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SANTA came to our house!!!

Whew...what a big morning we have had at the Eason house! Year after year we talk about trimming things down but I swear the gifts keep multiplying! We are certainly overly blessed and this CHRISTmas season I am really feeling that. We love our families so much and are incredibly fortunate that they are willing to travel to see us. We certainly miss our families at home and can't wait until we're together again!

Here are some pictures of the merriment that went on this morning at our house:

Hayes with his Uncle Jack...I realize this picture is sideways but I could not fix it no matter how many times I tried! Hayes will reach for Uncle Jack even when I am holding him (that's huge...he doesn't even do that with Joey very often :O)

Hayes got a train set from his great-grandparents a talking car set with a mat from his grandparents....here he is showing us that he can play with them at the same time.

The first thing Hayes did when he saw his stash of Santa goodies was get them off his blanket! He must have thought that Santa was trying to pull a fast one on him and was trying to hide his blanket!

We love you all and miss you lots! Have a very Merry Christmas and I hope to see you all soon!

I'm a big boy now...

My son will have to be described as fiercely independent...he does not want our help with anything that he thinks he can do for himself. This includes:

- drinking out of a regular cup (can't drink out of a sippy when in their presence
- eating - the time has passed where he looks to mom and dad for assistance. He wants none of it unless he does it!

These also happen to be the messiest things we do ;)

He still loves to snuggle and looks for comfort from us which is enough to keep us going ;)

P.S. Check out that hair!!

Merry Christmas!

We are a very happy family this week! Joey and I have the week off and we are getting to stay home and not rush around the southeast chasing our families! We are so incredibly blessed that our wonderful families have agreed to come see us!

The Easons just left today after a quick but great trip up here. Hayes' Aunt Emlyn brought him these precious Santa pjs and we were so happy to see her!!

15 (or 16-ish) month check-up

We went to the doctor today for a check-up. Hayes is now 26# 15oz (up from 26-ish 3 months ago) and a whopping 85cm/33in in height!!! He is about 75th percentile for weight and 95th for height!! WHOA...he jumped up a notch or two on the height...he might be as tall a his Papa Eason or at least his Uncle Jack?!

He got 4 shots AND a finger stick (recheck if his lead level because it came back at 4 and should be ZERO!) so that's enough to make any cool guy a little pissy. He wasn't happy but calmed down as soon as we got in the car and left that place in the dust!

I love my big/tall boy so much!

Feeding myself is SO messy!

But SO fun ;)

You are not a southern baby if....

Does this violate child labor laws?!

First snowfall of the season!

Now THAT's progress!

Almost there! Just need to have the painters come in one more time to finish up and then we're done with the kitchen!

And new shoes!

I tried the shoes on him before I took the tags off to make sure they fit. When I took them away to clip the tags, he pitched a fit to have them back! Boys like new shoes too ;)

I got sunglasses ;)

Kitchen Progress?

Here's where we are right now:

Cuties of my Cutie!!

Some random pics from the last month:

Hayes can now climb onto the foot rest of the recliner....and onto chairs (including dining room chairs....and then onto the TABLE!! Ugh, this is not fun :) Exciting but not fun!

Joey says that sometimes I smile so big that I squint my eyes and he calls it "cheesing it up"...this absolutely qualifies!

Hayes is now feeding himself but he wants to run away with the fork after he uses it...accident prone little boy with sharp, metal fork, running in footie pajamas??? I think not!

Here's our big boy in a big chair! Joey tried to sit in the chair with him after this and Hayes was pushing him out of the chair! Too funny :)

One thing I haven't gotten a picture of yet are his woobies....when he gets up in the morning he will stand by his crib and try to pull out one of his fuzzy blankets and his puppy (that we call Gussie because his Aunt Beth and Uncle Billy gave him the puppy and they have a dog named Gussie). Then he carries them around "Linus"-style (Charlie Brown). It is so cute!

This also qualifies...

For "party in the back" ;). His curls are so cute!

Party in the back!

Business up front...

Stinkin' Cute

Hayes got his winter cap this week! Yes, it has turned chilly here in VA!

Pumpkin Patch!

Happy October!

We packed up the kiddos this past weekend and headed out to the pumpkin patch. Turns out that it's only about 30min north of the city and it is a huge farm! The Ashland Berry Farm has fields and fields of pumpkins and they start by taking you on a hay ride which Hayes and Amelia liked but they were far more interested in the tractor pulling us!

