First Birthday Party

John Henry was very lucky to have a lot of his family, godparents, and a few close friends that came to his first birthday party.  Bebe and Cece were generous to offer up their house and we took full advantage!  We decorated Christmas cookies, played outside, and ate cake.  It was a wonderful afternoon and although John Henry started off slow (he woke up from a late nap) I think by the end of the party he really enjoyed being the center of attention. 

Mommy and Daddy stealing a quick moment with John Henry before the party started.



Grandma Yeary got some love too.  We are so grateful that she was able to help us prepare for the party.  She baked all the cookies for the kids to decorate!

Bebe and Cece were wonderful hosts.  They helped us get everything set up, picked up the food, and they did most of the clean up.  How lucky are we???

John Henry enjoyed playing with the star balloons.  Of course we got star balloons, how could we not?

And then our friends arrived.  Maggie and Charley wasted no time and got right down to decorating their cookies.

I think Bree enjoyed tasting the toppings more than she enjoyed decorating the cookies!

John Henry's cousins Henry and Max came to show the kids how it's done.  The boys were so sweet and helped the kids throughout the party.

Avery was quick to grab the pink sprinkles.  She did such a great job decorating her cookies.

Buie made sure to cover his cookies with lots of icing!

Look how hard Wade is concentrating!

And look how patient Celie was waiting for some different toppings.

Santa Mason.  I love this shot.  It's so festive.

Sweet Cousins.  Holland and John Henry both wore their Christmas outfits I bought them over a year ago!  I guess you could say I was planning ahead.

What a lucky boy!  Kisses from two very pretty girls.

We are very blessed that John Henry's godparents live close by and can be involved in his life.

So now that he's one he should be walking right?

He tries.  But he doesn't do it on his own.  We think he can but...

He prefers to catch a free ride.  As much as we want him to walk, we love the fact that he reaches for us and loves on us.

By the end of the party John Henry was starting to open up and show off some new tricks.  Here he is blowing some kisses.

I decided to go simple on the cake.  We chose Publix and they did a cupcake cake for the guests and below is John Henry's smash cake (with star candles of course).

John Henry liked the candles and I was praying they wouldn't fall on him.

Max was very sweet and helped John Henry blow out his candles.

He realized pretty quick what to do with a smash cake...

He was so proud of himself that he had to clap!

Right after this picture he threw his cake on the ground.  It was classic.

John Henry required on outfit change after his cake.  He was a sticky mess.

This was our group shot (minus Bree).  It's not too easy to get all the kids looking at the camera, especially when they see their cookies sitting in front of them.

Thank you to everyone that came to celebrate John Henry's first birthday.  It was such an important day and we loved getting to share it with you.  We also want to thank Jessica Luce who came to take pictures of all the kids.  We were able to relax and enjoy the party knowing that someone else was in charge of pictures.  Thank you Jessica!

First Visit with Santa

I love all things Christmas.  Always have always will.  I feel like the same love of Christmas is in John Henry's blood since his due date was December 25, 2010.  He probably would have been a Christmas baby had it not been for my health issues that created the need to induce prior to the delivery date.  So imagine my surprise this year when I found out on October 1 that the Phipps Santa Clause (who only takes reservations) had been booked for well over a month!  There were absolutely no reservations left.  My surprise turned to tears (yes I realize how silly it is to cry about) until my very good friend Sarah came to the rescue.  She let us have her Santa appointment and was able to double up with Ragan since they're family.  Sarah definitely saved the day.  As a result, we got the adorable picture below.

Although John Henry's not breaking out his full smile, I was very impressed that he didn't loose it when I passed him to Santa.  I was waiting for the look of fear but he hung in there and gave a little grin.

One of the great things about visiting Santa was that we were able to do it with our friends.  The Calvert, Weeks, and Benich family all had reservations back to back so we got to hang out after the pictures. 

Jay made it just in time to see John Henry visit with Santa.  I'm so glad he was there to see it.

There's John Henry's goofy smile!

After the individual pictures we tried to get a group shot.  As you can see, it wasn't going to happen.

