Tuesday, December 12, 2006

trip to Black Mountain

We had a great trip to Black Mountain, NC last weekend. We just love it up there. It was freeeeezing, but fun. Julie's Aunt Shirley and Uncle Arnold are just the best. Here are some pictures from the weekend -

At our favorite restaurant in Black Mountain, having a little shopping break.


















Hanging out on Shirley and Arnold's porch. Jim's 'running man' made an appearance.
















Jason, Jim and Arnold played some great Christmas songs and some other fun stuff, too. They're taking a break here, but check out Arnold's home made bass.

Wednesday, December 06, 2006

Thanksgiving turkey

Okay, so my brother Scott and his friend DG were trying to figure out what Scott could bring to Thanksgiving dinner...here is what they came up with. They stayed up until something like 3am working on this. Scott and DG's famous Rice Krispie turkey! Happy Thanksgiving!!

Tuesday, December 05, 2006

Thanksgiving

Silas had a fun and busy Thanksgiving Day. We started off with lunch at his great-grandparents' house and visited with the great-grands, Grammy, Reginald, Nickle Pickle, Skeeter and soon-to-be-Aunt Tracey, Boo and her duck Hal. Not every kid gets to spend his Thanksgiving afternoon with a really cool duck, so we think Silas as very lucky. You may be asking yourself why everyone in my family has weird names. I actually dont' know the answer to it; my aunts are called Sasta and Boo, so we carried on the tradition with Scott and Nick being called Skeeter and Pickle. Tracey gets off easy for now....hee hee.

For dinner we went to Merle and Dianne's house and met Silas' six-month old cousin, Josiah, for the first time!! It was so great to see Josiah, Travis and Jessica. Josiah is a super happy, laughy, interactive little guy. We can't wait until he and Silas can wrestle around and play basketball together. They're only about 10 1/2 months apart, so there is lots of fun to be had.
Emily and Ethan were great, too. They get so much bigger every time we see them. If anyone ever need someone to make really authentic animal noises, then Ethan is your guy. Emily and Silas played almost the whole time. I can't believe that she wasn't exhausted at the end of the day, but I don't think she was. She was great.

We visited w/ everyone again on Saturday for the Ga-Ga Tech game. Actually, Jason had to work but I was able to tailgate with Pat, Shellie, Travis and Jessica. Dianne and Jessica's mom kept all the grandkids for us!! It was FUN.

Thanksgiving extended all the way until Sunday for us, and we had a post-Thanksgiving dinner at my Dad's. It's great having extended-blended families, being around lots of different people and trying to come up with names for how you are related - yes, this is my step-brother-in-law. or something like that. Anyway. It was fun.

Next comes finals week! Then Christmas! THEN 2007?!?! Wow.

pictures at Nana and Papa's

Pictures from Thanksgiving at Nana and Papa's house....

Silas and Emily















Travis and Josiah
















Silas and the tricycle! WOW, that's a happy face!

Wednesday, November 01, 2006

Halloween

Arrrrrgh
Happy Halloween

We had a great time on Halloween! All three of us dressed up like pirates, and I have to say that we looked GREAT!! Ha. Really, though. I think I'm going as a pirate every single year from now on. Plus, being a pirate gives you the excuse to carry around rum and no one asks why.








Here are some pictures from the night. Grandpa and Cathie came by to see our (well, mostly Silas') costumes. Dad was an agricultural pimp. You'll have to ask him what that is if you really want to know.

Then we went trick-or-treating with the neighbors and some of their friends. That was fun! Silas got super excited when we would go up to people's houses and loved getting candy from them. Of course, Silas isn't the one that really eats the candy...we'll just say that Jason had a stomach ache last night and leave it at that.

Overall, it was a great night.
Arrrgh. We hope you had a good one too, matey.

Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum.

Saturday, October 28, 2006

pics

Here are some of my favorite pictures from the past couple of months :)







Thursday, October 19, 2006

Ahhh, October.


Yippee, it's October, and it finally feels like Fall! Ahh, one of my favorite times of the year...we've gotten all moved into our new house, thanks to lots of help from family and friends.

October also brings lots of celebrations
Happy Anniversary on the 10th to Mom and Reginald, and to Julie and James Markley who are expecting their first baby in about 14 days! Happy Birthday to Reginald, who celebrated on the 12th. And Julie and Jim celebrate their 4th anniversary TODAY (Happy Anniversary!) Julie has put some great pictures from their wedding up on their blog - www.casadecheney.blogspot.com

Silas is busy as ever - walking everywhere and really enjoying the new yard and neighborhood. The kids next door are adorable, and the youngest - the little girl - is only one month older than Silas! How perfect. He really likes watching the older boys ride their bikes around, too. It's a very family-friendly street, and since it's in a cul-de-sac, we don't have to worry about a lot of traffic....wow, how priorities change with kids!!