He's looking at the tractor :)

Both kids walked all over the place and most of the time were more interested in playing in the dirt than picking out pumpkins! Did you know that the stems of pumpkins are prickly??? I learned that piece of trivia the hard way! Thankfully B (Amelia's dad) came prepared with a knife otherwise we would have to gnaw our way to getting a pumpkin.

To top it all off, they run a special for $20 you can take all the pumpkins that you can carry taking 3 steps. Joey got nominated for this task and B was the strategic pumpkin-loader. Turns out that it doesn't really matter, we took home 8 pumpkins but about 4 of them fell during those 3 short steps...they don't really want to keep you from taking the pumpkins home, they just want your $20 :)

Hayes is carting away our loot :)

He did what?!

Yep, Hayes BROKE A TOOTH! This is not late-breaking news or anything. It happened a day or so before his one-year (read 13-month) check-up. I noticed that his b-e-a-u-tiful right top front tooth was the victim of trauma! Thankfully, it was not jagged and he never acted as if this bothered him.

So we went to our scheduled MD appointment and she recommended that he start seeing a dentist regularly anyway (at 1-year?!). So we made an appointment with a pediodontist who was as sweet and bubbly as she could be. Hayes, however, does not trust anyone trying to pry his lips open for any reason! Fortunately, on their first visit, the dentist said that she just likes to look and not try to do anything major because she wants the babies to start feeling comfortable with the dentist office.

She said that the break in the tooth is just through the enamel and so shouldn't bother him when he drinks etc. She also said that she doesn't recommend any intervention and that we can discuss cosmesis when he's 3-4 (I don't see that happening!). I'll try to take a picture but he doesn't really smile a toothy-grin on command :)

I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry

I know that I have been noticeably absent. I just hope that my grandparents are still diligently checking the blog nightly and are able to see this apology as well as the fun videos I just posted.

I don't know how people such as my friends C&C juggle as much as they do - two very busy full time jobs, two beautiful and happy and smart children, family, friends, studying, church, not to mention time with each other, house work, etc - because we are struggling just with the ONE baby!

He is wonderful, he does get cranky but I think it's because when we're home, we're boring! And we bore him and he gets cranky. But when Joey and I finally make it home at the same time, we're worn out. My husband is also wonderful, but he works longer hours than I do so the secretarial work of the house falls to me because I typically get about 30min of daylight before "close of business" at 5p.

I'm not complaining...just making excuses for why I have been gone from blogging so long! Either way, great post, right?!

What we're up to:

- One year check-up: 31", 26#, healthy and perfect!! They did give him THREE shots (boo) and PRICKED his finger (which I still have nightmares about from childhood) and took what felt like a LITER of blood from that one prick

- Redoing the kitchen (yeah, I felt that I didn't have enough to do :)) - the tile and granite are done and they are coming to pick up the new kitchen doors on Monday to start painting them

- I recently finished my first Grand Rounds and it went well and I am so happy that I don't have to do another until the end of next year!!

- Joey passed his physics test!!! WHOO HOO

- Hayes has a new nanny (our former nanny up and moved to MEXICO!) and he is really doing well

- He recently had a roseola virus...that was a fun weekend. BUT that was his first fever EVER.

- We went over to Williamsburg recently to see Grandmother Ames. Mom and Dad were up here too and it was a fun weekend together!

- We are planning for our Thanksgiving visitors and hoping that the kitchen will be completely done by then! My Grandparents are coming up with their entourage and we are going to go see the WWII memorial in DC among other things. I am SO excited about the trip!! AND I am hoping that we see Joey's parents up here that week too since my whole family will have to leave to make sure the AU-UA game is well staffed :)

I LOVE YOU ALL AND MISS YOU LOTS!

Dancing

My little boy loves to dance! It is SO stinkin' cute I can barely stand it!! JoLynn gave H another singing card (he slap wore out the first one she gave us!) and this is him dancing to the song.

Walking

So, I know this is a little old. This is uploaded by request of Meredith who has not been able to see him walk in person! So this is for all the people who love Hayes but can't see him every day!

Roll Tide!!

Yep...he's wearing my necklace :)

I'm sick and I don't feel good!

What a crappy weekend for my little man! I suspect that he's not sick-sick but feeling crummy because of the fever that I think it from some new teeth. Arg! Why do we need more teeth?! :)

Story time with Aunt Beth

My son does not like to play in the dirt ;)

Happy ELEVEN-Month Birthday, Hayes!!

