The Most Wonderful Time of the Year!

I love Christmas.... I really do! I love the lights and parties and goodies and presents. I love there is madness with shopping, and decorating and programs and school stuff and work stuff......... and then just when you can't stand it anymore, you get time off to spend relaxing (and recovering) with your family.





I love Christmas specials on TV and corny Christmas movies.... but I love slowing down to watch them and snuggle the babies that are growing up far too quickly even more! The kids are SOOOOO much fun this year. Kennedy just loves that everything is pretty, but Jaydan is at prime Christmas age.... old enough to anticipate and be soooo excited about it all! I wish I could just stop the hands of time right NOW!



Merry Christmas! Take a moment to remember the meaning of it all..... and hold your loved ones close!!
P.S. Although that pic looks sweet enough, it was about .2 seconds before she socked him with her cup. Ahhhhh, siblings ;)

Fabulous Fall

The weather has been absolutely perfect the last few weeks. I mean, t-shirt during the day,
windows open with warm blankets at night perfect.

The kids and I spent Saturday playing at the park. Kennedy is now walking all over.... back and forth from the playhouse to the swings several times. Busy, busy.


Jaydan's preschool uses that park for recess, so its not AS much fun as it used to be for him. Still, its fun for me to see the new ways he's playing now that he's playing on his own there, with other kids. His class also took their first field trip...... to the Pumpkin Patch. I almost died of anxiety, he had a ball and so all was well. Now, I'm debating on still taking the family or not? We've gone every year, but he just went and Kennedy doesn't have a strong opinion either way.... yet. I have time to decide. For now, I'm just going to enjoy the Fall Fabulous-ness!

Little Bitty Steps!

Kennedy is finally a walker! She'll be chasing big brother before we know it!

Jaydan Goes to School

We had a late night the night before school started..... there was no "early to bed" for the Little house. See, the kids and I were sitting in the Salt Lake City airport, waiting for a delayed flight when Jaydan should have been getting ready for bed. I was torn on sending him that first day, but he insisted he wanted to go.

There were a few morning tears (him, not me I'm proud to report). The worst part, apparently was trying to get a few good pictures! This next picture breaks my heart, because his nerves are so obvious. He never was able to verbalize that he was nervous but obviously, he was. It's painful, as a parent to see your kid be nervous!


He hesitated for just a moment, when we went into his classroom. There were kids there already and it was busy.... and loud. But we sat down with a puzzle and before long, he was ready for Mama to go...... and told me so! So I steeled my own nerve and walked back to the car..... as Jaydan took his very own big step. Hard to believe how fast my baby boy is growing up!

Summer Fun!

Our summer days have been filled with fun times and watermelon, just like any childhood summer should be!

Both kids love to be outside, when its not too hot.... and we all enjoy Jaydan being able to burn off some energy!

I can't believe how fast the summer has gone..... now its coming to an end and the Holidays will be here before we know it!

4th of July

We had a busy and fun 4th. Jeff ended up getting a day off so we loaded the kiddos up and headed to Lake Lanier Water Park. It was SO FUN and Jaydan was SO BRAVE (a little more brave than this Mama was comfortable with). He had to do most of them on his own, which terrified me to death but he didn't hesitate.... just dove and/splashed right in!
Kennedy had fun too, which is good since it was part of her birthday celebration! They have a very cool, 18 inch deep, kiddie pool with all sorts of features and sprinklers. She was good with it all, as long as it didn't get her in the face! It was a great time for all four of us and we were glad we got some time as a family (that doesn't happen as often as we'd like).
On the actual forth, the plan was to have a pool party at Miss Heather's and then to the Fireworks in Auburn. It rained all afternoon so we played games and visited instead and then I realized that Auburn AND Winder did their fireworks on Saturday, so we'd missed them!!! Jaydan only got to see a few in our neighborhood and Kennedy slept through that. That was lame of me and I'm sorry they didn't get to see any..... oh well, better luck next year!

Teeth

Here are those two teeth I was telling you about......


Can't see em? How about now???

Kennedy is ONE!