Hope you have a happy Fall!! :)

Thursday, September 14, 2006

Baby Steps

It's official!! Our little Silas is a toddler!! At 13 months and 4 weeks old, he took his first big steps last night across the living room floor. WE ARE SO PROUD!!
It was so exciting, and Jason and I are thrilled that we were both home to see the action. If you can imagine for yourself...

Scene: Living Room, early afternoon.
Characters: Silas, Daddy, Mama and a stuffed Giraffe

We are getting ready for Silas to race Stuffed Giraffe across the living room. He holds on to my hand, and he and Giraffe get ready to go. And - They're off!

"Dum-da-ta Dum-da-ta- Dum Dum Dum..." (Do the Lone Ranger Hi-O-Silver song).

Jason and I sing this as Silas holds on to my hand and laughs and races Giraffe across the carpet. All the way to the rocking chair they go...Oh! Giraffe is down with a sprained ankle! YAY - Silas is the winner!!

This must have been very exciting to him, because he plopped down on the floor and clapped. YAY! Good race. Then...

Silas pushed himself back up into a standing position and paused for a moment, as if gathering his thoughts about what to do next. One foot out...
"AAHH!! Oh my god!" we scream
...two steps.....three....
...ooh, a wobble, oh no! okay, he caught himself...
..four...five....
"Yaaaayyyyyy" we are screaming, wanting to look at each other but we don't want to take our eyes off of Silas either...
...six, seven, eight....landing against the couch cushion!!!!!!
WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

We felt like dancing and singing and crying, scooping our little walker up and hugging him tight!! He was very proud of himself but had no idea what we were going on and on about. Oh, the excitement that is about to begin...FUN!

Monday, September 11, 2006

life updates

Hello, hello.
Well, we've had a particularly busy and productive month, so we though we'd update everyone one on our recent activities. Over the past month, as we've mentioned, Jason was promoted to Zone Manager and is doing wonderfully with that new position. Graduate school is interesting and my brain is expanding more and more every day. And even more exciting news: we sold our house, bought another house, and found a wonderful home for our dog Owen!

Owie is spending this week with his potential new mom, and if everything goes well, he will stay there permanently. We think that this will give him a home that can provide him with more attention and someone that can focus all their energy on scratching his belly, playing soccer with him and enjoying his goofy self. We'll miss him a lot.

We'll be moving into our new house in Athens during the weekend of October 7th and 8th and will hand over the keys to our gingerbread-house-in-the-country to the new owners on October 9th. It's a bittersweet transition, but one that we are ready to make for our family. The gingerbread house is really more "us" but the new one is so convenient to everything and has lots more room, and it will literally take Jason 4 minutes to get to work. Family time together is waayyy more important than any house. We can't wait for you to come see us in our new digs!

Pictures: Old House, New House.

Tuesday, September 05, 2006

Celebrations for Jason!

Jason has had some celebrating to do recently...

September 4th was his 33rd birthday!
HAPPY BIRTHDAY JASON!!

And...another reason to celebrate is:
You're looking at the newest Zone Manager at Lowe's! Jason was promoted! Yay!!! He's done such a great job and we are SO proud of him. He's over 5 departments now and manages about 50 people. Wow.

Friday, August 25, 2006

Pictures

Here are some pictures from late July and early August.

Picture 1: Oh, I love my Dad. I'll tell you all about my day...
Picture 2: Ka-POW!! Take that head-butt (look at Jason's face on this one! It cracks me up)














THIS was a fun dinner time. These are actually posted in the order they were taken. The range of emotions is hilarious.

Picture 1: Not exactly sure what he wanted but he was upset about something!
Picture 2: What, do I have something on my face?
Picture 3: Hee, hee
Picture 4: That thing is STILL bothering me! Do something!

Gack!

That's the word of the month...Gack!
Everything is Gack. "Silas, where's the light?" He looks and points at the light and says "Gack!"
"Silas, where's the fan?" we say with enthusiasm. Again, he looks at the fan and says "Gack!"
"Where's the window?" "Where's Mama?" He looks right at what you're saying and responds with a happy "Gack!" to let you know that he knows what you're talking about.