Where did my little baby go?! He is SO MUCH FUN but I can tell he is getting frustrated with not being able to communicate and that he has so much to say to us.

He still loves being the center of attention and, in less than one month, he gets to be the BIRTHDAY BOY!

At eleven months, he is:

- Feeding himself with finger foods...and then spitting them out and dropping them on the floor

- He dances to music and it is so cute! (He is still white though!)

- He is still cruising around but now starting to walk with a walker (Nana and Papa bought him a truck walker). But his favorite way to push it is SIDEWAYS!

- He does a little standing on his own but not for very long

- Starting to make his own language

- Getting picky about what foods he eats (whose child is he?!)

- He is starting to put himself to bed. He will get me to pick him up and then he will turn himself toward me and close his eyes!

- Still HATES his car seat but juice makes it better.

- He loves knocking down the blocks when we build up a tower.

- Playing with BALLS! Amelia has a soccer ball and Nana and Papa bought him two bouncy balls and he LOVES to throw them! What a boy :)

- Handing stuff to me and then taking it back.

- He loves to unload our cabinet in the bathroom...every morning while we're getting ready

- He's getting the hang of Mama and Dadda

- He loves swimming/getting in the water/playing in the bath

- He can climb the stairs...oh yeah, this is scary!

Right before I took this video, Hayes was dancing to the music at the end of Dirty Dancing (he dances whenever music comes on!), but alas he would not keep dancing once the camera came out!

CMOR with my BFF

We went to the Children's Museum of Richmond with Amelia, Ben, and Laila last weekend. Whew, what a day! It ended with Hayes and Amelia soaking wet. We came home and Hayes passed out at 6:30p for the rest of the night!!

Mr. Ben performed with hand-puppets very well....strangely enough, though, they all had the same animal sound!!

"No, I know where I'm going...I don't need a map!"

This was a interesting interactive farming system where the kids were supposed to sort the vegetables. But what do kids love more than sorting? Yep, putting things in their mouth!!!

Here is where we ended the day. Amelia was desperate to get wet and her parents gave in...then Hayes was looking so longingly at the water that I gave in too! They had so much fun getting soaking wet!

Peek-a-boo!

Nana & Papa's visit

I love my Nana!!

And my Papa! He makes funny noises that make me laugh and squeal!

Hayes is always willing to be the center of attention and his Nana and Papa definitely provide that for him! We loved having them here and can't wait to see them again in August for Hayes' first!

Ms. Nancy's came to see us!

I am so happy that we were able to see Ms. Nancy and she was able to meet Hayes!!! Hayes loved playing and showed showed off his toys and his house. I am so glad when people come to see me!!! Hint, hint :)

My New Red Wagon

Thank you, Nana & Papa!

All 4 of my teeth!

Happy Father's Day!

This was Joey's first Father's Day! We started the day by letting him sleep in (just a little bit) and then made him get out and run errands! This is after he worked on Saturday, too.

But he did get to take a nap with his Little Man (Joey didn't get to sleep much but Hayes did) and we were spending time together which is the most important thing in the world.

I hated that we missed getting to see our dads. We love you both and can't wait to see you again!!

Beach Trip

We decided to go over to Virginia Beach for a long weekend a couple of weeks ago. We wanted to Hayes to get his first "taste" of the beach. He was a little so-so on the whole beach experience but loved the pool! Unfortunately, the beach is not the Gulf beaches that we're used to...nor was the place we stayed the condos that we're used to!

Oh well, it was a get-away none-the-less and it was nice to take a break from studying, bills, and laundry!

Here Hayes is demonstrating the importance of carb-loading before a big day on the sand!

So pensive!

First wave jumping :)

I made the turtle...Hayes was not impressed.

I'm ready to go to the beach!!

I did say "taste" of the beach :)

He was also taking the sand and putting it on his legs and on Joey's legs! So funny :)

Williamsburg, VA

When Mom was here, we went over to Williamsburg, braved the relentless heat, and walked around a truly beautiful town! We were moving from shade tree to shade tree to TRY to keep cool. Joey and I even took Hayes into one of the smaller buildings just to get him into the air conditioning. It was so fun though and we got to watch a reinactment while we were there which we weren't even expecting! Thanks, Mom for the great trip!

Hayes is ready to ride in this picture :)