Its hard to believe our sweet baby girl is a whole year old already! Kennedy, at one you are:

* So sweet. You are generous with your hugs and kisses and LOVE to snuggle! If your brother puts his head down by you, you wrap your little arms around his head and slob him up w/ a BIG kiss!

* Such a joy.... your smiles come fast and easy and you light up the whole room. You love to flirt and if you catch someone's eye, you tilt your head waaaaayyyy to one side and just unleash the biggest grin.

* A happy baby. Just recently, you have started to show a little more "spice" and will stiffen up and scream during diaper changes, etc. But it blows over quickly and you get right back to being your sweet self. You have been very easy going and a lot less demanding than Big Brother was at this age ;)

* Have two teeth... finally! You started crawling on June 1, just in time for your birthday.... and just took off like you'd been doing it all of your life!

We are so blessed to have you complete our family! We love you soooo much and have enjoyed watching your personality develop and look foward to seeing even more of who you become!


Oh, this is a funny little side-story. You HATE feet...... look at the look on your face when mine get too close! Funny girl!!

Birthday Weekend

Jaydan's big birthday weekend kicked off on Friday night with the arrival of Nana and Pop from Florida. They came up early and got a hotel with a pool...... heaven for a FOUR year old boy! We had early dinner and then the kids and I did some swimming.

Kennedy LOVED the water.... spent most of her time floating on her back w/ her feet straight up in the air. She discovered pretty quickly that it is VERY funny to slap the surface of the water to make a big splash.... not QUITE so funny when the splash gets YOU in the face!

Jaydan was quite the little fish, too. He hadn't been around a pool since last summer's swim lessons with Granny, so I was curious to see where he was with it. He picked up right where he left off! He floated on his back, laid on his tummy on my hands and kicked his feet and loved jumping off the side to me..... he even went clear under a couple of times! AND he got a very big "squit gun" that he had a lot of fun playing with, too!



The party was Saturday. Jaydan hung out with Nana and Pop, while Kennedy and I headed home early to finish a few last minute things. We started out at the park at our Church for cake and presents. Its just dawning on me as I write this that he was the only little boy there!!! He didn't seem to mind! Ms. Heather, Libby and Jennifer came and Lola, Anabel and Lydia....friends from daycare.





After we did cake and presents there and then anyone who wanted to, moved on to Jungle Jumpers. That ended up just being us and the Anderson ladies..... and it was so much fun! I think the grown ups had as much fun as the kiddos did and even Kennedy got in on the action!

What great fun to celebrate a fourth birthday!

Jaydan Chase is FOUR!

Jaydan, at FOUR (I can hardly believe it), you are:

*FUNNY!! You are also very sweet and still have a little naughty streak! You keep Daddy and I laughing and its hard to be in a bad mood around you.... unless, of course, you are the one CAUSING the bad mood;)

* SOOOO, so sweet and protective of your baby sis! You are her favorite person and you can't get enough of her either! And woe be unto the boy or girl that might accidentally hurt her!

* Super smart...... you know all of your letters and the sounds that most of them make. You are working on learning to write your name and you seem to have a pretty amazing memory. You are LOVING the learning apps that we've put on the Ipad for you and are learning so much every day!

* STILL sucking those fingers. You say that you are going to quit or only do it at night, but that only lasts until something doesn't go right and we frequently find you "sneaking a finger fix".

*You are busy, busy.... and love to play ANYTHING outside and with your trains and race cars inside. You also like to play most sports and you LOVE to read w/ your Mama!

*An advocate for the little guy.... you get into lots of scrapes at daycare for defending smaller kids when a bigger kid is doing something you don't like. I get reports of you rushing to love on the smaller kids too, when they are hurt or sad!

* Getting sooooo big! You tell your Mama not to worry, you won't grow up too fast.... BUT YOU ARE! You tell us frequently that you love us "better'n anybody" and sing little made up songs about loving your family or each of us individually. Soooo sweet!

We love you soooo much, Buddy and are so proud of the BIG Boy you are growing into!

