby in diapers.

The countdown for new baby has begun! We have about 7 weeks until we get to meet this little one. We have a date for the c-section scheduled and will plan on having a baby that day unless Jamie goes into labor earlier. Everything is going great with the baby. We had hoped to put some ultrasound pictures up but our scanner is broken so that wont be happening. Baby is growing fine and everything looks normal. Jamie is enjoying buying some new pink and blue things for this baby and getting new baby and Maddox's room together. We'll post pictures of their room as soon as it is all finished.

That's all for now!

Happy Valentine's Day!

2008-02-14T09:52:00.003-06:00

We would like to wish everyone a very Happy Valentine's Day!

"But God demonstrates His own LOVE for us in this, while we were still sinners Christ died for us." Romans 5:8

The Adventures of Ma-keek

2008-02-07T11:57:00.001-06:00

Maddox has started calling himself Ma-keek. If you ask him what his name is this is what he says. It sounds really cute. He has also started saying things like Ma-keek walk, Ma-keek down, Ma-keek coming. Everything he wants to do himself he uses his name with. We have been really impressed with his verbal development lately, especially when he strings words together like "daddy home" or "love you daddy" or "daddy come." Maddox definitely has a thing for his daddy. He likes to talk about him all day and cries when he leaves for work in the morning. One other really cute thing he has started doing is calling out "hey baaabe" when he wants Brian for something. Jamie does this and apparently Maddox has picked up on it. It makes us all laugh!

Jamie and Maddox made a King Cake the other day for Mardi Gras. Maddox got to help decorate and eat it. These pictures were taken after the mess was cleaned up. Icing and sugar were everywhere including on the dogs. The only breathing thing in the house that was not covered in icing was Lizard. Maddox had a great time with the cake, he loves to help "make" things.

Maddox got to go to the beach for the first time this last weekend!! We celebrated Jamie's PawPaw's 80th birthday with the whole family at Crystal Beach. We all had a great time. We'll post more pictures of the event in another post but for now here are some of the pictures of Maddox's beach experience.

Checking out a hermit crab with Uncle E

We have been taking lots of pictures lately and we have lots to blog about so we promise more blog posts are on the way. We know there are a few people who have been anxiously awaiting a new post so we figured we would go ahead and get this one up.
But stay tuned for more Crystal Beach weekend pictures, Valentines pictures, and new baby ultrasound pictures!

Love you all!!

A New Bed and Lots of Sickness

2008-01-21T11:56:00.000-06:00

Right after Christmas we decided to move Maddox into a twin size bed. We were a little hesitant at first and did not know what to expect. Maddox took to it great, we were a little suprised by the ease of it. He loves his new bed and we have had no trouble with it at all. It is actually kind of cute when he comes and wakes us up in the morning!
As the title of the post says we have been dealing with lots of sickness in the Volentine household, which has prevented us from posting a new blog. The first to get sick was Maddox. It was a nasty virus turned ear infection, then the ear infection wouldn't go away so we had to do some serious antibiotics. Thankfully the last round of antibiotics seemed to clear it up and we narrowly escaped tubes. The virus and ear infections really got him down and he just wasn't himself for about 2 weeks. We can definitely say that he is feeling a lot better now and has all of his energy back!
Jamie was the next (and last hopefully)to get sick. She got the flu. She is still recovering but is feeling much better. All the time taking care of Maddox while he was sick definitely took a toll on her body. Because she is pregnant they wouldn't let her take the magic flu drug so the prescription was lots of fluids and rest.

Everything else is going great. Maddox is of course as cute as ever! He loves to talk all the time and has recently started "talking" with his hands. He'll tell a complete story, of which we only understand a few words, and use his hands and body to get his story told. It is very cute. He has really started to enjoy coloring, especially with markers! He likes to draw lots of pictures of nakes (snakes) and Mimi. Maddox has a new pet lizard named "lizard." Maddox is fascinated with our common house geko and loves to give him water and crickets to eat. Lizard has a lovely home in a 10 gallon aquarium that sits on a table in our living room. ;) We have all become quite attached to lizard.

New baby is doing great too. Everything seems to be going great. We only have 3 more months until we get to meet this new little person. The wait is going by a lot faster this time around!
This picture is of a special Staturday morning donut run (they don't happen very often but Maddox knows what a treat they are!)
Not much else has gone on over the last month. It feels like the month has flown by with fevers and doctors appointments!
We hope you all enjoy the pictures!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!!

2007-12-28T13:39:00.000-06:00

We hope you all had a blessed Christmas!! Ours was wonderful! Maddox really got into the swing of things this Christmas and had a great time!
Christmas Day was wonderful! Jamie's parents came up to visit and spend Christmas with us. Jamie cooked a wonderful Christmas dinner and we all enjoyed eating, presents, and fellowship. Brian's parents joined the festivities later in the evening. Maddox loved all the attention and company he had, he didn't mind the presents too much either.
Below are some pictures from the last few days:

A picture of our Christmas feast!

The week before Christmas one of our area churches hauled in a lot of real snow for kids to come and play in. We thought it would be a great opportunity for Maddox to experience his first look at snow.
He didn't know what to think at first, then he got excited, then he got cold. We didn't stay too long because it was really cold outside.

We have had a truly blessed 2007 and look forward to what God has in store for our family in 2008, like a new baby!!
Of course we will continue to update our blog, can't promise how often, but we hope that you will continue to check in on us.

Love you all
Brian, Jamie, and Maddox

A special thanks goes out to Crystal G for helping to contribute to the pictures posted on our blog over the last year! ;)

It's Beginning to Feel a Lot Like Christmas!

2007-12-13T11:55:00.000-06:00

So the rush of the holiday season has definitely hit us. Since Thanksgiving we have had something going on every weekend and our weeks are filled with Christmas craft projects and decorating! Even though it has been 80 degrees outside it still feels like Christmas is near.
Over Thanksgiving we went to Jamie's parents house and had a great time. We got to take Maddox to the Houston Aquarium. He loved seeing the "shishies." We snapped a few cute pictures to share.

At the end of November the Kansas City Southern Holiday train came through Ruston. Maddox loves "choo choos" so we thought we would take him out to see it. Apparently the whole city of Ruston decided to go see it too, and although we didn't get to go inside the train, we did get some good pictures of the outside.

We also got our Christmas tree up. Maddox is thrilled to have a tree in the house! We also bought special shatter-proof ornaments in preparation for curious little hands. Well, the shatter-proof ornaments are not on the tree, in fact we have no ornaments on the tree. As we put the ornaments up Maddox took them down. Instead of constantly fighting an ornament battle we decided to just go without ornaments. The tree does look lovely with just lights and garland and we can all enjoy it so much more that way! ;)
This past Sunday was our church Christmas party. As a tradition there is always a costume contest for children, youth, and adults. This year we dressed Maddox and 2 pals as "Silver Bells." His friends didn't want to wear their costumes, but Maddox was the cutest most serious silver bell we have ever seen. We didn't win, but Maddox sure did do a great job!

Tuesday we got our first look at "new baby!!" We had an ultrasound and everything looked great. Baby is growing right on target, a little on the small side, but so was Maddox. What a blessing to see the new little life God has created! As soon as we get the pictures scanned we'll post them on the blog. We didn't find out what it is and we don't plan on it. It will be so fun to be surprised!! The pregnancy is going great and Jamie is feeling much better now! The baby moves alot and we have all had a chance to feel it kick. The birthday will probably be sometime towards the middle to end of April.

Maddox is doing great and is so talkative!! He talks all the time and loves to tell stories about everything. The one thing that has amazed us lately is his memory! He remembers everything which can be fun but also annoying, especially when he gets stuck on a certain something and only talks about that. There is a lot of cognitive development going on in that little head!

We hope you are all having a blessed holiday season! Don't forget the "real" reason we celebrate Christmas!

Blessings!

Momma Don't Let Your Babies Grow up to be Cowboys....

2007-11-02T09:21:00.000-05:00

This was one handsome cowboy.....

Jamie did a great job making Maddox's costume and putting it all together. We knew he would make a great cowboy.

Maddox had a great Halloween! This was his first time trick or treating and it wore Mom and Dad out way more than it did Maddox. We went with a group of friends who all had kids under the age of 2 1/2!!! Oh we were a sight! Maddox got the hang of it ater a few times and then he knew exactly what to do...knocking on people's doors gets you candy! He even said something that sounded like "trick or treat."

We also headed out to the pumpkin patch last weekend and our great friend Crystal took some amazing pictures for us!! Thanks Crystal!!

Maddox was very serious the whole time. He was very intent on the pumpkins and making sure he climbed on every single one. Usually he is a big cheese in front of the camera but that day he apparently had a job to do.

So we are keeping up with the blog again as you can see. Hopefully we will keep it up, so stay tuned......

Cool Weather is Finally Here!

2007-10-25T08:39:00.000-05:00

It is finally not 90 degrees outside and we have been able to enjoy some of this nice fall weather!
We also have some new pictures to share!
We have all been doing great.

Maddox is as cute as ever and has the personality to match. He keeps us very busy. He is still fascinated with anything that has wheels and especially likes buses, lawnmowers, and tractors. He tries to say anything we say now and has a lot of words that we are clueless on the meaning. He is very independent and likes to do things all by himself. He also has a slight stubborn streak in him, but we have no idea where he got that from ;) Curious should have been his middle name, he loves to explore everything. Forget toys, he would rather play with things around the house and climb. He does like blocks and will stay occupied for a little while with blocks, but otherwise you would find him running all over the house chasing the dogs, climbing on the toilet, hiding in the dryer, and standing on top of the laundry basket (just to name a few).

We have ben enjoying this brisk fall weather. It is very hard to keep Maddox contained in the house all day so rain or shine we have been heading outside. The past few days it had felt very wintery out. We opened the door Wednesday morning (our first cold weather day) and Maddox stood in the doorway and said "ooooooohh." He was very fascinated by the cold and now refuses to go outside unless he has his hat.
We have very funfilled days with Maddox and enjoy every moment with him, even the stubborn moments. ;)

Jamie is starting to feel some better and is hopefully on the tail end of this thing they call morning sickness. We are 14 weeks along and everything seems to be going fine. We heard the heartbeat last week. It was reassuring to know (hear) that there really is something causing all this illness!

We all went to the Tech Homecoming game the other weekend and had a great time. Maddox ejoyed entertaining everyone around us with his cuteness. We were pleasantly surprised at Maddox's behavior and got to stay until the beginning of the fourth quarter. We decided to leave because it was way past a little ones bedtime

This weekend we are heading to the pumpkin patch to take some fun fall pictures and to pick out a pumpkin to carve. Maddox is fascinated by all the pumpkins around lately and enjoys pointing to all of them and saying something that sounds like pumpkin. Next week he will go trick or treating for the first time. You'll have to wait for pictures to see what he is dressing up as...it's a surprise!!

We hope you are all having a wonderful Fall!!
Keep checking the blog for new pictures!!

Picture Problem!!

2007-10-04T13:54:00.000-05:00

So we have been taking lots of pictures of Maddox for you all to see but, we cannot find the camera cable to download them onto the computer!!! It has been missing for several weeks which is why we have not posted in a long time. The search is still on for it!!
We do have one picture on the computer already that we thought we would share with everyone:

This baby is due April 23!! We are very excited! And to answer a few questions:
*Yes, Jamie has been very sick but seems to be getting a little better.
*We are about 11 weeks along.
*We will NOT be finding out what this baby is.
*We will not be sharing names until the birth.
*We will not be moving into a bigger house.
*Maddox and new baby will be almost exactly 2 years apart.
That should cover the ones that are on everyone's minds! If you have any others just ask!