This last picture looks adorable right?  It is for everyone but John Henry.  What you don't know is that Clint was making some crazy noise that actually scared the heck out of John Henry.  When John Henry is scared, his first reaction is to lean towards someone in hopes that they will protect him.  He was so freaked out that he leaned all the way over on Maggie.  The other girls just thought he was being cute so they leaned in as well.  It was pretty funny. 

After pictures we headed over to Twist for lunch.  The weather was beautiful and the kids enjoyed eating outside.  It really ended up being a perfect day.  Thank you again Sarah.  I owe you one!

The Christmas Tree

Every year we pick a weekend in early December to meet Jay's parents and the Santivanez crew at a Christmas Tree lot off of Lower Roswell.  We all meet, pick out our trees and then head home.  We usually meet up the next weekend at Jay's parent's house to decorate the crazy big tree that Bebe buys.  After we decorate we cook raclette.  Think fondue meets the George Foreman grill.  It's one of several Christmas traditions that I always look forward to.

Sherridan and I with our babies.  I was happy that I could walk around the lot this year.  Last year I had to sit in the car since I was on bed rest.  At the time I didn't see much difference between sitting in bed and sitting in the car.  

"My" two children.  Poor Holland.  Since I don't have a girl she has to put up with me pretending that she's mine.

John Henry enjoyed walking through the lot.  He's still not walking on his own but he can get around really well if you loan him your fingers.

Catching a ride on Bebe's shoulders.  Talk about a spoiled kid.

John Henry and Holland were having a great time together.  I'm sure you're wondering where Sherridan's three older children are.  During the entire tree picking process they play hide and seek in the lot.  They treat the lot as their own personal hiding/maze area.  It's actually a pretty cool area to do it and after they finish they are exhausted.  I promise you they don't stop running the entire time we are there.

The next weekend John Henry helped decorate his first Christmas tree.  John Henry got to practice on our tree before heading over to the big tree at Jay's parent's house.  He liked the ornaments but couldn't understand why I kept taking them out of his hands and putting them on the tree.  

Daddy and John Henry working on the last ornaments.

Pick a pretty one John Henry!

Helping Mommy put the finishing touches on our tree.  This year our tree had to go in our sunken sunroom.  John Henry hasn't managed to get into this room so it was the perfect place for a tree with breakable ornaments.  Next year we're going to have to put a fence around our tree.  

The next day we headed over to Bebe and Cece's house to decorate the big tree.  John Henry loves being around his cousins and they are all so good to him.  Sumner got him started off right by showing him how to pick an ornament and then put it on the tree.

Holland had her own ladder to use for the ornaments.  Here she is showing me her "cheese" face.  For some reason she thinks that means she needs to close her eyes when she smiles...

The tree that Bebe buys is always the biggest.  It's inevitable that Cece will tell him that it's too big and they don't need such a big tree anymore.  Bebe will always respond with the fact that it's smaller than last year.  I've seen pictures of their old trees.  They were bigger but not by a lot.

Here is Henry leaning through the second floor banister to decorate the top of the tree.

You really do need multiple ladders to get the job done.  This year the kids did a good job helping decorate the tree.  Normally they start strong but bail 5 minutes into it.  Which means Jay and Sherridan have to finish up the tree. 

Poor Jay always ends up having to fill in the empty spots on the tree.  

Holland and Sumner singing Christmas songs.

I don't have any pictures of the raclette dinner.  Trust me when I say there isn't any room on the table for a camera.  Google raclette and you'll see that it's a portable grill that you cook the meat and veggies on top and the cheese on the bottom.  We always cook shrimp, chicken, and steak.  We have a ton of cheese that we melt and pour on the meat, bread and potatoes that are served on the side.  It's delicious and the kids have so much fun cooking their own dinner.  I can't wait to do it again next year.

Sad Day

I was trying to make reservations at my favorite restaurant tonight but for some reason the restaurant didn't appear on opentable.com.  It was weird, so I decided to go directly to the restaurant's website but their website wasn't working.  I started to panic a little so I googled the restaurant.  And then the most horrible thing happened.  I saw a link to an article saying that our favorite restaurant had closed in November!  What???  They closed?  No one called to tell me.  I didn't receive any email about the closing.  I was shocked and very upset. 