The other day, we were looking at this little book that had a picture of a dog on one page, a cat on one page, and a cow on the last page. We took the pages apart and were talking to Silas about each animal and its sounds. When we put all three pictures out in front of him and asked "Silas, where's the kitty cat?", he actually picked out the right card! Jason was about to explode with excitement! We asked him each of the animals and he chose the correct one each time we said the animal. That was so much fun!! We're really working on ways that he can communicate with us other than saying words (because "Gack" is all we get) but it's obvious that he knows more than he can verbalize.

I think that I personally like this age the BEST so far. I love little cuddly tiny babies, too, but the budding communication skills and his personality coming out so much really makes this age special. I'm sure that we'll feel like that about almost every stage he goes through, but I've realized that maybe I'm better with slightly older babies than small infants :)

In other happy news, Jason has graduated from the Manager Training Program at Lowe's!! YAY. I'm so proud of him. He's officially Zone Manager Trained now, and can apply for any ZM position. For his training, he had to do various projects around the store, watch training videos, read a huge notebook of information and take tests every week for 9 weeks. He did great, and finished his final exam this past Monday. We're excited that he feels so hopeful about his job at Lowe's and where he can go with it.

This past week was also the beginning of Fall semester for me. Whew! Whatever made me want to try and pack every minute of the day with something?! I have no idea. I'm taking two classes, which are Teaching Writing and Teaching Reading. Obviously, to teach reading and writing, I have to read and write a good bit. That part is fun, actually. I enjoy having assignments that make me write creatively. This past week, I read a book by Zora Neale Hurston called Dust Tracks on a Road. It’s her memoir about growing up poor in Florida in the 1910’s and then going on to become an influential part of the Harlem Renaissance as an adult. As a part of this class, we also have to write our own memoirs. Wow, that should be interesting to see what that ends up looking like.

That’s just about it for us. Busy, busy. We’re trying to sell our house and move closer into town to save some time here and there. When was it that we became such adults?!
I’ll try to post some pictures soon, but I am having trouble with my computer at work and will get those up as soon as I can.
Take care!

Thursday, August 10, 2006

Julie's 30th


Julie celebrated her 30th birthday on August 7th!! She and Jim went to Aruba to celebrate the occasion. I know...try not to feel too bad for her. It must have been difficult waking up to a cool tropical breeze, rolling over to have a morning margarita, and sitting on a pristine beach to celebrate your 3rd decade of living. Ahhh....
If you need a visual escape from your everyday, Julie and Jim have posted some pictures from their trip on www.casadecheney.blogspot.com.

Happy 30th Julie
We love you




Friday, July 28, 2006

Thursday, July 27, 2006

ONE YEAR OLD

Our little boy is one year old!! We just can't believe it. Is this how it's going to be forever - the year just flew by and we can't imagine what it was like when he was the little floppy infant that we had so recently.

Silas just had his 12-month checkup and is doing great. He is 24lb 1oz and 30 1/2 inches. A very healthy and super happy baby. Jason and I are so excited, too, because night sleeping is finally going wonderfully so we've regained a bit of our sanity. Silas is not walking yet, but has discovered the fun of climbing. Up the stairs, into the dryer, out of the tub, onto the couch. He tries to go everywhere!

On Saturday July 15th we had his FIRST BIRTHDAY PARTY and lots of family came over to our house to celebrate! For the first time in a long time, Silas didn't nap in the morning and so he was exhausted by lunch time. So, picture perfectly, he actually fell asleep WHILE eating lunch. Too funny! Of course we got some pictures so as soon as someone sends one to me (hint hint) then I'll post it on here. It was really fun to see both sides of our family at the same time, which doesn't happen very often.

We can't even imagine what things will be like next year at this time with a TWO YEAR OLD! Scott and Tracey are getting married on June 30th of '07, so we'll see how Silas looks in a little tux! HAHA.

Here are some pictures of our little bear with (on) some of his bday gifts. (My mom made the little adirondak chair that he's sitting in! She's amazing.)





Saturday, July 22, 2006

KB birthday party

Krimson turned 28 on June 13th!! Her bday party was at the duckpond house, which Daniel has really remodeled so nicely. This time, I really didn't get many pictures of the house. It's mostly just folks. Happy bday Krim. It's about time you started getting old like the rest of us!

KB and DR















Krimson and her bros










Jason and his girls



















If you've ever looked at pictures of her, Krimson never keeps her eyes open. I'm simply helping her out for this pic. That's what friends do.











Ludwig.
I love this picture!