Ok, now we are off to continue searching for the camera cable! Wish us luck!

We're Back!

2007-09-09T17:29:00.001-05:00

*After writing this post we realized that we have very few pictures of Maddox over the past month. We'll try to catch up and post some more soon. Sorry for the lack of pictures!*
So obviously we took a break from blogging for a while. We didn't really do it on purpose time just got away from us. We have been doing so much since the last post!
The weekends have been crazy with get togethers, holidays, vacations, and Maddox. And Maddox keeps us very busy during the week.
We thouroughly enjoyed our vacation to New York City! Maddox also really enjoyed his vacation to Mimi and Pawpaw's house. We got some good quality together time in and we also had a blast seeing the city! Here are a few pictures from our trip. We saw lots of things and stayed very busy the whole time. We got to see 2 Broadway shows; Hairspray and 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee. Both were excellent! What a treat to be able to go to those as evening entertainment! We of course saw all the "tourist" spots. We also got to eat at some really great restraunts! Eating at cool places is a treat for us since the only places to eat out in Ruston are Chinese, Mexican and Chili's.
Grand Central Terminal

Top of the Rock (Rockefeller Center)

Ground Zero

Ground Zero was very suprising to us. It looked like a huge construction site. In fact, you wouldn't even know what it was unless you were looking for it. There were a few signs about what happened on 9/11 but overall we were disapointed.
We have some other pictures but they are the standard Times Square, Statue of Liberty etc etc. Plus we know all you want to see are pictures of Maddox. ;)

Maddox also had a blast and did VERY well while we were gone. Apparently he didn't even miss us! Jamie's parents kept him busy with lots of things like swimming, playing, going outside, parties, and lots more. He came home knowing what a motorcycle says and wanting to go outside a lot!

We missed him while we were gone but it wasn't as bad as we thought it would be. We all had a hard time getting back into the routine of things, vacations are oh so spoiling! We pretty much have things back in order and have developed our routine again. We do miss the sleeping in ;)
Let's see what has Maddox been up to these days.......
He is a VERY good climber and loves to climb the kitchen chairs, the couch, boxes, the bed,into cabinets, basically anything that is taller than he is.
Making brownies

He has become SO verbal. He talks all.the.time! He has a huge vocabulary now. He says thank you, bike, outside, all done, ice, hot, tickle tickle, daddy, mommy, eyes, belly button, airplane and more we can't think of at the moment.
He is always on the move! He doesn't sit still for very long and enjoys staying very busy. We just bought him a new play tent that he absolutely loves! It has tunnels and hideouts. It takes up our entire living room. Thankfully, it can be seperated into different peices and easily pops open and closed for storage. We think it is pretty cool too!
Maddox understands so many things now. His comprehension amazes us! He has turned into a little boy and acts nothing like a baby anymore. He finally reached the 20lb mark!! It only took 16 months but he now weighs almost 21lbs! He still only has 4 teeth and no more in sight. He'll get new teeth one day!
We are currently trying to wean him off of his paci for nighttime and naps. The night has been going pretty well we are still struggling a little with naps. Thankfully sleeping is the only time he uses the paci so we don't have too much breaking to do.
When we went down to Jamie's parent's house we also bought a new car! We had definitely outgrown Jamie's Hyundai and decided it was time to get something new. Plus, we were a little worried the Hyundai wouldn't make it on the trip down there. Thankfully it made it with only a few minor complications and we traded it in before the thing was completely worthless. We bought a Mazda 5. It has lots of space and is very luxurious comapred to our old car! Jamie has been having a great time driving it around! Maddox seems to enjoy his new ride too!

Well that's our life in a nutshell over the past month. It probably wouldn't take us as long to blog if we blogged more often! This blog took forever to write and post pictures. That happens when you wait a month to post!! We'll try to post more often...promise!

Fire trucks and Such

2007-08-06T08:59:00.000-05:00

Over the past month Maddox has developed an increasing fascination with fire trucks, cars, trucks, and tractors. Apparently boys are just fascinated with these things! He loves to point to these things and say what they are. We are quite impressed that he has started to say "tractor." To the untrained ear it may not sound like much but to us he is definitely saying "tractor."
We were honored to be invited to Maddox's friend Grant's 3rd birthday party...it was at the Fire station!! Maddox, of course, was thrilled and talked about the firetrucks all morning before we went. When we got there he was so excited to see a fire truck up close and personal! He was more than willing to volunteer to drive the fire truck, sit on the stretcher, go in the ambulance, etc etc! He had a blast, and it was so neat to watch him get so excited!

Maddox's vocabulary has shot through the roof!! He tries to say everything we say now, it may not be as clear as we say it, but he is definitely making an effort. Some new words, tractor, all done, thank you, fire truck, cat, bubble, and book. He has also decided to start answering our questions with the response "yea." We are trying to redirect this by saying "yes." "Yea" sounds so junior high, preteen, adolescent!

He is learning new things every day and is understanding and comprehending everything we say. He is very inquisitive and wants to know what everything is. He loves to explore, and has become quite the adventurer when it comes to going anywhere. Let's just say he does not enjoy sitting in the buggy or being held if we are shopping somewhere!

His favorite thing right now is books. We could read books all day long! He loves looking at the pictures and pointing out what everything is. He will bring us book after book after book to read to him.

This past weekend we went to his friend McKenzie's birthday party. It was a swimming party and Maddox had a great time. Apparently we gave birth to a fish! ;)

This month we have a big trip planned! We are headed to New York City, without Maddox! It will be our second anniversary trip! We are leaving Maddox with Jamie's parents. It will be a great time for them to hang out since they don't get to see him very often. He loves it there and he especially loves his uncle E and the swimming pool! We drive to Houston the 22nd and our flight leaves on the 23rd. We'll fly back in on the 27th. We are very excited and nervous! This will be our first time leaving Maddox overnight anywhere. We know we will miss him so much! While we are there we plan on seeing all the sights and going to a couple of Broadway shows. We also plan to feast on some yummy food! There will definitely be a blog post when we get back!

We hope everyone is doing well! Keep checking in for new posts!

PSA: Maddox does really like trucks but this does not mean we now need to be inundated with all things trucks, Maddox has plenty. Thanks! ;)

Family Pictures

2007-07-12T08:51:00.000-05:00

Our good friend Crystal took some great pictures for us the other day. We are thrilled with the way they turned out and thought we would share with everyone. We'll scatter them throughout the post to keep you entertained. Surely Crystal won't mind!

We haven't been up to too much lately. The weekend before last we headed down to Houston to see Jamie's family. We had a great time. The weather finally turned nice on Sunday so we all got in the pool and went for a swim before we had to leave. Maddox of course loved the pool. We think he is part fish. He is even starting to move his arms and legs like he is trying to swim. He must have inherited his Uncle E's love for swimming. ;)

It has rained a lot here over the past few weeks and when it is not raining it's HOT. Our outdoor time has been very limited. Thankfully, the last few days have been really nice and even a little cool before it is about to rain in the evenings.

Jamie has been watching a friends little 3 month old a couple of days a week. Maddox has really enjoyed the company, and loves bringing the baby toys and giving kisses. It is definitely giving us a chance to teach him how to be gentle.

Maddox has been doing great! He learned how to catch a ball this week! So now he loves to play catch. He is still climbing like a monkey. If any box is lying around you are sure to find Maddox on top of it, or in it. He has also started saying "da dee" when he wants Brian or sees a picture of Brian. He likes watching his Baby Einstein movies and if it were his choice he would watch them all day, but we limit him to one every other day or so. We are not really tv watchers and we try to come up with other things to do instead of watching tv. Maddox has really gotten into car, tractors, trucks, buses, and anything else that has wheels. He loves to point them out in books. We finally bough him some toy cars to play with and he has really enjoyed them. He likes to push them around and make car noises.

Brian's birthday is Friday. He gets the day off of work! We have plans to go see the new Harry Potter movie! Jamie will of course be getting the final Harry Potter book at 12am on Saturday. She has also said that she is "taking the day off" to read on Saturday. :)

We have been busy his week visiting our new friend Lainey! Maddox's best friend Andi became a big sister on Monday. She is a great big sister and gives Lainey lots of kisses. Maddox likes to look at Lainey but wasn't too sure of her when Jamie was holding her.

That is about all that has been going on. We hope you enjoyed the pictures!

Almost a month

2007-06-26T11:33:00.000-05:00

Wow! Has it really been almost a month since we last posted an update?? Sorry about that. Life with a 13 almost 14 month old is pretty crazy. Apparently some people are having Maddox withdrawls! ;)

So now to fill you all in on what has been going on in our lives:
Maddox is GREAT! We enjoy him more and more everyday! His personality is amazing and he is always making us laugh. He is such a sweet little guy. He is walking all the time now with only a few spurts of crawling. He has even started to run. He likes to play chase (we chase him) especially when he has somehing he is not supposed to have.
He is learning new things everyday and is never ceasing to amaze us. This age is so much fun. His little mind is like a sponge, soaking up all sorts of new information! He is doing all sorts of new things, there are too many to list but of few of them are; throwing things in the trash, climbing...on everything, saying new words, playing with anything that has wheels, and the list goes on!

On Father's Day at church we had Maddox dedicated. Basically, it was a ceremony to commit to raising Maddox up in a Godly home and teaching him the ways of the Lord. Besides being a wiggle worm through the whole thing it went great! He was very anxious to get down and explore the stage we were on. In an effort to save everyone from a screaming fit we allowed him to climb the stairs instead. He had a good time, and it allowed all the other participates some peace and quiet.

Jamie and Maddox have been busy with playdates this summer. A great spot they go is the parish park. The is a nice little beach there where Maddox and the other kids love to play. He loves the water and of course he loves to play in the sand.

We have spent a lot of this month picking blueberries. The farm is only open for the month of June so we have been often to stock up. Maddox loves blueberries!!

This past weekend was the Peach Festival but unfortunately we all came down with the stomach flu so we were unable to participate in the festivities. Maddox was supposed to participate in a Diaper Derby but since we were ill he didn't get to. Maybe next year!

Maddox and work have been keeping us busy. Brian has been busy at work with new projects and developments and Jamie has been busy with her purse making business. Her website is finally up. It is www.purepurseonalities.com She designed it herself. It still has some work to be done but at least the majority of the work is complete. Now she just has to get busy makng some more bags!

The summer is flying by and July is almost here! We promise to update more, this post was WAY overdue! We will continue to keep you updated on whats going on in our lives! Do we even still have readers out there?? We would love to here comments from you!

Have a blessed day!

The answer to the question everyone has had on their minds.....

2007-05-30T19:08:00.000-05:00

Photo Sharing - Upload Video - Video Sharing - Share Photos

Maddox is walking!!!
He had been taking a few steps but on Friday he just decided to take more! Now he loves to try to walk to things. He is still wobbly and falls a alot, but he gets right back up and tries again.
We have been waiting to post anything about it until we got some good video of it.

That is the biggest news around here. We have been really busy with a lot of different things. Jamie is finishing up a website for her purses. She has gotten a lot of orders for them so she decided a website was in order. It is almost done and we will post the address as soon as it is up and running. Until then, you can visit www.purepurseonalities.blogspot.com to check out her blog. She has also still been making purses and keeping up with Maddox, so her days are pretty busy.