Kennedy's First Words

So far we've got "Mama", "Dada", "Bubba", "Biiiiihhhhh bye" (spoken like a southern belle) and her favorite.... "Uh oh".
Its good that she's talking quite a bit, because she still is not crawling and still doesn't have teeth. She scoots around and around or backwards to get where she wants to go and frankly, just doesn't seem overly ambitious to go any further than that.
Jaydan swears she says things like "I love my big brother" and "its ok for Jaydan to take my toy", when no one else is around, but we don't have any proof of that happening ;).

Easter

So much FUN to dress the kiddos up for Easter. We went to Church, hunted Easter Eggs (or at least the few that the neighbor's dog didn't beat us to) and were otherwise lazy! Jaydan DID get to participate in the Resurrection Egg event at our church. They called all of the kids up and he raised his hand and was called on to stand up in front of everyone and announce what was in "his egg" ("A Cwoss", in case any of you were wondering). Its so strange that he's at an age where he's doing things totally independent of either parent. I was very proud of him.... and a little sad that he's getting so big and brave that he doesn't need his Mama so much anymore!


But enough about that..... I have so many cute Easter photos for you to enjoy!

And this is how you know its time to be done w/ the picture taking ;)

Granny and Miss Effy

One big event that happened over the winter was a much anticipated visit from Granny and "Miss Effy", a.k.a. Debbi Duffy. My Dad and Mike Duffy have been bff's since they were eight years old and essentially, the entire Duffy Family is like just an extended version of our own family. Mom and Deb..... best friends. Their daughter Sunny and I..... there really aren't words to describe our relationship. Kind of like sisters, but better. As long as I can remember, the Duffy's have been around, to help celebrate the good times and to scrape us up and put us back together when things aren't so great. SO, we were excited, to say the least.


It was just a quick trip, one long weekend BUT it happened to be Granny's birthday. With such a short trip, we didn't want to plan any HUGE adventure..... to capitalize on the Granny/Grand baby snuggle time, I guess. But we did do the flea market and I tried to expose Deb to "southern culture" as much as I could in three days. Aunt Deb gave Jaydan a real run for his money..... taught him a fun new song (that I can remember her teaching ME when I was about his age). She also knows that if you say "smart fart.... took the elevator" to a three year old boy, you will be the funniest, coolest person EVER! It was a wonderful visit and we enjoyed them so much. And girls, be thinking about when you can come back!

The Most Magical Place on Earth!

The Little Family braved the odds and set out on a trip to Disney World! It was with some trepidation.... our kids are pretty little, spring break means its crowded and its EXPENSIVE, but we decided to go for it and we are sooooo glad we did.

We got to the park at around 8:30 on Saturday morning and got right in. The first couple of rides we had almost no line for. We started off with "Gumbo, the Flying Elephant", which was one of Jaydan's favorites. We rode lots of rides and he liked them all..... except for Peter Pan. He cried, and tried to escape and then got off of it and said "I HATED that wide" (ha ha). Kennedy rode rides too, and she seemed to love the excitement too!


We took a break at about one and went back to the hotel for lunch and a nap. It did us all good and I absolutely believe it kept our kids from melting down. We hit the park again at dinner time.... we had reservations for a character dinner, which given the fact that Jaydan had been TERRIFIED of them earlier in the day, I was convinced was going to be a huge waste of money. At first he was timid and the next thing we know he's elbowing his way through the crowd to Piglet! He said he "just decided to be brave". So we ended up getting some great pics!




We saw some of the electric parade but by that time everyone was starting to get tired so we decided to do the Tea Cups and then head for the gates. The Tea Cups was MY favorite and Jaydan and I had so much fun spinning and spinning.... he loved it! And then he stepped off and bit it, because he was too dizzy to walk! Like every good Mama, I rolled laughing!! Right as we were passing Cinderella's castle on the way out, they started the fireworks so we got to see the whole show as we walked out, but then got right on the Ferry and beat the crowds on the Mass Exodus after than. It was a long, exhausting, completely wonderful day, full of memories for all of us! An extra special guardian angel helped make our trip possible and we are so grateful that we were able to enjoy such a magical day with our babies!