11 months

Big boy...almost a year!  How is it time for this monthly update already?  You are becoming more of a little boy and less of a baby every day.  It's a little scary, but it's fun to see you grow.

A few things about you...you're somewhere around 22 pounds according to our little bathroom scale.  You seem to be growing in length like a weed, quickly outgrowing your zip up pajamas. And sweet boy, you are wild.  Sometimes you resemble a tornado, flying through the house and tearing through a basket of toys in a heartbeat.  You sure do know how to make a mess, but it's okay.  It's a good thing you're cute.

You are mischievous. I'm still trying to figure out how you learned that. Like in this picture:

In the few seconds I had my eyes off of you while I was in the shower, you managed to shimmy your way over to the toilet paper in your doorway jumper.  You pulled the entire roll of toilet paper off...the entire roll.  And I couldn't even be mad at you because it was so so funny.

Your daddy sent me this picture at work, taken while he was in the shower:

 He said you started leaning, and leaning, and walked your little fit up the door frame until you were upside down.  And you just stayed there, smiling behind your pacifier until he could jump out of the shower, take a picture, then rescue you.  Was that fun?  Maybe the moral of the story is that we need a new way to entertain you while we're in the shower.

You are a FLIRT. In the grocery store, you stop people in their tracks with your smile.  You think it's necessary to wave to everyone.  And if they look at you and don't wave back, you keep waving and smiling.  And then they have no choice, because they are captivated by the cuteness and are completely under your spell, just like we are.  It makes grocery shopping fun, but more often than not, I forget to buy things that I went there for in the first place because you're so distractingly cute.

You had your first kiss this month.  Miss Tenley Mae Martin was the lucky recipient.  She's an older woman, too.

Why is it when daddy and I try to kiss you, you stiff arm us and turn away?  I understand Tenley is pretty and all, but we're your parents!  And you are so kissable.  

You are 100% boy.  Trucks, tractors, anything big and loud, you love it all.  You thought you were hot stuff on the gator at daddy's workshop.

You love to crawl in, over, and under things.  Including cabinets...

And tunnels...

 

And one of your favorite things to do is watch out the front door, waiting for dad to get home from work.   You and Lexi look out the door together, and for a brief moment in time you're both calm and still.  When you see your daddy, you yell (and I mean yell) DA DA DA DA! And do a little happy dance.  It melts my heart.

We bought you your first baseball hat.  And you don't mind wearing it!  I love it.  It reminds me of your Uncle J when he was a little boy.  Always wearing a hat.  It makes you look like such a little boy, with no hints of a baby left.  You wore it to the park a few days ago and kept it on the whole time, swinging and playing and riding in the stroller.

Then you wore it to dinner, but we took it off after we got to the table because that's the polite thing to do.

You want to walk.  Oh you want to walk so badly.  This is your new trick:

 

 Pushing the kitchen chairs around, from the table to the stove and back...twice.  You think you're hot stuff, walking around like that.  For some reason, you'd much rather push the chair than walk in your walker.

You have your front teeth coming in!  It's made sleeping and eating rough, but the snaggletooth will soon be no more!  You won't let me get a picture, but trust me...they are poked through your gums!

This morning you woke up at 6:30.  It hurt. You normally sleep until 8:00.  This collage of pictures was from this morning...Hence the coffee.

We love you more than words can say.  You are wild and crazy and sweet and lovable.  Keep being you. 

love,

mom and dad.

sold!

Guys.  We sold our house.  IN 4 DAYS.

We listed our house on Saturday after spending lots of effort getting it 'ready to show' by replacing pictures of us on the walls, packing up excess stuff and putting it in boxes in the garage, rearranging furniture, and cleaning cleaning cleaning.  Then pictures of our house had to be taken and posted online.  We we dreading the process of showing the house, keeping it spotless and ready to show in a minute's notice.  That is a dreadful experience with a baby and a dog, you know?  not to mention leaving the house for the showings with a sometimes sleepy baby and a crazy dog.  yuck.

We had 2 showings on Sunday, the day after it was listed. Then one on Tuesday. Then Wednesday morning, we got the call. We had an offer! And a good offer at that.

So we are under contract, after 3 showings in 4 days. And no more showings!

We are thankful and humbled and overwhelmed with God's goodness and provision.

for sale.

Our house is for sale.  Our.house.is.for.sale.  Our house is for sale.  No matter how I say it, it's still hard for me to believe!  I came home from work and this sign was in our front yard, and it hit me.  Our house is for sale.  

So here's the scoop. It's been up in the air over the past year-ish whether or not we would be in this area long term.  But as of early January, some doors closed and other doors opened and Brandon got a full time position approved at the church, so we are thankful to now feel like we can settle in this area.  We then knew that we needed to make a decision about our house...either refinance our current house, or sell our house and buy a new one (because have you seen interest rates these days?  Amazing.)  If we refinanced our current house, it would commit us to staying here for a few years.  We knew that wasn't the right decision for us, because as much as I love our house, it's not the place we want to be when Lucas starts school.  And if this is the time we could get a bigger house in a better school district for a lot less money than ever will be possible, then now's the time to do it.  So we consulted a realtor friend (yes, Santa is our realtor!) and began to get our house ready to put on the market and look at potential houses to buy.   