Maddox is still doing great. We are thankful we have not dealt with any sicknesses in a long time! He still has only 2 bottom teeth, the top gums are swollen but they have been for over a month now with no signs of teeth. This whole tooth process is taking a lot longer than we thought.
He loves to climb. He keeps working on how to get onto the couch. If there is something next to the couch he will try to use it to climb up. In this picture he has climbed on top of two things stacked to reach the window sill....we definitely have to keep a close eye on him!

We have had a breakthrough in regards to eating. We have figured out how to get our picky eater to eat foods.....let him eat out of small bowls. Maddox would only eat a handful of foods, never wanted to try anything, and would refuse anything he didn't think looked right, now we put things in a little bowl and put them on his tray and he tries it! It may seem like a little thing, but it makes a world of difference for us.
His new word he can say is bubble. He must like the way it sounds coming out because he says it a lot! He can also use sign language to tell us when he wants to eat, when he wants more of something, and when he is all done. The eat one has been especially helpful in knowing when he is hungry and how to express it. Babies can use sign language to communicate before they can talk, so sign language is a great way for him to communicate to us without frustration.

Jamie has entered Maddox into an Evenflo baby contest. The winner is based on how many votes they get. Voting starts June 1st (tomorrow) you can vote once a day until June 15. Please click here and vote for Maddox!! Please pass it on to all your friends too! You can also access it by going to www.evenflo.com click on the Baby You're a star and then enter photo ID # 12075 in the top right hand of the screen where it asks for Photo ID #. We think he is the cutest baby on there!!

We hope everyone is having a great week and has had a great month of May! This summer sure is going by fast so far!

That's all for now!

Birthday Fun!

2007-05-09T17:56:00.000-05:00

Maddox had a great birthday!
His party was Saturday afternoon. He had a great time with all of his family and friends.
We got some good pictures of the event so we thought we would share.

Playing with chalk
Eating chalk

His first birthday cake! (Jamie made it!)

Opening Presents

By the time opening presents was over Maddox was beat! He had gone the whole day with only 30mins of nap so by the end of the party he was exhausted!
We learned that birthday parties are very exhausting for us too! We were also beat by the end of the day and we all slept very well that night.
Hope you guys enjoyed the pictures!
We are doing a good job with keeping up the blog lately! ;)

Love you all

Happy Birthday Maddox!

2007-05-02T07:34:00.000-05:00

Our lives were changed forever on this day last year.
Maddox Lee was born at 4:40pm he weighed 6lbs 2oz and was 18.5 inches long. He had a rough start but thankfully with a lot of prayer and medicine our little monster was ready to come home and join our family.

We can't believe it has been a year! Looking back is bittersweet. A lot went on those first few months but amazingly we made it through. We can't say it has been easy, but when is parenting easy? We work on less hours of sleep now and for a long time we worked on no hours of sleep, we don't sleep-in anymore, we go to bed early, and we pick up lots of messes, but it is all worth it when we see our little guy smile every time he sees us.

We have been truly blessed by God. He has allowed us to care for one of His own and we are very humbled by that. He has taught us many things since Maddox has been born, mainly to just trust Him. We are eager to teach Maddox about the ways of the Lord and look forward to the day when he fully understands that God allowed Christ to die for him.

Is he a happy baby you ask...well of course....most of the time! Maddox has a very strong personality, he can go from extremely happy to extremely upset very quickly. He is still very attached to us and has a hard time being left with other people. He has come a long long way in regards to that though and his separation anxiety is definitely easing up. He is also a sensitive baby, not about getting his feelings hurt, but just general changes that go on through the day and with him. A good way to explain it would be to say when he is hurting, tired, sick etc. he will surely let us know!

He still attracts a lot of attention everywhere we go. Most of that attention he has learned how to get by waving, calling, and smiling to people. When we go through the grocery store he "calls out" to people and then when they look gives them the sweetest smile you have ever seen.

Maddox has been thriving ever since he got out of the hospital. We go for his 1 year well-baby check up on Monday so we don't have all his current stats, but we are guessing he weighs about 18.5lbs. We have no idea about height, we can tell you he is not tall.

He took his first step on Monday night. We were both there to see it and get extremely excited about it! Since then he has only tried it a few more times. So, if you are wondering if he is walking yet the answer is no, but he will one day!
He has two teeth, the two bottom ones. No sign of others coming and those two are still not all the way out yet.

If you think his eyes are brown you're wrong. They are lovely mix of blue and brown, not green, hazel or whatever just blue and brown. They are dark and could be mistaken for brown but if you look closely you will see blue and brown. A perfect combination of both of our eyes!

His most favorite thing right now is playing outside. He and Jamie spend a lot of their time outside. He is sporting a beautiful tan that most people only dream of. His hair is blonde.....very blonde and just keeps getting lighter the more he is out in the sun. He plays in his pool almost everyday and loves it. We have to be sure to dump the water out after each time because if we are playing outside any other time he will dive in with all his clothes on. Of course we had to learn that the hard way. He doesn't like for clothes to be on him so unless we are going somewhere he is usually running (crawling) around with just a diaper on. He will pull and pull at his clothes until we take them off of him. We live in the south so at least this is semi-acceptable.

He is obsessed with ducks right now. "Dog" was his first word but now he says duck too. If he sees a picture of a duck or sees the duck at the park he "talks" forever about them and quacks too. He loves animals of any kind and can spot a dog a mile away. He loves his dogs too. They enjoy playing with him as well. He cuddles them, head butts them, pulls up on them, pokes their eyes etc. and they love it. We have two very docile attention hungry dogs that eagerly put up with Maddox.

Today, for Maddox's birthday we plan to have a day filled of his favorite things; going to the park, swimming, sno cones, and macaroni and cheese. Playing in dirt will fit somewhere in there too!
Saturday is his birthday party. We will be excited to have family and friends around to help us celebrate his special day.
We appreciate everyone who keeps up with our blog. It has become Maddox's baby book. We have enjoyed posting about our little family and all the things that have gone on over the past year. We also appreciate your patience during all those long waits between posts! We will continue to post on the blog and keep everyone informed about Maddox and us.

If you would like to take a trip down memory lane you can look back on all of our blog posts from the very first one to today's. They are located on the left hand side of the screen. Just start in May 2006.

Rainy Days and Mondays

2007-04-25T22:40:00.000-05:00

You get 10 points if you can finish the lyrics to our blog title and 10 more points if you can name who sings it!

Today was a yucky rainy day! To top it off Maddox is not feeling well again. We think it could possibly be an ear infection or just a cold like Jamie is coming down with. Since it was raining outside this evening we decided to stay inside and play some Duck Hunt. Maddox enjoyed it a lot too, especially the controller!

Reading books is another favorite rainy day activity and something we did a lot of today. Maddox likes to read books anytime though. One of his favorites is The Very Hungry Caterpillar.

We thought we would post some pictures of things we do when it is not raining outside. We bought Maddox a baby pool this past weekend to play in. He of course loved it. He even had his first pool party. His friend Andi came over to play too. She was a little unsure of the water but Maddox dove right in and was splashing everywhere!

Hope you enjoy this short little blog post. We thought we would be nice and not leave you all waiting 3 weeks between posts!

Long Awaited.......

2007-04-16T07:43:00.000-05:00

Apparently people have been waiting for a new post. So here you go....

We still have not gotten our pictures from our little vacation we took a few weeks ago, but we thought we would post some pictures that we have taken over the last few weeks.

Maddox is getting so big. He amazes us everyday. It is amazing how fast they pick up on things. He has started to stand by himself..alot. So, walking should not be too far off. He enjoys walking while holding onto our hand and cruising the furniture of course.

He loves to play with balls and has mastered throwing them too. Throwing the tennis ball so our dog Fletcher can go fetch it is one of his favorite games. He also likes to get into everything! We now have cabinet locks on the dangerous cabinets. The cabinets without locks get emptied at least twice daily. Taking objects out of things and putting them back in is also one of his favorite things to do, although he hasn't mastered putting things back into the cabinet!

He talks....alot! Lately the sweet sounds have turned into loud screeches, screams, and growls. He gets a kick out of making these noises. He has also started mimicking words we say and carrying on conversations with us. He now says mama and dada and uses them appropriately. He can also say dog and we are working on ball. We know what he is saying when he says ball but it may not be as clear to other people. Pointing has become a new game too. He loves to point to something so we can tell him what it is.

Outside is his most favorite place. He knows what the word outside means and he also knows where the doors are. If we say outside or go near a door we better be ready to go! We really enjoy just being outside with him. He loves to play in the dirt so we got him his very own shovel. He knows just what to do with it and loves to fling dirt around with it.

Over Easter weekend we went to Jamie's parents house. We had a great time. They heated the pool for us so we got to go swimming on Friday, unfortunately it was a little too chilly for Maddox to swim. The water temperature was great but the outside temperature was cold! Saturday we had a great crawfish boil! Maddox got to have his first encounter with a crawfish. We took some pictures of course.

Yesterday was Jamie's birthday. We spent it hanging out at home and playing outside and Friday night our friends watched Maddox for us and we went out for dinner and some ice cream.

Not too much else has been going on. Be on the lookout for a new blog by Jamie. She is going to start blogging about her purse making business. Hopefully it will bring on some new business and it is also a way for her to show off her creations!
Hopefully all these pictures and the long post is enough to make up for the lack of posting over the last few weeks.
Have a great week!!

Fun in the Mud!

2007-03-29T15:41:00.000-05:00

The other day we let Maddox play in the mud while we planted some flowers and did some yard work. He had a BLAST!! He is definitely all boy! Most people would not let their baby play in the mud, so I guess you could say we are not most people ;)
Maddox had a great time and went straight to the tub after with clothes on and everything.
We thought we would post some pictures of the event.

We have lots more to write about and more pictures to post from our recent vacation, but that will have to wait until another day. Maddox has not been feeling well again which has made a very busy and tiring week. Not to mention Walmart is not being too cooperative with our pictures (we forgot our digital camera) and we have still yet to get the disk from them.
So hopefully these pictures will last until we can get another post up. We know you guys love admiring this adorable little boy!

Don't Give Up On Us!!

2007-03-09T13:40:00.000-06:00

Don't give up on reading our blog yet!
So we are definitely guilty of not posting in a LONG time. We had had a very crazy last 3 weeks.

The last 3 weeks:
The week after Valentine's day is a little foggy, probably because it was so long ago. We do remember that Maddox started to cut his first tooth that Friday (three weeks ago today). He had been acting like a little toot for a while and we decided to check his mouth for a possible tooth. Sure enough there was a raised swollen lump on his bottom gum. We got really excited about it. Where it the tooth now....it is only a small white speck on the gumline. That's it, three whole weeks and no tooth to show yet. As we always say "One Day..."
This boy LOVES cottage cheese

The Saturday after the tooth discovery we were headed to Nashville. Brian had a conference to attend so Jamie and Maddox tagged along. We would be there for a week.
Packing for the trip

We drove to Memphis that night and stayed in Memphis so we could eat at the famous Rendezvous BBQ. We ate some super yummy ribs and BBQ chicken and pork nachos.
Sunday we drove the rest of the way to Nashville. We had planned on going to a neat little museam but drove around and concluded that it no longer existed. We headed to the farmers market instead. We picked up a few things and then drove to our hotel about 30 mins outside of Nashville.
Playing at the hotel

Monday Brian did not have any meetings so we went to the zoo. We had a great time. Maddox really liked seeing the animals. He especially liked the meerkat exhibit because he could get up close to the glass and see them.

