My First Birthday!

Amidst the Christmas rush, we got to take a break and celebrate Nathan's first birthday! We had a fun little birthday party for him on the 22nd. Several of his friends were still in town before the holidays and got to celebrate with us. We had attempted to cook out hamburgers and hot dogs, but as we went to fire up the grill, we realized that we were out of propane.....whoops! Thank goodness for the Foreman! Everything turned out great.....the food tasted great, Nathan got tons of new toys and clothes, but I think his favorite thing of the day was his cake! He had no problem tearing into that thing.......



Just lounging around after all the hoopla......

Tiger Woods Watch Out!

Jake's got Nathan started early on the golf lessons......and I think Nathan is a natural! Jake only had to show him a few times how to hit the ball with the putter and he picked it up! He started hitting the ball all over the room. He was so proud of himself. When he would hit the ball, he would drop the putter and clap his hands. :-)

Trail of Lights

Sorry it's been so long since a post! Well last weekend we took a nice little trip to a town called Marble Falls to have dinner with the Olson and McAnelly families. After dinner we went to the Trail of Lights of Marble Falls. We had a great time, but it was hard to get into the "winter wonderland" feeling when it was 80 degrees outside! (Notice the short sleeves and shorts)

Sad day in playgroup

Today is a sad day in our playgroup as we say goodbye to Elle and Ondine as they are leaving for Michigan tomorrow. We all met up at the mall today and had lunch and let the kids run around. We had such a fun time getting to know Elle and Ondine over the past several months and wish them all the best in Michigan!

We'll miss you Elle and Ondine!

Look at all those good-looking kids!!

Happy Thanksgiving

We just spent a week at the North Pole (aka Minnesota). :-) Actually it really wasn't too cold while we were there; however, Nathan did get to see his first snow. We had such a great time and Nathan did so great meeting all his Aunties and Uncles. He definitely was the life of the party. Not only did he get better and better at walking, he started dancing and singing to music! We also got to celebrate Sheena Auntie's (Jake's sister) birthday with her for the first time!
Here are some pics from our trip:

My first Thanksgiving meal!

Walking!

We now have a little walker on our hands! Yes, it's true, Nathan has taken several steps all over the place. He is SO smart and figures things out SO quickly. It has only been a few days since he took his first step and today he was practically running across the dining room to the kitchen. We are so proud of him. Now he REALLY doesn't want to be held anymore. :-)

Here's a little clip of him walking (sorry it's so short, I ran out of space on my camera)

Fun in the sun.......in November???

Only in Texas can we be in shorts and t-shirts in November! We took Nathan to the park and let him play in the playground. He got to swing in the baby swing and slide down the slide. He LOVED the swing! Here's a little clip of his first swinging experience:

We also went up to Dallas last weekend for the Nascar race. Jake and his co-worker "roughed it" in a brand new RV at the campgrounds of the speedway all weekend while Nathan and I stayed at grandma and grandpa's house. My dad and I met up with Jake at the race on sunday. It was Jake and I's first Nascar race experience and it was unbelievable how fast those cars go! TV definitely does NOT give that sport justice. I have a new appreciation for the sport as I watch it on TV now. Here are some pics of us at the race:

Chasing Daddy

Here's a video clip of Nathan chasing Daddy around the kitchen the other night.......

Halloween Fun

This past weekend we had great fun at a costume party hosted by the Ashcrafts! There were like over 30 people there and LOTS of babies. It was so much fun! Nathan had a blast playing with all his friends. He was so busy playing with all his friends, I often lost track of him. haha It was highly encouraged that the parents dressed up as well as the kiddos, so we succumbed to the pressure and came up with a family "theme". Nathan was a ninja fighter who got really upset at his mommy for trying to make him take a nap so he broke out his chinese stars and attacked. Fortunately Dr. Daddy came to the rescue and helped bandage mommy up.

Here are some more pictures from the fun event:

Luke as Little Nemo:

DJ Judah in the hizzy:

An attempt to get a group picture of all the kids........need I say more??

Duuu Dah......Duuuu Dah........Duh Dah Duh Dah Duh Dah.....it's Owen the Shark!!

