Fun in the Mud!

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!!

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!

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

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!

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!

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!