We also went to the outlet mall there and did a little bit of shopping. We saw the Grand Ole Opry but it was not really that "Grand." It was nothing special really, Jamie was pretty disappointed in it.
Tuesday Brian's conference started so Jamie and Maddox were going to hang out in the hotel. Maddox started acting a little funny really clingy and sleepy. Well low and behold he got the stomach bug. Poor little guy was pretty miserable. He and Jamie just hung out in the hotel room for the next few days with lots of towels and diapers. He didn't start feeling better until Thursday.
Friday we left to go home. It was a very long drive. This time we didn't stop in Memphis to sleep so it made the trip feel even longer. We did take the scenic way home on the Natchez Trace Parkway. It was a nice ride with some good stopping points along the way. We even got to stop and hike for a little while. Maddox slept for most of the way. He also was getting a nasty runny nose.
Saturday he got to go to his first birthday party. His friend Andi was turning 1 ! She had a great time of course and Maddox enjoyed eating some cookies. He did not seem to be feeling too hot so he wanted to be held a lot but all in all it was a great day!
Andi's Birthday Party

Sunday we did not make it to church Maddox's cold was worse and he was really groggy and fussy. We stayed home with him all day and unpacked and stuff from our trip.
Monday Maddox woke up and was much worse. He had a nasty cough and was wheezing a lot. Jamie took him into the doctor and they diagnosed him with RSV and an ear infection in both ears. No wonder the poor guy wasn't feeling well! He was on breathing treatments for all of last week and he should finish up his antibiotics for his ears this week.
Last week was pretty much a blur since Maddox was not feeling well at all. He slept a lot and was very clingy. By Thursday he was starting to get back to his self again.
Friday night we went out on a date. We had not been in a while and with Maddox being sick the last two weeks we needed to get out for a little while. We went out to a nice dinner and left Maddox with his all time favorite babysitter..Krystle (a college student here). She has been babysitting for us every Tuesday night when we go to Bible study. When we got home Krystle told us that he did not even cry at all!! Praise the Lord! We never thought that day would come!
We had a busy Saturday and Sunday we got to spend some time at the park to unwind a little.

Since Maddox has been feeling better he has been great. He loves to wave to people now and does it all the time! He also has become very vocal and likes to talk a lot! He is learning so many new things so fast now. If we ask him where our nose is he can point (grab) it. We are working on finding eyes next but so far he can only get our nose. He loves reading books and turning the pages. He is starting to stand up by himself. He is still a little unsure of it but he does do it occasionally. He pulls up and cruises on everything, he also likes to walk while we hold his hands. He loves people and will get anyones attention! We are surprised at how social he has become.....it is like he just blossomed!
The best thing of all....last night he slept ALL night! He has not done this in a while since things have been so crazy and he has been so sick! It was wonderful to wake up refreshed!

So, that is what we have been up to! With Maddox sick so much it has been really hard to sit down and write a blog post but we finally did it! There are not a lot of pictures because we haven't been taking a whole lot while he has been sick. We'll try to have more for next time!
Hope everyone is doing great!

Love you all

Happy Valentine's Day!

2007-02-14T19:11:00.000-06:00

Maddox wants to wish everyone a Happy Valentine's Day!

His MiMi sent him his Valentine's outfit to wear today. He got lots of comments about it while we were out and about!
We don't really do anything fancy for Valentine's day because we feel it is rather commercialized. Why do you have to have a special day to tell someone you love them why not do it everyday!! :)
We did get some yummy pizza for supper tonight and Jamie stopped by the bakery to pick us up some super chocolaty brownies. It was Maddox's first time to eat pizza and he really liked it! He decided he needed his own big piece. He also really liked the brownie but that was no surprise he likes any kind of dessert.

Maddox was sick again this past week. This time he had the croup. Thankfully he did not get a really bad case of it and only coughed for a few nights, we sure were scared that first night when he woke up with it. Croup is a nasty nasty thing. He does still have a runny nose and a cough but they seem to be clearing up a lot now. Hopefully this will be our last sickness and he can stay well for a while.

He has started a new thing where he says "uh oh" We say it to him when he drops something, falls, etc so he picked up on it. It's really cute and he goes around saying it all day. He doesn't put it into context but he does do a good job with saying it.

Not too much new is going on with him. He is finally getting back to normal after being sick. He has also started to get his appetite back after he had his battle with the stomach bug. It has taken a while for him to want solids again but he is slowly adding new things back to his diet like pizza! He is constantly on the move and loves to crawl around and follow us everywhere.

Well the little monster is calling it is now his bed time so we better run.
Hope you enjoy all the pictures!
Love you all!

Sick Baby = No blog post

2007-01-30T09:47:00.000-06:00

We have a good reason for not posting in such a long time. Maddox has been sick for a while and is just now showing signs of improvement. It started with a cold, then the cold lasted forever, then he got a stomach bug and still had a cold and nasty cough. So now he is on some high doses of amoxicillin and feeling much better. All this sickness made him feel really bad and he was quite a handful for about 2 weeks! Yesterday and today we are having much better days which is good for all of our sanity.

Since the last post not much has really been going on. We went down to Lafayette to visit with Jamie's family and some friends. Maddox got to hang out with other babies so he really enjoyed it.
We had a great weekend and made it home in time to watch the Saints lose the Championship game. Oh well, you can't say it wasn't somewhat expected....they are the Saints right??
Maddox and Preston playing. Preston is about 5 weeks older than Maddox and about 5 feet taller too. ;)

Maddox playing with Jamie's cousin's little boy Hunner.

Maddox with Jamie's MawMaw and PawPaw

Other than being sick Maddox has been doing great. He has turned into a little explorer and loves to go exploring around the house. He is very fast so we have to keep a good watch on him. His current favorite place is the bathroom, if we leave the door open he will be in there in a flash. He also really likes the dishwasher and when we feed the dogs. He hears the dog food and stops whatever he is doing to go after the bowls. He says dada and mama, mostly dada unless for some reason he wants Jamie, which never happens ;) then he says mama.
We are enjoying every minute of the stage he is at right now. He is so much fun and keeps us very entertained.

We took him to the eye doctor and the results are good! He does not have a lazy eye. The doctor explained what we are seeing as a very common thing in babies and involves a little extra skin around the eye that he will grow into. The little extra skin is covering up part of the white of the eye which makes it look turned in. He'll go back in a year to check things out again since eye problems run in the family.
Playing with his friend Andi in our new chair!

So we know it has been a while since we posted and you would think we had tons of stuff to write in a blog but a certain little monster is pulling at the keyboard and mouse and playing under the computer desk so we probably should cut this one a little short. All you want to see is pictures anyway right?? ;)

Promise to write some more later when this little munchkin isn't at our heals.

Time for an update!

2007-01-11T11:48:00.000-06:00

Hello to all! We thought it was time for an update on what has been going on in the Volentine household.

Maddox turned 8 months on the 2nd! Wow time sure does fly by. He loves to crawl around and really loves pulling up on everything. Jamie now spends most of her day chasing him around making sure he does not get into anything he is not supposed to have. He still loves to eat and the only thing we have found that he does not like is oatmeal. We think it is the texture that he doesn't like. He is very sociable and really likes to talk to anyone who will listen. He also makes sure that he has the attention of everyone in the room. He usually does this by squealing if no one is looking at him. His main goal lately is to pull up on everything in the house and crawls around looking for something new to conquer. He has become very active!

He weighs 16lbs and is 26 1/2 inches long. The doctor said he is as healthy as can be. We are taking him to the ophthalmologist next Wednesday to have his eyes examined. We have noticed in a lot of the pictures that we have taken that his left eyes turns in. It doesn't shock us because Jamie has this same problem. Hopefully the eye doctor will be able to begin treating it so it does not get worse. Supposedly the sooner you catch it the easier it is to correct. We will post to let you know how that appointment goes.

We have been keeping busy with things going on around here. Last weekend we got to enjoy a nice trip to the park with Maddox and the dogs. Everyone else thought it would be nice to visit the park too so it was very busy. We like it more when it is quiet.

Brian has been busy at work lately. He has a business trip to take at the end of February to Nashville. Jamie and Maddox are going to go along too! We decided to turn it into a little vacation for us.
Jamie has been busy working on some more purses. Apparently they are quite popular so she has been taking some orders. She has gotten very good at making them and she has also become quick with them too.
Well that about does it for us. We don't have too much going on.
And yes we realize the posts are becoming farther apart. ;) But we always include lots of pictures!

Have a great weekend!!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

2006-12-30T13:56:00.000-06:00

This post is WAY overdue! We have been super busy lately and seem to have forgotten to get a new post up. We looked back and realized the last post was on Dec. 15th! Ooops! That was a while ago!

We hope everyone had a blessed Christmas!
Our Christmas started the Friday before Christmas. We went over to Brian's parents house to celebrate with them. We ate a yummy Christmas lunch and enjoyed spending time with them and opening presents. Maddox decided that he was not going to take a nap the whole time we were there. He probably didn't want to miss anything.
Maddox was not too interested in opening presents. He was mostly fascinated by tags and paper that was on the floor. He played with some of his new toys and then finally crashed rocking with Jamie. We headed home not long after that and started packing for our trip to Houston the next morning.

PJ got Maddox to laugh by putting on his new flashlight. We all got a pretty good laugh out of it too!

We decided to leave as early as we could Saturday morning in hopes that Maddox would sleep most of the way. We were able to get on the road by 5:30 am!! Maddox slept pretty much the whole way and only got upset when we were about 30mins from Jamie's parents house. Of course we all took naps later that day because we were so tired from getting up at 4:15.
Maddox and Jamie both caught some sort of a cold before we left and it was in full force the day we got there. We ended up having to call to get Maddox a prescription because he got pink eye. He was pretty miserable and ran fever off and on. Christmas Eve was an especially rough day for him with fever and nasty congestion. Thankfully we were feeling better Christmas morning and much better the day after Christmas.
We spent Christmas Eve doing some last minute shopping and then that night we went to Jamie's parent's neighbor's house for a Christmas Eve party. They are Scottish so of course the party was fun!
Christmas morning we got up and opened presents. Again, Maddox was not too interested in opening them. He liked climbing on his presents more. We ate some yummy monkey bread for breakfast and then played with our new toys.

Maddox got a new Dallas Cowboys outfit for Christmas from his PawPaw so he wore that as his Christmas outfit because it was game day for the Cowboys.

That afternoon Jamie's aunt and uncle and cousin came over for lunch. We ate some more yummy food then played a fun board game.
Tuesday was Jamie's mom's birthday. Jamie and her mom went after Christmas shopping in the morning then we started packing up to head home.

Wednesday was an exciting day because we got to hang out as a family at home. Brian had the day off so we spent some quality family time together. We also got to go shopping for our new glider rocker! It should be in towards the end of January! We are really excited about our new glider and will definitely post pictures of it when it comes in. We ended up having a really great day and we were both sad to see it end and for Brian to go back to work on Thursday. But the workweek was short and now we have the long weekend to spend together again.
So on to an update about Maddox:
He is crawling now and is very good at it! He prefers crawling to scooting now. He can also pull up on everything! We have to be cautious because he often finds unsteady things to pull up on. He will be 8 months old on the 2nd!! Wow! That has gone by fast! Only 4 more months and we will be celebrating his first birthday!
He is eating a lot more now and is pretty proficient at feeding himself. He would much rather feed himself than be fed by us.