And we found a house we love.  And we put an offer in on it.  And they accepted it so now we're under contract.  And oh my gosh, that happened fast, now we need to sell our house! (See why I'm behind on blogging?  We have been a little busy.) 

As exciting and scary and bittersweet as this whole process of selling our house is, I look back over the past 4 years in this house and smile.  This was a good first house.  We have made it a home.  We have made neighbor friends.  We have said goodbye to some neighbor friends.  We have painted, built, and fixed things in this house.  We have had lots of laughs in this house.  We have had some hard times in this house.  We have grown in our marriage in this house.  We brought our first dog home to this house.  We found out we were pregnant in this house.  We watched my pregnant belly grow in this house.  We labored into the wee hours of the morning in this house.  We brought our first baby home to this house.  We rocked our new baby during all hours of the night in this house. We have lived and grown as a family of 3 in this house. And now it's time to move on.

So let's sell a house!

yes, we're still alive.

Friends.  I'm sorry for the lack of posts in the past month.  Don't be mad, okay?  We've been busy and I promise to catch you up soon, just be patient!

I promise I'll give you the pictures and stories from Lucas's first Christmas and a little taste of southern snow and all of the other shenanigans that have been going on around here.  I do have good excuses for my absence...between Lucas cruising around here like a maniac and trying to cut a mouthful of teeth and us trying to get our house ready to put on the market and buying a new house, it's been chaos.  And yes, I said we are moving.  What?!?!  Surprise!  We're staying around here, don't worry.  Like I said, be patient and I'll fill you in when I have a second to breathe.

I'll probably back date the posts since this old blog is serving as a scrapbook type thing for our little family, so don't be confused if December posts start to pop up.  Thanks for understanding, y'all :)

what happens at nana and poppy's...

Lucas and I spent a few days in Asheville while Brandon was at a conference with the students from church.  Some of these pictures are a repeat from his 10 month post but they were too cute not to share again!

a day at the park

reading with Poppy

Lucas had a fever one night we were there. He was pitiful, but extra snuggly.

Poppy has a remote control helicopter that Lucas is fascinated by

and only at Nana and Poppy's house can you play in the closet butt naked and take books off of the shelf and throw them on the floor...

bang bang bang on the piano!

chewing on anything hard and cold.  

We love you, Nana and Poppy!!!

snow!

We had a small dusting of snow that lasted for about 12 hours.  But Lucas saw it!  So officially it was his first snow.  We were out eating dinner and it was pouring rain.  Then all of a sudden, the pouring rain changed to pouring snow!  I took Lucas outside and he was looking up at the sky blinking his eyes quickly as the snowflakes were hitting them.

Then once we got home, he loved watching the snow fall on the back porch.

What a treat to have a little bit of snow in the south.  We'd love one more big one so we can play in it!

10 months

Double digits.  Whew.  Don't panic.

Lucas is crazy fun, crazy cute, and crazy crazy.  He is a boy on the move and is so expressive when he gets excited or thinks something is funny.  He is determined...which honestly is a nice way to say he's a bit hard-headed.  I wonder where he got that?  If he wants something, he goes after it full steam ahead.

He has learned how to shake his head "no" when we tell him "no-no" and it is the cutest thing in the world.  I do think that he knows what "no" means too...because he takes pieces of food that he should be eating in his chubby little fingers and looks at us, then leans down out of his high chair and feeds it to Lexi, all the while mischievously grinning and shaking his head "no" back and forth.  How do you fuss at him for feeding his lunch to the dog when he's doing that?!  Too cute, I tell you.  Also, he has mastered the wave.  He waves bye-bye and sometimes will say his own version of "bye-bye" sounding more like "ba ba! ba ba!"  And he moves his little hand up and down at the wrist, waving to everyone who will look at him.  Other than that, his words seem to still just be ma-ma and da-da that are used in the correct context, and the rest of the conversations he has with us make perfect sense to him, just not to anyone else.

From our little scale at home he's about 21 pounds. He seems to be getting tall quickly, and slimming down as he grows.

And an update from last month, his teeth...We still have a snaggle tooth.

The other 3 front ones still aren't in.  And it's really sad because I know they are hurting him.  He hasn't been eating well in the past week or so, and I think the teeth are to blame. Any day now.  Come on teeth!  Another update from last month, little man has figured out how to sit down.  Hallelujah.  So now he's up! and down! and standing! and crawling! and cruising!

Lucas loves going on adventures with us. He loves the grocery store and Lowes.  He's quite distracting though, flirting with everyone that goes by.  

He has learned how to climb stairs so our baby gate has made it's debut.

Before the teeth issue, he was a great eater.  He would down a grilled cheese sandwich no problemo.  And he loves eating independently. He likes peas, carrots, yogurt, oatmeal, pancakes, cheese anything, goldfish, and juice in a sippy cup.

He's pretty obvious when he's taking care of business, if you know what I mean...

this was in chick-fil-a...and people were watching. love this kid.

Lucas loves bath time!  He gets so excited and splashes and chews on the wash cloth.

And he is learning lots from his big sister.  Like crawling in her crate.

And crawling around with things in his mouth...?

He loves to play! 

And he loves to bang on anything. The piano is especially fun.

And yes, he loves being naked.

Little boy, you are too much.  You are charming and funny and adorably sweet. We love you to the moon and back.