You can roll your eyes and call me dramatic but I don't care.  My favorite restaurant has closed.  It's where Jay had sushi for the first time.  It's where I've had amazing dinners with our friends.  It's where Jay and I went to eat after he proposed.  And it's where we met for lunch during the week when we could sneak away from work.  It was our restaurant.  And now it's gone.  So goodbye MF Sushi on Ponce.  You will be sadly missed.  I wish we knew you were closing.  We would have come to pay our condolences. 

Santa, may I introduce you to Santa...

Since Christmas is rapidly approaching we have done our best to decorate the house.  It's a little different deciding what we will and will not put out this year.  We've moved the tree to a room that John Henry doesn't spend much time in and we didn't put out some of the floor decorations (i.e., breakable angels) due to our little angel.  We did however, decide to put out our Santa.  Some may look at him and think he's creepy but I think he's wonderful.  He lights up and moves so he freaks Lady out but I love him.  We decided to introduce John Henry to Santa and I think it went well.  It helped the John Henry was wearing his Santa pj's.  Thank you Benich family for letting us borrow your Santa pjs!

John Henry didn't want to ease into it.  He wanted to jump right in and say hello.

 "Come here and give me a hug."

Getting up close and personal.

This guy isn't too bad!

This is the look I got when I told him to be gentle with Santa.

Too cute!

Friend or Bully?

I always wonder if John Henry likes the kids in his class.  I wasn't really sure if he noticed anyone other than the teachers.  When I dropped John Henry off this morning I found that he does notice the kids in his class.  In fact, there is one child that he is particularly fond of and plays with all day.  His name is Brooks.  He's a little younger than John Henry but they seem to get along just fine.  The teachers think they're real cute together.  I thought so too until I saw John Henry bulldoze Brooks with the push cart!  His teachers say it happens all the time.  After watching it in person, I'm not so convinced that John Henry and Brooks are friends. 

They do look cute playing together.

This is the last picture I got before John Henry took him out.  Can you see the devilish smile on John Henry's face?  Poor Brooks had no idea it was coming.  

I would like to think these two are friends and John Henry isn't being a bully.  Fingers crossed that this is the case.  If not, I won't blame Brooks if he gives John Henry a black eye.  We'll just have to wait and see.  

Where's John Henry?

John Henry struggles with nap time at daycare.  He does fine at home but I'm sure that's because it's dark and quiet.  At daycare it's bright, loud, and there are way too many things going on that distract him from sleep.  When I arrived yesterday to pick him up I couldn't find him.  His favorite teacher smiled at me sweetly and said, "I finally got him to sleep."  I looked around the room again.  I didn't see him in the crib.  In fact, I didn't see him anywhere.  She had to point him out.

(If you look closely you can see the top of his head, part of his arm, and his little hand.)

Apparently, she has to bury him to make him sleep.  Poor kid, I'm sure he dreams that he's being suffocated by stuffed animals...

Tacky Christmas Sweater Party 2011

Whitney and her husband Trey hosted the December Wheeler get together.  In honor of the holiday season, they had a tacky Christmas Sweater Party at their house.  They did a fantastic job with the food, drinks, and games.  They did such a great job, and we had so much fun, that I doubt they will ever invite us back.  It was the perfect way to get the holiday season going.

Some of the folks from Marietta met at the Crawford house to carpool over to Whitney and Trey's house.  Doesn't everyone look festive?

The Ladies (Sarah, Kriya, Me, Mandy, and Jenny)

The Guys (Ash, Clint, Jay, Beau, and Chris)

Did I mention the food was great?  They even had a tacky Christmas sweater cake!

One of our gracious hosts - Trey.  He even grew a mustache for the event.

Chris, Clint, Sarah, and Steph

The whole crazy crew.  Don't we look festive?

Prizes were awarded for the most tacky outfit.  Beau and Mandy won, and I think Beau is trying to tell her congratulations but who knows! 

Then the fun really started.  We all participated in a white elephant gift exchange.  It got very interesting, as evidenced by the picture below.

Mandy, Mary Brooks, and Me.  Can you believe Mary Brooks didn't break up with Frank after seeing him in bunny pjs?

They guys enjoying some serious karaoke.

Clint and Sarah

Thankfully John Henry wasn't there to see his crazy looking parents!