That is about all that has been going on with us. Tomorrow night we have a New Years party at our house so we have been spending today picking up around the house and getting ready for it.

We hope you all have had a wonderful Christmas and holiday season. We wish you a Happy New Year too!

Around the House

2006-12-15T11:01:00.000-06:00

Maddox has been busy around the house these days. We thought we would post some pictures of him in action.
He LOVES to eat now but only table food. He screams when we give him baby food or spits it out. He likes the chewing (gumming) that he gets to do with table food. We have included a couple of pictures of him eating some avacado. He loves avacado, peas, bread, carrots....etc etc. Basically he loves anything he can eat himself.

We tried giving him some baby food green beans but as you can see from these pictures he wasn't too fond of them and they ended up on his face instead.

Now whenever we are busy in the kitchen we put him on the floor to play instead of his exersaucer. If we put him in his exersaucer he gets mad because he can't move around on the floor. While moving around on the floor he discovered the dog bowls. He is fascinated with them and thinks he just has to have them. Don't worry we pick them up before he can get to them. We took this while Maddie was eating and Maddox wanted to help her finish it!

He also likes digging in his toy box. Pulling up on this and getting to stand is probably his most favorite thing besides eating of course. He also loves to climb all over us and he is very strong so we really have to watch and hold on to him.

Our computer is in Maddox's room and often when he is taking a nap we will get on to check email/update the blog/read the news etc. Well Maddox has discovered that we are still in the room and knows exactly how to find us. He scoots down to the end of the bed that the blanket is not covering and peeks out at us. Usually he starts screaming because he is mad because we are not paying attention to him, but sometimes he just likes to look at us and play.

So those are some shots of Maddox and his daily activities.

We have been doing well. Tonight we are going out on a date and leaving Maddox with a sitter. There is a new sushi place in Monroe that we would like to try out. It will be nice to have a nice evening out together.
Not too much else has been going on. We are just getting ready for Christmas. We are trying to stay focused on the real reason we celebrate Christmas, Christ's birth, and not get caught up in all the other stuff. Christmas is not about how many presents you can buy or gifts you will give. It is sad to see how people get so caught up with gift buying, Santa, and parties and forget why we celebrate the holiday. This year it was nearly impossible to find Christmas cards that actually said "Merry Christmas" all of them said "Holiday Greetings" or "Seasons Greetings". It is just another way we see the true meaning of Christmas being forgotten.
End of Soapbox. ;)

We hope you have a great weekend!
Love Always,

Today is the Day!!

2006-12-06T08:48:00.000-06:00

Today is the day that this will be arriving at our door!

Jamie has been eyeing this vacuum for a long long time. If you have never heard of a Dyson vacuum you should read up on them. They are supposed to be top of the line and be great at getting up dog hair. We definitely need something powerful to get up all of the dog hair we have. We will report more on it after we have used it. UPS says that it should be here sometime between 8am and 7pm.....pretty ambiguous huh? Our UPS man usually stops by mid afternoon so that gives us a little better idea of the drop off time.

So on to things you really want to hear about.
We are doing great! We are trying not to get caught up in all the hustle and bustle of Christmas but it is very hard. Our schedule seems to be filled with lots of stuff these days and the days seem to be flying by very quickly.

Friday we picked up our Christmas tree! We got it from Lowes because it is the only reasonably priced place to get a tree around here. Maddox really liked the whole experience because he got to touch all the trees. That boy is fascinated with anything outdoorsy. We got lights on it Saturday and finally decorated it Sunday. It is decorated with white, silver, and purple glass balls. It has a big bow at the top but we would like to replace that with an angel or a star, we just have not found one we like yet. We think it looks pretty good. So far Maddox only scoots to the tree and tries to reach the branches, but overall he is really not that interested in it. Next year will be different!

Saturday we went shopping with Brian's parents in Shreveport. Shreveport is an hour away so it is an all day event. They have a great outlet mall in Shreveport so that is why we went there. Maddox enjoyed the shopping as much as he could. He is not that found of strollers, so he got aggravated a couple of times. This happens every time we go shopping so it was nothing new. Finally, he fell asleep and the shopping trip became more relaxed for Jamie after that.
On our way home from shopping we stopped at Brian's parent's house so they could hang out with Maddox for a while. Maddox was in a very playful mood.

Sunday we went to church and out to lunch and in the afternoon we took some pictures for our Christmas card. It was freezing outside so we tried to hurry and between takes we were trying to keep Maddox wrapped up in a blanket. We got some great pictures. Of course we will not be posting the pictures that are on the card but here are a few that did not make the cut.

Maddox has been doing great as always. He is almost crawling. He gets up on his hands and knees and moves a little bit but just has not gotten the overall coordination down yet. He still scoots and is very fast so we have to keep an extra watchful eye out for him. We spend a lot more time on the floor these days...one reason for the new vacuum! He does not like being in his exersaucer as much anymore because he can't go anywhere. He loves to just sit on the floor and play and really loves it if we get down and play with him.
Eating leaves (his other hobby!)

We are guessing we weighs around 15 1/2 pounds now. He is definitely getting heavier to tote around!
He had a breakthrough with solid foods! Apparently he does not like baby food but likes big people food. We tried giving him little pieces of noodle and carrot from Jamie's yummy homemade chicken noodle soup and he LOVED them, so he ate those for a few days. Then, we tried giving him little pieces of bread and he loved that too. He loves to chew the food. We have tried baby food again but he really just has to be in the mood to eat it whereas with the real food he'll eat until he busts! So now he gets little bites of whatever we are eating as long as it does not have dairy in it.
Maddox's favorite color is apparently orange. He loves everything orange, probably because it is so bright. He loves this dog toy we have that is an orange monster and will go after it if it is in sight. We went to pick him out a new sippy cup and we decided to let him choose what color he wanted. We put the green orange and blue sippy cups in front of him and of course he went straight to the orange one! So now he has a new orange sippy cup.

That is about all that has been going on with us this week. We said we would get a new post up soon and we did!! Hopefully we will be back to weekly posts but we cannot guarantee that....you'll just have to check in periodically!

We love you all

P.S Remember the REAL reason we celebrate Christmas is not Santa Claus and presents!

So it was a little late!

2006-11-29T08:30:00.000-06:00

So we said we would get a post up yesterday but as you can see that did not happen. We had traveled to Jamie's parents for the weekend and got back Monday. Apparently Maddox was having a hard time getting back into his routine yesterday. He was very cranky all day and just wanted to be held, this made it very hard to get a post up. But now here it is:

Happy late Thanksgiving to everyone!! We hope you all had a chance to be thankful for all the wonderful blessings God has placed in your life!

We spent Thanksgiving with Brian's family Thanksgiving day then the day after we headed down to Jamie's parents for a long weekend. We had a blast while we were there. We think Maddox had an especially good time because he got to be held a lot and passed around to whoever was willing to take him. Jamie's parents also let us get out for a while without Maddox. We went to one of our favorite places...Whole Foods! It was nice to be out and about for a little while without a little man attached to your arm.

Of course we had some great food over the thanksgiving holiday, it seems like we ate turkey for days on end, but it sure was good! And of course we indulged a lot on things we dont normally eat like cakes, pies, desserts, etc.
On Sunday we all helped put up Christmas lights, even Maddox. The weather was quite warm so Maddox hung out on a blanket in the front yard while we all helped out. The house looks great. We forgot to take a picture but take our word for it, it looks very classy.

We traveled back home on Monday. Thankfully Maddox had a great trip home and slept almost the entire time. The way to Jamie's parents was rough. He cried about 75% of the time and we made several stops and got caught in traffic twice. We were not sure how the trip home would go but it ended up being very pleasent.

Maddox has been doing great! He is starting to get on the move a lot more. He knows how to scoot around and is now starting to get up on his hands and knees. It wont be long before he is crawling. He loves getting into everything he is not supposed to have like plastic bags, paper, our food. If he wants it he is very fast at getting to it. We had to go through the house picking things up and moving wires and cords.

We are trying to get him to say Dada and Mama. He has said dada a couple times but not mama yet. It is really just babbling but it is fun to listen to!
He is not really interested in baby food. We offer it to him a lot but he just likes to take a few bites and then he is through. He is pretty hooked on his momma's milk so we will just stick to that until he starts to show some more interest in real food. He did enjoy a nice tootsie pop his Uncle E shared with him. He cried when we finally took it away, but not before we got some pictures first.

Still no teeth yet, everyone asks (or tells us) he is teething, but there are no teeth in sight.
There is not really a whole lot else that is going on with him. He is a great happy baby. He keeps us entertained and on our toes!

We are looking forward to Christmas. Friday we are going to get our Christmas tree and going to decorate! It will be our first Christmas as a little family! We plan on focusing on the real meaning of Christmas and will try not to get caught up in all the holiday shopping.

Well we will get another post up soon...promise. The posts have been too few lately and we know that some of you are just dying to see new pictures of Maddox and hear what has been going on.

We hope you all have a great week!

God Bless

Coming Soon

2006-11-28T08:55:00.000-06:00

We are working on a new post it is coming soon....promise. We have been super busy. Please check back within the day for a new and exciting post with lots of pictures!!

Long Time No Post

2006-11-15T08:32:00.000-06:00

So some of you are probably a little disgruntled because we have not posted in a while.....Sorry about that. With a little man who keeps us very busy it is often times hard to get a few minutes to write up a new post. Hopefully the pictures and video in this post will make up for the lack of post last week!

Maddox is officially on the move! He now knows how to scoot around. He uses his arms to pul himself where ever he wants to go. And the thing that got him moving.....a dog toy! He is in love with this dog toy that is an orange monster. Of course we never let him have it ;) But more recently he will scoot around for anything that catches his fancy. So it may be time to baby proof the house and vaccuum more than once a week. We caught it on video so you can watch him. In the video he was after a piece of mail.

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Maddox absoutely loves his baths. He started doing this new splashing thing while laying on his back. He'll get real stiff for a minute and then let loose, his arms and legs start flailing and water goes everywhere. He gets the biggest kick out of it and laughs and smiles afterwards. It is really a site to see. Maybe we will get it on video so you can all see our little fish.

Last week we were busy taking care of a friend who was in the hospital. Her and her husband are pregnant with a little boy some complications arose and she had to be on strict bed rest for a while so Maddox and Jamie went up to visit them and keep them company. Thankfully everything is going great for mom and baby and Maddox should have a new playmate in the spring!! Please pray for the couple and the baby, the mom is still on bedrest and may have to be for the rest of the pregnancy.

So, last week was a busy week. The weekend was more laid back. Friday night we had date night...we went out to eat at Wendy's for dinner as a family then we headed by the movie theater to pick up some popcorn then we went home put Maddox to bed and watched the Incredilbes......that is such a cute movie!
Saturday we went out to lunch with Brian's parents they got their Maddox fix for a while. Then we just had a relaxing afternoon at home. Sunday was church. Maddox did not make it in the nursery this week. :( But the ladies are amazed at how quickly he can turn the screaming off when his mom gets a hold of him ;) And as soon as Jamie got in there and was holding him, he turned and looked at those ladies and gave them the biggest smile...that little stinker! We went out to lunch with some friends after church and later in the evening we headed out to the park for a while. Maddox really likes the swings at the park.

Well next week is Thanksgiving! That sure did sneek up on us. We are planning to spend Thanksgiving Day with Brian's parents and then head over to Houston the day after and spend the weekend there and head home Monday. And while we are there we are hoping to get to have a visit with Jamie's cousin's Lisa and Julie....they are super excited about getting to meet Maddox!