Nathan playing with Lydia the Ladybug:

Nathan and William "Superman" Payton:

New favorite thing

Nathan's new favorite thing to do is push anything and everything around. He pushes the chairs in the dining room, toys, books, paper, high chair, etc. Here's a little video of him pushing his high chair.

Vegas Baby

Sorry it's been so long since I have last updated our blog. Jake and I went on a little get-away to Vegas last week.....without our better half (Nathan). We let Nathan spend a few days with his grandparents in Dallas. It was hard to be without Nathan for a few days, but Jake and I had a great time. We met up with our friends Cliff and Leslie and saw a great show (Mystere), ate some great food and actually won a little money. :-) I was proud of myself, I only cried once while we were in Vegas and I limited my phone calls to my mom to just one a day. Nathan seemed to do great being without his parents for a few days. He stayed on his schedule and didn't fuss too much. I will say that I was more emotional when we saw him again than I thought I would be. I just could not get enough of cuddling with him....even though he had enough pretty quickly. haha I love that he's growing up and discovering new things, but I do miss the little baby that would cuddle with me all the time. :-) The only cuddle time I get now is when I give him his bedtime bottle.

Here are some pictures from our trip to Vegas:

Cliff, Leslie, me and Jake at the Mirage hotel Me and Leslie......two good-looking ladies ready for a night on the town!

Of course we had to "make" the guys take a picture with the show girls.

A Day of Family Fun

We decided to take a small trip to Marble Falls (about an hour outside of Austin) today and go to a Fall Festival with some of our friends. It is such a pretty drive out to Marble Falls going through the Hill Country. We had a good time even though it was SO hot! It definitely didn't feel like "Fall". Nathan had his friends Luke and Lily there with him to enjoy the festivities. Nathan got to play around in the pumpkin patch and pet some baby goats. Well I say "pet", but really hitting and pulling are more accurate. haha The kiddos (and the parents) only lasted an hour in the heat. Nathan's little cheeks were so red. We decided to get reprieve from the heat at Suzanne and Shauna's parents house (they live in Marble Falls). We all felt much better lounging in the A/C and eating brownies and ice cream. :-)

Here's Jake, Jeff and Mark testing their childhood slingshot skills.

Nathan in the pumpkin patch. He really didn't know what to think of all the pumpkins at first. But it did make a nice little seat for him. :-)
















This is the best picture I could get with all the kiddos. As you can see, the kids were much more interested in the pumpkins than pictures.










This is the "Mom it's so hot out here" picture.















Petting a baby goat.

Football and Movie Stars

Well I'm particularly sad today.......my #3 OU Sooners lost to unranked Colorado in the Big 12 opener. It was such a disappointment cause we have completely blown out all our opponents thus far, averaging like 50 points a game. Today we just didn't show up. I don't know what our deal was, but it was SO frustrating to watch us struggle and make some really dumb, costly mistakes. We all had such high hopes this year of being a National Championship team, but I think it's out of our reach now. I think now it will be great if we can just make it to a BCS Bowl. The good news is that we are a very young team so maybe next year. :-)

I will say, however, that there was a nice glimpse of sunshine on this gloomy OU day when unranked Kansas State routed Texas (41-21) in Texas' own house! Next week's OU v. TX game will be interesting!!

On a very different note, but still related to football, Jake and I had an interesting experience last night while coming home from dinner. We passed a high school in Pflugerville and noticed that there was a "football game" going on, but we knew that that particular high school didn't have a game that night and when we looked closer, there were TV cameras everywhere on the field. I don't know how many people out there watch Friday Night Lights on NBC, but it's filmed here in Austin (particularly Pflugerville) and they were filming last night. Anyway, long story short, Jake and I just walked up on the set in the stands to see if we could see the stars of the show (which we did) and one of the production ladies asked if we wanted to be part of the fans so we put on some Dillon Panther T-shirts, signed our waivers and became instant tv show stars. haha No, really we just became another nameless face in the crowd yelling "DEFENSE". :-) But maybe, just maybe you can catch a glimpse of us on the show.

My First Steps.....

