Playing Outside in January

This past week the weather was rainy, but warm enough to play outside when it was not too wet. After lunch, Beau and I played outside for almost an hour. He was fascinated by the big tree in our front yard. It had a hole where the rain water had collected. Beau loved putting sticks, leaves, and most of all, his hands in the water. Then, he entertained himself by putting things in the hood of his car....sticks, leaves, bark, whatever he could find. This child loves to be outside. I am learning to like it more because I know for many years to come, most of my time will be spent outside playing with him!

Blanket Time

Rodney and I decided to start trying "Blanket Time" with Beau when he turned 18 months old. In December, he turned 18 months old, so we started this process. We put Beau on a blanket and gave him a few toys. We told him to stay on the blanket until we told him it was okay to get up. This is supposed to help him learn to be disciplined at home and outside the home. Anyway, the first few times, he would get up and run around the blanket. But, the other day he sat on the blanket for 10 minutes solid! I was only going to try for 5 minutes, but let him keep going once he went over 5 minutes. He was entertaining himself by his cell phone and the boots (of course!)

Goodbye 2008, Hello 2009!

Rodney and I celebrated New Year's Eve by dinner out while Nona and Papa (Rodney's parents) watched Beau. We then ate some cake and ice cream and watched a movie on the couch. We rang in the new year with New York and then headed to bed. Beau even slept in on New Year's Day until 8:30. It was such a treat for us!

Rodney and I both had to agree that 2008 has been the worst year of our lives together. We have had several family members pass away, family members battle cancer,3 sets of great friends move away, Rodney's parents moved 2 hours away, and the list could go on and on!

However, We did have a huge blessing in 2008 that I could quit my job teaching at stay at home with Beau. We found a great house that we could afford on Rodney's income, so we prayed about it and went ahead and bought it while we still owned our other house. We never thought that in May of 2008 we would find out that the house would be deemed "unsellable" due to foundation issues when it was built.So, in May, I resigned from my job to stay at home with our child, we had 2 homes with 2 sets of bills and were on one paycheck. The last 6 or so months of 2008, our prayer has been "God Are you still there?" "Did you forget about us?" Our old community is still waiting on a solution from the builder/developer, so after much prayer, we put the house up for rent.

Thankfully on Jan. 2nd, 2009, renters moved in and will be living there for 1 year. We are so thankful that the Lord did hear our prayers for provision and guidance in 2008, He just answered them differently than we had thought/wanted. Don't you love when that happens?

Rodney and I are praying for and believing for a fantastic 2009! Here are our some of our favorite pics of 2008 with Beau....

January 2008

February 2008

March 2008

April 2008

May 2008





Both of June 2008 (1st birthday and 1st beach trip)

July 2008



August 2008

September 2008


October 2008

November 2008


December 2008

Christmas 2008

We celebrated Christmas Day by breakfast at our house, lunch with Rodney's family and dinner with my family. Beau was a trooper that day, even though he was still recovering from his fever virus.






(This is from zoolight safari that we went to before Christmas...but it is one of the few pictures where I am holding Beau and he is smiling....He LOVED their "snow" that was falling)




Beau enjoyed all the gifts and toys that were given to him that day. His current top 2 favorites are:

"Boots" My Aunt Patti gave him these boots. Whenever we go anywhere, these are the shoes he wants to wear. Rodney and I even hid them in his closet, but Beau found them yesterday and so we have been wearing the "boots" everywhere again. He does look super cute in them!



"Monk-Monk" This is a stuffed animal, technically called a "Fur-Real Friend" that Rodney's cousin gave Beau. This monkey cries when he is hungry and he makes sleeping sounds when you lay him down. Beau loves to carry "Monk-Monk" everywhere with him. We have already lost the bottle that the monkey drinks from, so Beau feeds the monkey his sippy cup and popcorn for a snack. It is too cute!

Christmas Eve in the ER

Well, on Christmas Eve morning (at 1 am) we got to take our 3rd trip to the ER at Children's with Beau. I think he is the only baby I know that has been there 3 times already in his 18 months of life. (The first time was when he rolled off the couch at 6 weeks old...who knew he could roll that early? The 2nd time was when we realized peanut butter gave him a scary looking rash)

It started on Monday with Beau running a fever off and on. Then on Tuesday he still had a fever off an on. This was how he was almost all day on Monday and Tuesday. He would try to play, and then get so tired.



I called his pediatrician Tuesday afternoon to see if we could come in, but they were full already. So, she redirected us to Children's after hours clinic who would call us that night for an appt. We went there at 6 and it was a great experience. They said Beau had a viral infection and we just had to wait it out. They told us if his fever got to be 104 or higher to go to the ER though. So, at 12:30 am on Chistmas Eve Rodney brought Beau to me in the bed and said that he couldn't get Beau to stop shaking. Our thermometer showed his temp to be 105+, and the medicine we gave him was not helping it go down , so we headed to the ER. Once we got there, they gave Beau more medicine to get his fever under control. We waited several hours so they could rule out spinal meningitis and a few other infectious diseases, and were released at 4:30 am with the doctor telling us the same thing the previous doctor told us...just a viral infection. We were very happy with that diagnosis and went home.

Beau ran a fever all day on Christmas Eve, but thankfully it broke around midnight and he was fever free on Christmas Day. He was able to really enjoy Christmas Day with his family and all the yummy food and gifts that were given to him.

We took a few pictures in the ER with our phone....the favorite toy for Beau was definitely the doctor's stool....

Beau Loves His Daddy!

Recently, Beau has fallen even more in love with his Dad. It is very sweet the bond they have. A friend told me this happened to her son around 18 months, and so I was ready for it when Beau turned 18 months last week. We went to Auburn this past weekend, and Beau is definitely not a fan of long car rides. So, on the way home, Rodney entertained him with Beau's favorite stuffed animal, "lamby". Rodney let lamby drive the car for half an hour or so, and Beau laughed the whole time! If I had done that, Beau would have given me a look like "what's so funny about that momma?"





He also loves to enjoy a special dessert sometimes with his Daddy. This day Rodney came home for lunch and had ice cream with chocolate sauce for dessert. Beau enjoyed a cookie with some chocolate sauce. You can see the joy on this child's face because he rarely gets anything like that!





These are how most of our picture are...me holding Beau and smiling, and Beau chewing on something looking not interested that I am holding him...Oh well, I know he loves me too!

Here Comes Santa ...and the tears!

Last Friday, Rodney met Beau and I at the mall for lunch and to see Santa. Beau was all smiles in the Santa line. He loved seeing the kids and babies that were there. He was even all smiles as we got onto Santa's platform. When I handed Beau over to Santa, the meltdown started. It got better when Santa handed Beau the candy cane, but Beau was still gripping the chair. About 3 seconds after the picture was taken, Beau burst into tears again. We grabbed him off Santa and it took him a few minutes to settle down.

Unfortunately, Santa is not the only person Beau cries when he is given to. He cries when Rodney leaves, when I leave, when we drop him off in the nursery, and even sometimes when he is with our families and we leave to go run errands. We are hoping this phase that started 2-3 weeks ago, goes away just as quickly as it came!