For those of you in Lafayette don't worry we are planning a trip sometime in early December to come for a visit. During the holiday season our weekends get pretty packed but we are looking at some dates and will let you know as soon as we pick a weekend!

We hope you all have a blessed week!

6 months already!

2006-11-02T09:22:00.000-06:00

Wow! Maddox is halfway to a year old today! Time has flown by. It seems like when he was a newborn time went by so slowly but now it is going by sooo fast!
Maddox has some new tricks up his sleeve. The first one that is fun is that he has started pulling up on things. His favorite is to pull up on is toy box, but he has also tried pulling up on not so safe things like his play gym that is very unsteady. We have to keep a close eye on him when he is playing on the floor because he is very ambitious about pulling up on anything! He loves his new trick and thinks he needs to do it all the time.

Another new trick he has that we are not so happy about is screaming or screeching whatever you want to call it. Wow, he loves to hear himself do this. He sreeches at the top of his lungs, not because he is mad just because it is fun. We are trying to ignore it so maybe he will stop but it has not worked yet :(

The time also came for Maddox to start sleeping in his own crib in his own room. We were both pretty sad about this but decided it was time. He did great. It took a few nights to get used to it but I think we are all sleeping better now. He wakes up about twice during the night and Jamie nurses him then he wakes up around 6 and we bring him in bed with us to lay down and nurse until he fully awakens.

Maddox was a pumpkin for halloween. It was not an actual pumpkin costume but a cute little pumpkin outfit. We went to a little halloween get together with the people from our bible study group. We had a great time but decided not to trick or treat one because Maddox was tired and two because babys really dont eat candy so at his age the parents just go to get candy and we didn't think that was a good idea. Plus Jamie went to Walmart yesterday and got lots of fun candy at half price, we should be good on candy until next halloween!

Brian dressed up too. They were allowed to dress up at work so he went as a "kindred" spirit. Kindred is one of their sink brands at the company! It was very clever of him! He came in second place in the comstume contest.

Maddox has his 6 month check-up and shots tomorrow. Maybe this time he will not have a bad reaction to the shots. If you recall the last time he had shots they upset his tummy and he was throwing up a lot. We'll update with a new post about how much he weighs and all that good stuff.

We have started to give Maddox some solid food. Jamie mixes it up herself becasue jarred baby food is nasty. So far he has had tastes of peas, carrots, squash, applesauce, bananas, green beans, and a few others. We tried peaches but we are pretty sure he is allergic to those (it caused a nasty diaper rash). He also has a dairy allergy we figured that out about 3 months ago so for 3 months now Jamie has been dairy free. Maddox is just a sensitive little guy.

Sunday we have our Annual Fall Fling at church. We are very excited about this. Lots of fun fellowship, games, and a pumpkin baking contest. Jamie is working on her entries for the contest. This is the first year she will enter so she is really excited.

Well that is about it for this week. He hope everyone had a great halloween (you can email or share your pictures with us! jayme_415@hotmail.com) We would love to see what our readers were for Halloween!

Have a great weekend! Enjoy the very cool weather!! We would call this gumbo weather!

Fall is Here!

2006-10-23T14:43:00.000-05:00

We are definitely way overdue for an update....Sorry this has taken so long.

We are so excited that it is finally fall-ish outside! The weather has been beautiful and we have spent a lot of time outside enjoying it!

We are doing great! Last week was a pretty busy week for all of us. Brian had to go on a business trip for a few days so Jamie and Maddox got to hang out all by themselves for a few days. Brian left on Wednesday morning and was home late Friday night. Jamie and Maddox did well by themselves (it was the first time) but they missed Brian terribly! Brian got home late friday night and we all enjoyed a wonderful weekend together!

We took Maddox to a pumpkin patch on Saturday. We needed to pick out a pumpkin to carve and we thought we would take a few pictures of Maddox while we were there. He loved sitting on the ground and eating the straw! That crazy boy. We could hardly get the straw out of his mouth to take some pictures. You can visit this website click here to view the pictures we took. You can also order any of them if you want to.

Saturday night we went to a pumpkin carving party. It was great. We got to carve our huge pumpkin. Maddox fell asleep so he missed out on the carving part....maybe that was for the best.;)

Sunday Maddox had his first GREAT day in the nursery at church! He has been having a hard time with some seperation anxiety lately. But this Sunday he did great! We are so proud of him. We went about 15 mins early so that we could play with him for a while and try to make the transition smoother for him. We guess it worked because they said he barely cried at all. Way to go Maddox!!
Sunday afternoon we went out to the park. It was a lot cooler than we thought and we had to bundle Maddox up. Maddox really enjoyed the swings! We took some cute pictures out there too!

So that is about all we have been doing lately.
Here is some more video of Maddox laughing! We hope you enjoy!

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Ok, we know we have people out there who actually read our blog, we would love to hear back from you. Please feel free to leave us comments! We would love to hear form you and know who out there is reading our blog.

Until next time.......

Nocturnal

2006-10-13T15:48:00.000-05:00

Maddox has decided that waking up at night is a really fun thing to do. Actually he is not waking up for fun but it is because he has not been feeling well lately. Almost 2 weeks ago he started waking up screaming several time during the night, it continued on for a while so we decided to take him in to the doctor. After some blood work was done we found out that Maddox was battling a little viral infection. He showed no other sypmtoms of being sick except for being really clingy earlier in the week. The doctor figured the virus was what was causing the wake ups and it should be over within a week. So here we are now almost a week later and still getting up frequently at night, but now for a different reason....now he has a cold! We had one good night of sleep Sunday night but then he started waking up again Monday night. When we say frequently we mean about every hour and a half or so on really bad nights it was every 30 mins! But we are trucking on and hopefully can get over this little cold soon. Watching Maddox struggle with a stuffy nose makes us very thankful we know how to blow our nose and wish he could learn too.....the "booger sucker" is not his friend right now!

When we took Maddox to the doctor we found out he weighs 13lbs! They told us his height but we forgot that. He is bigger and thats all that counts! He is still doing well trying to sit up by himself. He has a lot more control over his hand movements and grasping things. Everything always goes to his mouth of course! He is a super happy baby and quite the little ham. He likes to "talk" a lot now. He will go on and on just babbling it is very cute. He has also started to grab for anything that is in our hands...bowls of cereal, drinks, forks, etc. He particularly likes cups because he likes to share a sip or two of whatever we are drinking!

We had a great time in Houston at Jamie's parents house. They were nice enough to watch Maddox on Saturday afternoon while we got to go out to lunch and to the mall together. It was a very nice and well deserved outing. Maddox had a great time while we were there. Everyone kept commenting about how much he had grown and how cute he is! He was very happy and well behaved and was very willing to be passed around.

This week we have just been relaxing and trying to catch up on some lost sleep. Brian took off Wednesday afternoon (he deserved some time off) and we all played outside and enjoyed the beautiful weather!

This weekend is Tech's homecoming. We have plans to go to a tailgating party and maybe catch some of the game. It all depends on how Maddox is feeling.

We hope you all have a wonderful weekend!

5 Months Old!!

2006-10-02T15:02:00.000-05:00

Wow! Maddox is 5 months old today!! Time sure has flown by! We are just amazed by how wonderfully God has blessed us!
Maddox is doing great! 5 months is such a fun stage! He has started sitting up by himself. This has happened all in the last 3 days! At first he would teeter and couldn't stay up, but as the days have gone by he has really gotten his balance and can stay sitting without tumbling over for a little bit! Yay for Maddox! It is so amazing to watch how quickly they develop. He is also very fascinated with toys now and loves to grab them. This happened over a few days too! He still has a little trouble getting his hands just so on the toy but overall he is doing very well. Of course the toy goes straight to his mouth as soon as he get a hold of it! He is very ambitious and gets very frustrated at not being able to go anywhere. As soon as he gets the coordination for crawling he will be off!

He has also taken a new interest in a sippy cup. We bought him a sippy cup just for fun so he could drink out of his own cup instead of ours. He loves this sippy cup! He knows how to get the water out but can't quite tip the cup up himslef so we hold it for him. If we take the sippy cup away he starts to scream.....that little monster!
Speaking of monsters.....we think we may have a green eyed little monster on our hands! We thought Maddox's eyes were going to be blue like his daddy's but now they are blue and brown making them an interesting shade of almost army green. It is very cool! Who knows, they may still have some color changing to do and he could end up with a whole different color, but for now they are a greenish color.

Jamie and Maddox have been going with a friend and her baby for very long walks every morning. They walk for about 2 hours. This girl has a little girl who is 2 months older than Maddox...she is very cute! The walks have been very nice especially since the weather has been so beautiful. They also went to the park one day and got to feed the ducks. Maddox really enjoyed watching the ducks, they even tried to come right up to him!

Last Sunday we dressed Maddox up in "real" clothes! He wore a red onesie khaki pants and shoes! He looked like a little man! We had to take pictures because he is SO cute! Thanks aunt Laura for the super cute shoes! We got lots of compliments on them!
He is finally fitting into 0-3 month clothes well so now we can actually dress him in things besides onesies, pants are still a little big but he is getting there. Saturday Jamie and Maddox went shopping with the friend they go walking with. Maddox needed a little jacket and some hats to keep him warm on the cool mornings when they go for their walks. Of course Jamie also got him some new pants and a new long sleeve shirt too!

We are headed to Houston this weekend for a trip to Jamie's parents. We have not really been doing too much else. Brian is staying busy with work and Jamie is staying busy with Maddox. Brian took a vacation day this past Monday to relax and get ready for the busy next few weeks. We went to the park for a walk and brought a picnic lunch. The weather was beautiful and we had a wonderful relaxing day!

Thats about all thats been going on with us. We hope everyone is doing well!
Have a blessed week!

A special treat!

2006-09-23T17:08:00.000-05:00

We have discovered that Maddox is ticklish!
Just click the play button on the bottom of the picture to play our video!
Now that we figured out how to do this we may start putting more video on for you to watch.

Enjoy!

Photo Sharing - Upload Video - Video Sharing

Go Tech!!

2006-09-19T15:44:00.000-05:00

We have been trying to post this for several days but the pictures would not upload. Sorry for the delay!

We took Maddox to his first Tech football game!! He was so good and we all had a great time! We got there early for tailgating and stayed for a little over half of the game. Tech beat Nicholls State 31 to 21!! Of course we dressed Maddox in his blue onesie to show off his Tech spirit!

Well we have cancelled our planned camping trip. It looks like it is going to rain over the weekend and we just dont think being cooped up in a tent for 3 days would be too much fun. :( We are sad about it but Brian is still going to take off on Monday so he'll have a little vacation. Plus, we will be able to attend church on Sunday and we are having a great guest speaker come! We were upset that we would be missing it but now we get to go! But I think this is the end of camping season. The nights are starting to get a lot cooler and that's not good for Maddox. We might try another night somewhere in Louisiana but other than that we will have to wait until next year. :(

Maddox had a rough day yesterday. We are thinking maybe some teeth are bothering him. Who knows, it could have just been a bad day. He wanted to be held and rocked all day and finally went down for a nap around 1pm after Jamie gave him some tylenol. He slept for about an hour and a half and then was up until 8 last night. It was fun to have a cuddly baby for a while! Maddox isn't much for cuddling, he just wants to be held facing out so he can see everything that is going on so it was a nice treat to have a cuddler even if it was only for a day!
Hopefully he wont have any more days like that soon because our rocking chair is out of service right now. It got really wobbly so it's in the repair shop. Hopefully the man will be able to fix it, if not we will be on the lookout for a new rocker.

That is about all that has been going on up here in Ruston. We hope everyone is having a great week!

Love you all!

Our Little Monster

2006-09-14T13:28:00.000-05:00

We have been calling Maddox our little monster for quite a while now because that is exactly what he is. It is amazing how well babies get to know you and begin to know how to get what they want. Maddox has been doing this for a long time now and he has gotten really good at it. Is he spoiled.....of course! But what baby isn't! If we lay him down for a nap he'll start fussing which is normal, then after fussing for a while he'll go into a full out cry, so we go in there to make sure he is ok, as soon as you look at him he gives you this huge smile and starts to giggle. At that point it is very hard not to smile and using these antics gives him the name little monster!

Oh what fun Maddox is now! He loves to smile and laugh now! I think we have said that before. But now his personality is really starting to shine through. He is very funny and he knows it! He is also very attached to us. He doesn't like to be held by other people for long periods of time and has some seperation anxiety issues. He is very picky when it comes to the way people hold him and who he lets hold him. This is frustrating to us as parents but also very touching. People always want to hold him and love on him but he is not so fond of it "picky" is what we call it! But it is encouraging to know that he feels very secure and comfortable with us and enjoys our presense. I guess you could call him a shy baby. Eventually he may grow out of it or he may just be a shy kid. This is not to say that he is not happy around other people, he will smile, laugh, and talk to you and be an all around goofball as long as he is being held by one of us! That little monster!

Maddox is most defiantely fascinated with his hands. His goal all day is to see how long he can keep his hands in his mouth. The downfall of this is that during the process of finding his hands he has also found his thumb! So now his new thing is sucking on his thumb. So now we have a child that loves his pacifier and his thumb and probably will have a "blankie" one day too! Something we have learned as parents is that you can never say "my baby is never going to do that" because inevitably your baby will do just what you said they wouldnt do. But we really dont care if he does as long as it makes him happy and, we have a new appreciation and understanding for parents whose babies do do these things....it's like a secret club or something!

Maddox is loving Kindermusik! Yesterday was his first time where he didnt fuss at all. He just sat and took it all in (with his hands in his mouth of course). He is very fascinated by the other children there and all the singing that goes on. Now when Jamie sings a song from class to him he gets this big grin on his face and starts singing too! We love Kindermusik!

We have joined a new small group (bible study) at our church. We are very excited about this group because most of the people in there have kids too! We all got together kids and all on tuesday night. What a blast! There were 9 kids there! Wow it was quite a houseful! The next time we meet the kids will not be present but it was fun to have all the families together for one night. We will be doing a bible study on Marriage, we can't wait!

And..... picture of Jamie's most recent purse creation:

Well thats about all for now. We have included more pictures for your viewing pleasure!

New pictures

2006-09-11T20:00:00.000-05:00

Here are some new pictures we thought we would post.
Maddox loves to smile and laugh now so getting pictures of him smiling is much easier! Now taking a picture without his hands in his mouth is a whole different story. That boy loves to eat his hands. His hands are usually all wrinkled and pruned by the end of the day from all the chewing he does on them.

Maddox got a little sick after his shots last week. They upset his tummy so he was spitting up a lot tuesday night and wednesday morning. The doctor told us to keep nursing him, since that is the best for him, and to give him pedialyte between feedings. During the day on wednesday we could tell he was not feeling well at all. Poor thing just "looked" sick. By Wednesday night he was feeling much better. Thankfully it was short lived and he was back to his happy self.

We had a great weekend. Brian had to work Saturday morning so Jamie and Maddox went out with our friend Natalie. Then Jamie made a new purse. She has gotten really good at the purse making and has started to get orders for some. She has 3 different styles she makes.

Sunday was off to church in the morning and then we went to Brian's parent's church for lunch.

We haven't really done anything too exciting this past week. We do have another camping trip planned for the end of September. We are going to camp at Enchanted Rock in Fredricksburg, TX. We are very excited about this. Brian is going to take a few days off from work and we are hoping to have a nice little vacation.

Well thats about it!
Hope you enjoy the pictures!

A Camping We Will Go

2006-09-05T13:56:00.000-05:00

Or should we say a camping we have been!

On Friday we took Maddox camping!! Yay! It was soo much fun! We took him and our 2 dogs! What an adventure! We thought we would try it out and see how it went. He loved it, of course he loves to be outside so this was not suprising to us. At first we were not sure if we were going to be able to camp because they only had one campsite left we drove to our campsite and realized someone else was camping there! So after some discussion with the office they put us up on an even better site! It was our first time putting up our tent so we had a little trouble but it only took about 30 mins, then we got Maddox to sleep and we ate our supper. Unfortunately there was a burn ban in effect so we couldnt make a fire and had to eat cold hot dogs and we couldnt make s'mores. :( The weather was perfect and we actually got cold during the night.....don't worry Maddox was well dressed and didnt get cold! Saturday morning we got up and ate some breakfast and went out on a hiking trail. We didnt spend to long on the trail because it was getting warm and we didnt want Maddox to get too hot. We headed back to camp and started taking everything down and packing up. We thought it was a great trip and we can't wait to go again. I dont think we will take the dogs the next time though, they were more trouble than Maddox!

The long weekend was very nice! We just hung out around the house! The weather was great all weekend so we spent a lot of time outside.

Today Maddox had his 4 month check up and shots. The doctor said everything looks great and he is doing perfect! He weighs 11lbs 9oz and is 23 3/4 inches long! He is in the 5-7 percentile range. This was the first doctor visit where he was happy! The nurses didn't want to give him his shots because they said he was too cute and they didn't want to make him cry. Of course he did cry but it didn't take him too long to get over it. Now he is sleeping and probably will for the rest of they day.
We are so amazed by him everyday! It seems like each day he does something new! His new thing is the way he goes down for his naps. He used to like to be held and rocked to sleep but now he wants to be laid down and wants to play with your hands. He also likes it when we sing to him. It is nice that he started doing this but it makes it more difficult when we are out somewhere and he needs to go to sleep because he doesnt want to be held.

He has started reaching for things now too. He really likes hands especially to chew on! It is fun to watch his little hands reach out to grab onto something. He has also discovered his voice and likes to use it a lot! He babbles and coos all the time and will even carry on a little conversation with you. He never ceases to amaze us! We are so blessed to have him! We LOVE being parents!

Jamie and Maddox attended their first kindermusik class. They had a great time. The class uses singing, instruments, and touch to stimulate baby's brain and motor development. You can go to www.kindermusik.com for more information and a better explaination. Maddox took a really long nap after kindermusik, it must have really wore him out. They go back tomorrow for another class. The class last 8 weeks.

Well we hope everyone enjoys the post and the pictures! Have a great week!

Love you all!

We're back!

2006-08-26T11:05:00.000-05:00

So we wrote this blog the other day but the blogger website has been acting up so we haven't been able to actually post it. We had every intention of posting sooner...promise!

We had a great little vacation! Although Brian really didnt get much of a vacation since he was on a business trip but Jamie and Maddox got a little vacation.

Saturday Maddox got to go to his first football game! Eric is in the band and they had to play for a scrimmage game. Maddox did really well he fell asleep in Jamie's arms and slept through most of the game. He was not too fond of all the loud cheering and clapping but he was really tired so that probably had a lot to do with him being scared by it.

Sunday it was off to church! Sunday was also our anniversary so Maddox got to stay with MiMi and PawPaw and we went out for a nice dinner. We went out for sushi, it was sooo good! We really dont have any good places to eat sushi near Ruston so it was a treat! There was not much else we could think of to do so we stopped by World Market to browse and then headed back to Jamie's parents house.
Brian left Monday morning for Philadelphia. Jamie and Maddox enjoyed swimming everyday and getting to go shopping with MiMi and Angela while they were there.

Maddox with uncle Eric

Maddox got some new toys and clothes while we were there. He got an exersaucer which he loves! He grabs for the little toys on it and likes to watch the toy that lights up and plays music.
It's nice to have so we can put him in it while we get other things around the house done. He really like to be propped up and watchign what is going on so this is the perfect thing for him.

Brian got back on Thursday. Jamie and Maddox picked him up at the airport and then we all headed home.

Swimming with PawPaw

On our trip home we had to take another route. Apparently they had I-20 going towards Ruston closed because a bomb storage facility had caught on fire. So we went through Nachitoches instead. It turned out to be a really scenic route. We got to go through Toledo Bend a place neither of us had ever been to before. We also got to stop at this little barbeque place in Clearence, Louisiana. It was the BEST barbeque! We decided to stop there because it smelled so good from the road! That little place may be worth going that way again! It didnt take us any longer to go that way which was good and we found a new place to eat!
We made it home and we are now just trying to get back into our routine again. Maddox always has a little trouble adjusting back to being home.

Maddox has been doing great and was wonderful while we were in Houston. He travels really well too. He sleeps for most of the trip and we usually have to stop once for him to eat.
He has started giggling, this is the cutest thing we have ever heard! He also has started reaching for things like toys and our hands. His new thing is holding onto one of our hands while he falls asleep or is getting sleepy. He goes for his 4 month check up on the 5th of September. This will be for shots too! Yuk, we hope he does better this time. And this week we start kindermusik!! We'll post another blog about how this goes! We are very excited about it!
Well we hope you all have a great week!
Love you all!

Because he's just so cute!

2006-08-18T08:18:00.000-05:00

Posting a new blog for everyone to see how cute Maddox is. We took some new pictures of him and had to show them off!

We are off to Houston this weekend! Brian is leaving for Philadelphia on Monday for business. We are going to drive down to Houston tomorrow and Brian is going to fly out from Houston on Monday and fly back into Houston on Thursday. It worked out really nice because Jamie and Maddox will get to spend almost a whole week at her parent's house. Her parents are REALLY excited about this, as are Jamie and Maddox. Brian is sad that he wont get to spend more time there and also sad because it will be his first away from home trip since Maddox was born. We were originally planning to go to Houston for Labor Day weekend but since this business trip came up we are going this weekend.

Not too much has been going on this past week. Maddox is still doing great. He really enjoys being on his tummy a lot more now and is fascinated with some of his toys. His favorite book is one called Ten Little Ladybugs. It has lots of bright colors and a catchy rhyme scheme that Maddox really likes.
Jamie and Maddox start a Kindermusik class on the 30th. This is a class where they get to sing, dance, and have a lot of fun. It is really developmentally appropriate and stimulating for Maddox. It will also be a good way to get out of the house and meet other moms with babies around the same age!

Sunday is our 1 year anniversary!!! What an amazing year it has been! We LOVE being married! We have had a lot go on in the last year but all that we have been through has made us that much stronger as a couple!

Well we have to pack and get things ready for our big trip! We hope everyone has a great weekend!

Finally, A New Post

2006-08-11T08:52:00.000-05:00

So it has been a while since we posted last. Sorry about that. Things have been pretty busy around here lately.
We had a great weekend in Lafayette! We enjoyed getting to see all the family and spending some time with our friends Michelle, Chris, and their little boy Preston.
We think Maddox enjoyed the trip pretty well. He was not fond of being around a lot of people at one time. Friday night we met all the family at Jamie's aunt's house. Maddox was ok in the beginning but quickly realized how tired he was and that he was ready for his bath and bedtime. That night we had a lot of trouble getting him to go down for bed which never happens.
Saturday was a little better, but he still fussed most of the day. We did get to visit for a while with Michelle Chris and Preston and that was a lot of fun. Preston and Maddox enjoyed smiling and talking to each other, it was really cute to watch. Preston is only a month older than Maddox. On Saturday night Maddox got his bath at the regular time and went to sleep right after with no fuss. We were thankful for that because it had been a long day.
Sunday he woke up in a great mood! We were so excited! We went to church with Michelle and Chris, ate some yummy food at MawMaws house, went to visit Jamie's grandma and aunts, and then we traveled back home.
Maddox really enjoyed MawMaw and PawPaws house! He loved their porch swing and looking at all their pretty plants outside. We enjoed their house a lot too, we had a great time visiting and of course loved the food!
Here is Maddox with his MawMaw and PawPaw Bernie!

Maddox had to adjust being back at home after a long and busy weekend, but by wednesday everything was back to normal.
Jamie has been furiously busy making one of her purses for her friend Stephanie. Stephanie left yesterday to move back to New Orleans because she got a job. Jamie had promised her a purse a while back. She wasnt supposed to leave until the end of August, so Jamie thought she had lots of time left. When we got home sunday night and found out, she knew she had to get busy. Jamie learned how fast she can make a purse. It actually turned out to be her best one yet. Unfortunately she didnt take any pictures of it but maybe Stephanie will be so kind as to send her some so she can display her work. ;)

Maddox has been a wonderful sleeper this week! Tuesday night he went to bed at 8:30 and woke up at 6:00!!! We were in shock and wonderfully rested! Monday night he slept from 9:45 until 5:30 this morning! And last night we were blessed with another wonderful night of rest.
He really is a good sleeper and usually sleeps about 7 hours at night then wakes up to eat and is back down for a few more hours, we are blessed.
He is really growing up. Where have the last 3 months gone! He loves to look around at everything and is becoming really interested in people and interacting with people. He hangs out with Jamie during the day and loves to watch her while she does things around the house. He has started to take an interest in books and being read to. He really likes to look at all the colorful pictures in the books. We have also noticed that he has started to hold his head up very well. He is gaining a lot more control of his body movements. His hand can now be found in his mouth pretty much all day, chewing on his fingers has become his favorite pastime!

That's pretty much all that has been going on. We hope everyone had a great week and hope you'll have a great weekend!

Love you all!

A praise report:
Jamie's aunt Laura is home from the hospital!! Yay! She is doing lots better! We love you aunt Laura!

For Aunt Laura

2006-08-04T11:22:00.000-05:00

This is a special post for Jamie's aunt Laura! Today is her birthday!!! We hope you are having a great day! Please pray for her, she is recovering from a nasty infection and is in the hospital. Thankfully things are looking up and she is getting better each day! We've been praying hard for you! We love you!

This picture is just for you Laura.....Maddox sends you a great big hug, kiss and an adorable smile! He threw in some drool too ;)

As for an update on Maddox:
He is doing great! He weighs 10lbs 4oz now! He smiles a lot and loves to talk! This past Sunday he got to go swimming for the first time. He loved it. He was awake and very alert this time so he finally got to get in. He is quite the little fishy.

This is a short post because we are off to Lafayette today! We cant wait to visit with all of our friends and family there! We have lots of packing to do before we leave.
We love you all and hope you all have a wonderful weekend!

This one's for the Texans!

2006-07-28T09:58:00.000-05:00

Maddox's Mimi and PawPaw bought this for him and we finally put him in it! Isn't he so cute! He definately has a contagious smile too!!

These are some pictures we took last night of him in the bathtub. We wanted to compare them to the ones we took a while back to see how much he has grown. Wow! He is almost getting too big for the hammock in his tub now!! You can go back to the Splish Splash blog post to see pictures of his first bath.

And these are pictures of the sling that Jamie carries Maddox around in. He absolutely loves it! He loves to face out and look around at what's going on. It's also a lot nicer than carrying around that heavy carseat carrier!

That's all, we just wanted to post these cute pictures!

Love you all!

Going Shopping!

2006-07-26T08:59:00.000-05:00

Today Maddox and Jamie are going shopping! They are going with some friends to Shreveport to the outlet mall! Maddox is in need of some clothes other than onesies. They are great for around the house and short outings but for church and other events we would like to dress him a little nicer. Hopefully the trip will go well. For those of you who dont know Shreveport is about an hour away so its a long car ride to get there. Thankfully, Maddox does great on car rides.

Maddox is doing great. He is really fun and loves to smile! He is also quite active. We put him on his belly on the floor to play the other day and he managed to scoot himself around. He was doing an airplane sort of move and using his feet to push off the ground. He was stopped when a pillow got in his way. We are a little nervous of what is to come with this boy. I think we will definitely have our hands full and will have to keep a close eye on him. His sleeping schedule is great! We love that he sleeps about 7 hours each night. Its so refreshing to wake up after sleeping for that long. Now his naps are a different story. Soem days he naps a long time and other days he thinks one 45 min nap all day is good for him. That 45 min nap may be good for him but it is definitely not good for Jamie. During his naps is when Jamie tries to get other things done around the house and work on her sewing so that day not much got done.

We have not really been up to much, thats why we have not posted in a while. On Sunday we tried to take Maddox swimming at Aunt Rose's house but again he slept through it. One day this summer he will go swimming and we will ahve the pictures to prove it!

We have started back into a steady exercise program. We both have realized that watching what we eat and exercising was not high priority and we could see the effects! So we are walking/jogging 3 days a week in the evenings nad being more careful about the things we eat. Jamie also walks every morning with some friends so she is doubling up on the exercise.

We are getting ready for our trip to Lafayette soon, in fact its next weekend! This will be Maddox's first time to meet some of Jamie's side of the family and we get to stay with Maddox's MawMaw and PawPaw Bernie!

Thats really about all thats going on. We are a little boring right now since we have not done much. We'll have more stories soon.

Until next time.....

Cutest baby in the world contest!

2006-07-19T09:36:00.000-05:00

If there were such a contest we think Maddox could definately win, what do you think? His big blue eyes have a definate way of melting your heart, and his smile, well words cant even describe the cuteness of that!
We'll stop bragging and get on with the update!

We had a really laid back and relaxing weekend. The weather was sooo hot it wasnt worth getting out to do anything. We just picked up things around the house did some laundry and were just plain lazy. Sunday we went to church and then to Brian's parents house for lunch cause it was his mom's birthday.

Speaking of birthdays....Brian's is tomorrow! He will be 25! We joked this morning and said that he is halfway to 50!

Maddox has been doing really well...we did find out he does NOT like boiled shrimp and steak. This messed up his tummy pretty badly. We ate this on Sunday night and by Monday morning Maddox was miserable, so since Jamie had some milked stored in the freezer we gave him 2 bottles and Jamie pumped and tossed the milk down the drain. Maddox did not need that yucky stuff. After it got out of Jamie's system and his too all was fine! We have found he does not like pizza, tomato sauce, boiled shrimp, steak, mexican food, and lots of milk. Oh and he doesnt like it when Jamie eats a whole watermelon in a day! ;)
His Zantac has been helping him a lot so he is a much happier baby now!! We can tell his tummy is not bothering him as much anymore.
He has a new favorite toy we call it the "magic star." It is on his little play gym. It lights up and plays music and absolutely fascinates Maddox. It also has calming abilities hence the name magic star!

Maddox has become a great drooler. He sokes the front of almost every outfit he wears and of course he sokes us too!
He hasnt really learned any new tricks lately. He does coo alot now and squeals when he gets excited or really happy. Oh he does have a new trick...he discovered his hand a while back so now he sucks on it a lot. It's funny watching him try to get his whole fist in his mouth! Oh and another new trick...he slept for 8 hours last night!! Wow we were shocked and felt so well rested! We understand this is probably a one time occurance but it sure was nice!

Our little pea pod!

Maddox hanging out with his PawPaw

This is a picture of the new purse Jamie made. She has gotten really good at it and can get them done pretty quickly now. If anyone is interested in one just let her know!

Well thats about it for today. Oh almost forgot we are planning to take a trip to lafayette the weekend of Aug. 5th. We will try to get around to see everyone and we'll be staying at Maw Maw and Paw Paws...is that ok Maw Maw? Just wanted to let the Lafayette folks know we are coming.

Have a great week!

Pictures!

2006-07-13T09:01:00.000-05:00

We said we would update more often with pictures, so here they are!
Of course we still think he is the cutest baby ever!!

Maddox has had a great week! We are noticing a definate improvement in his reflux problems. He doesnt seem to be in as much pain and the spitting up has let up some. He hates to take his medicine though. It tastes really nasty so we cant blame him.
His new trick this week is pushing himself up with his arms to hold his head up, he also really likes to push with his feet and he's really good at it. When we're holding him we have to hold on tight because he'll use his feet to push off of us.

This week Jamie has started to get back into her sewing projects. She has learned that it definately takes longer to complete a project with Maddox around! For those of you who dont know, Jamie really likes to sew and has started sewing purses. We have a great fabric store in town that has really fun fabric selections to choose from, they turn out really cute! If anyone is interested in one you can email her (jayme_415@hotmail.com) she'll tell you about them and let you see some fabric choices to choose from! Can't find the picture of one, otherwise we would post it for you to see. She'll post a picture of her new one as soon as it gets finished. She has already started getting requests from friends here in town for one. Maybe she'll get a little business going!

Thats about it for the week. Hope you enjoy the pictures!

Our Little Family

2006-07-10T10:05:00.000-05:00

We thought we would show off our cute picture from this weekend of our little family! This is the first one we have taken since Maddox has been out of the hospital.

We had a really nice weekend. On Friday Maddox had his 2 month check up and shots...yuk! He ran some fever after the shots and felt just all around yuk for the rest of the day. It was hard to see him not feeling well because it reminded us of when he was sick in the hospital. Thankfully by the evening he was feeling a lot better. He weighs 8lbs 12oz and is 21 1/4 inches long! He is growing great! The doctor put him on Zantac for his reflux problems. Hopefully it will help him feel better and not spit up as much. Other than that it was a normal check up.

We decided to go on a date Friday night. We got Brian's parents to come and stay with Maddox. We were not sure how this would go because he wasnt feeling too well from his shots. We decided we would go out to eat, call and check on him and if he was doing ok go to a movie. When we called to check on him they said he was doing fine so we were off to see Cars! We really liked the movie and had a really great time being together. It reminded us of the dates we would go on when we first started dating. And, since Ruston now has a movie theater we did not have to drive 30mins to go see a movie!! That was nice!
It was a great time for us and a good time for Maddox to spend with his Nana and PJ.

Saturday Maddox got to go to his first wedding. He actually ended up missing it, so did Jamie because he decided to start to cry right as the wedding started. Jamie took him around to the back of the house where the reception would be and calmed him down and sat and waited for everyone to get there. I think next time we will just get a sitter, babies and weddings dont mix too well. We did get to see all of Brian's family and most of them got to see Maddox for the first time, so that was nice. Maddox ended up sleeping the entire time though.

On Sunday we were off to church and then had a relaxing afternoon at home. The weekend was rather busy so we really needed the day off. Getting Maddox out too much messes with his sleep schedule and is hard on us, so we often need some time to recooperate.

Thats about all thats been going on with us. We hope everyone else had a great weekend and hope you have a great week too!

Of course we have included more pictures! ;)