......well with a little help of course. I got this new toy just two days ago and I already know how to walk around pushing it!! Before long I'm gonna figure out how to walk all on my own......then Mommy and Daddy really won't be able to keep up with me. hee hee hee
Check me out in this clip:

Sick household

It's been a rough week around here. Nathan came down with a cold on tuesday and Jake has been having some serious sinus issues and now I'm starting to feel like a cold is coming on......sigh. It's been a long time since I've had to be up all night with a crying baby. Hopefully he'll be feeling better soon so he can get some good sleep.....poor baby has little bags under his eyes.





Ironically, Nathan had his 9 month well-check on tuesday morning and the doctor said he had perfect health......famous last words. That night was when the snot storm hit.





He weighs 21 lbs 4 oz and measures 29 in. He is in the 75 percentile for height and weight so he's a big boy for his age.





Here's a clip of him crawling

Mommy, can I go outside?????

Mmmm cooooookie........

Prayer Requests

I have a few prayer requests.......
1) My Granny (dad's side) is recovering from a triple-bypass and valve replacement heart surgery. It is a miracle she survived the surgery (the doc said 1 in 3 chance) and has a long road to recovery.
2) My Grandma (mom's side) is having surgery on her lung monday (9/17) to remove a cancerous tumor (which has reappeared after 4 years of being in remission).

Thanks for the prayers!!

New Church

After many years as members of Hyde Park Baptist, we have decided to find a new church home. We wanted to find something a little closer to home and just needed a change. We are now members of Celebration Church in Georgetown, TX. We absolutely love it there. It is VERY different from HPBC and it took me a few visits to get used to it because it is very contemporary/charismatic, but now that is one of the things I love about it. The Pastor is awesome and the people there are SO nice and welcoming. This church is very focused on the next generation and that was very important to us. Jake is now a part of the Greeter team and I am praying about serving on the Media team doing webmaster stuff. I do miss our friends at HPBC, but we still get to see most of them because our kiddos play together.

Here's the link to our church: http://www.celebrationchurchtx.com

Got Teeth?

We have finally got some teeth! Nathan got his two bottom teeth at the same time....yikes! Overall he did very well with them. He was only fussy during the day, but he slept great at nights (only waking once or twice).

Can you see my pearly whites??

Pulling Up

I finally got Nathan caught pulling up on video. :-) Now that he has learned to pull himself up (which he now tries to pull up on everything), he's taken alot more spills lately getting back down. Or he will get so excited when he gets up that he will start bouncing and lose his balance and fall over. haha

First Blog....Finally

Ok so I finally get with the times and create a family blog. I know I should have started this like 9 months ago when our lives got really interesting with our new baby boy, but hey better late than never right? Hopefully I'll keep it up-to-date. :-)

Well where do I start.......Almost 9 months ago Jake and I had a beautiful baby boy named Nathan Jacob John. He has been the joy of our lifetime. Life has definitely changed around here since Nathan arrived, but it all has been for the better. Even Jake and I's marriage has gotten stronger. We both realize that it is very important to make time for each other and continue to nurture our marriage as well as be parents (which is hard sometimes to find time for each other). As much as we love that little boy, we cannot neglect our marriage.

So more about Nathan.......He is all over the place! When he wants to get somewhere quickly, he does the army crawl, otherwise, he will crawl for real. Just today he pulled up on one of his toys to a full stance! He even stood with just one hand on the toy. I think it will be no time at all before this boy takes off walking (which I don't know if I'm ready for yet). I am constantly chasing him around the house, pulling him away from cords, dirty shoes, etc. Our house has definitely become "kid zone". I had to put away some nice decorations, move the coffee table out, put away the plants, etc. He still primarily eats baby food. I have tried some table food (peas, green beans, pinto beans, mashed potatoes), but he doesn't like it yet. He spits it out. However, he loves nutrigrain bars, yogurt and puffs. We have weaned from breastfeeding (going on 5 days now) and are now doing 4 bottles of formula a day. I started having supply issues and since he's about 9 months and will be moving to whole milk in 3 months I decided that it was time to wean. Our goal was breastfeeding for 6 months and we surpassed that so we're happy.

Having fun with Daddy and Mommy: