15 Month Check-up

Ponch and Jon

Apparently, the only requirement for this toy

is that your mouth must be wide open!

They might fight like cats and dogs, but these boys do love each other!

Mr. Big Time going down the slide by himself...face first!

Sneaky.

Busted

My sweet boy giving Mrs. Ashley and Ryan a pretty flower (also known as a weed)

Even though Jake is now almost 16 months old, we just went yesterday for our 15 month check-up. I have to admit, this round of shots wasn't nearly as bad as the others, thank goodness! The check-up went well. Jake weighs 26 lbs 5 oz (65%), which is down 2 oz from last week, and is 33.75 in tall (97%). Dr. Dudgeon likes giving me a hard time asking where Jake is getting this height from. I told him imagine how much taller Jake would be if his bow-legs would straighten out...that would give him at least another 2 inches! :) We did actually address the severity of Jake's "intoeing" as it's called; Tyson pointed out that Jake's right foot turns in so much that he's actually tripping on it. Unfortunately for Jake, he has not only 1 bone that is turned in (like most people), but he has 2! It's so bad that his right foot can be completely turned 180 degrees and face backwards. Anyways, one of the bones usually starts to improve from 18 months-2 years, and the other doesn't improve until age 5-7. So, we are just gonna watch his "intoeing" until age 2 and then reassess. I personally doesn't see anything wrong with a little bow-leggedness (is that a word?)...haha. Dr. Dudgeon also pointed out that Jake seems to have a lot of teeth coming in. Right now, he has his top front four, bottom front three, and one molar, so it wouldn't hurt to have a few more!

Sorry for the picture overload lately. The weather has just been so beautiful and the lighting has been perfect for pictures. Plus, my camera seems to be in love with a blonde haired, brown-eyed little boy! Enjoy the pictures!

Backyard Fun

"I'm not so sure about this kid driving my 4-wheeler!"

"Somebody get him off NOW before I drive this thing into a house!"

Tyson says, "It's not nice to ram your 4-wheeler into the side of the neighbor's house."Jake says, "He didn't say anything about ramming it into my house!"

I don't know if you can tell from the pictures, but the houses in our neighborhood are really close together. Minus the occasional baby screaming, dog barking, and spouse yelling (just kidding), I love being so close to our neighbors (well, except for the strange neighbors directly to our left that never come out of their house); it makes playtime in our backyard so much more enjoyable! It's like one big communal backyard!

Friday, before I left for work, Tyson, Jake, and I enjoyed a nice game of home-run derby in our backyard. It didn't take too long before Ginger and Brantley were outside joining us. Brantley drove Jake's 4-wheeler all by himself for the first time, and it was too cute! We thought it would be funny to let the boys ride it together, but Jake wasn't having it. Either he was being really stingy or it was too much of an invasion of his personal space..either way, it made for cute

pictures! We definitely missed Ashley and Ryan, but I don't think they missed us too much!...Ryan came down with Hand, Foot, and Mouth no thanks to my son! :( Sorry Ryan!

Close-ups with Jake

My beautiful little boy!

Trying to drive his 4-wheeler up the hill!
A Man on a Mission!

Two posts in one day...seriously, what am I doing with my time? Taking pictures, of course, of my precious child and just wanting to share! I realized yesterday that I don't many recent close-ups of Jake, so I put my zoom lens on today and snapped away. I couldn't get him to crack a smile (he's so serious!), though; today was "Mother's Day Out" and Jake always gets cranky on school days due to his "schedule" being off. :)

Here are some other funny things to share:

• Jake has started saying 2 word phrases. His first was "bye bye da da." He now says "bye bye anything he knows the word to."
• Today, Jake put his finger on my mouth and said, "AAAHHHH" while opening his mouth as wide as he could. Can you tell the kid has been to the doctor a little too much lately?
• Whenever Jake falls, trips, smashes his finger, etc. he always "spanks" the blamed object and says, "bad!" and makes the meanest face at it! Actually, he sounds more like he is saying "baaaa" (like a sheep), but I know what he means. :) Oh, and I swear I don't do spank my child and tell him he's bad...he saw me do it one time to a door that he ran smack dab into to distract him from a huge meltdown and he caught on immediately!
• This isn't funny, but this weekend when Jake was really struggling with the mouth sores from the Hand, Foot, Mouth, Jake couldn't eat anything but yogurt. I tried to feed him his favorite food, grapes, but he would put one up to his mouth and say, "Ouuuwwww." Pitiful but cute!

Happy Weekend!

Videos as Requested by Daddy

I can tell Tyson is really missing Jake being on the road so much with recruiting, so I thought I'd shoot some videos for him. I wasn't going to post them, though, because I didn't think they were good quality, but Tyson begged me to. My new camera can't record videos and I can't figure out to transfer over the videos from the actual video camera, so, I pulled out my old camera and this is what I got. Sorry if the film is kinda "Blair Witch"-ish; that camera has definitely seen better days. Anyways, it's nothing too exciting. Jake has become obsessed with "my chair" and climbing up and down on it. He thinks he is soooo cool when he actually gets up there!

Jake is really a show-off when the camera comes out...I think he gets this from his Daddy! ;) At least you get to hear him talk some (in between a lot of show-off gibberish) and say "bat" or "bat bat" and "ball." I really wish I could video tape more of him talking, but he just acts so silly when I try that all that comes out is baby talk! I'm gonna keep trying though!

This video is very short, but cute. One of my favorite words Jake says is "more." It actually looks and sounds more like he is saying "moo," but he definitely means "more!" In fact, he is pretty smart with how he uses "more"...not only does it mean "more food", but it also means "more take me outside," "more pick me up," "more time in the bath tub," etc. It is just so nice for him to verbally communicate "more" of his needs these days!

And in this last video, Jake was trying to get in the chair last night before bedtime. As you can tell, he was a little tired and couldn't quite get it together! Please note a few things: 1) his flexibility!, 2) his temper tantrum at the end followed by 3) thumb in mouth and going to sleep on the floor. Please excuse the fussiness...it was bedtime!

Back to "Normal"

"The girls love me...even with my "hoof-n-mouth."

I think it is safe to say that Jake is now back to normal after his bout with Hand, Foot, and Mouth. Last night's sleep wasn't the best, but it was a lot better than the previous 4 nights, thank goodness! Either way, Jake was his normal self on the playground today-snatching other kids' toys, beating up on the older kids, poking kids' eyes out, etc. Just kidding, he was actually pretty tame today...lucky for the other kids!

We met up with some of our friends from the coaching staff and had fun at the park. The girls just love all over Jake, and the boys have nothing to do with him. Typical. It was nice, though, to have the older kids there to entertain Jake and "baby sit" him for me. :) I was told, though, by my good friend, Merritt, (in a good way) that I was being too over-protective and I might "retard Jake's growth." Woops. Jake is in his climbing phase, but I just get so nervous with him on the playground equipment. Anyways, once we got home, I just let him have at it. And sure enough, Jake can actually get up and down off the furniture pretty well...kind of. I actually video-taped some of it, so I will have to post that some other time. As for now, "overprotective" mom is just glad her baby boy is back to being his crazy self! :)

**And just to clarify, we are NOT Auburn fans...I just think the shirt is cute! :)

"Hoof-n-Mouth"

What a long week! Thursday, our four month old laptop crashed thanks to a virus sent to me from my preacher. Friday, my mom came to town to keep Jake while I worked and while Tyson went to Presbyterian College for an alumni Football game. That's when things started going downhill.

I got home from work Saturday morning to find my poor mama worn out! Don't get me wrong, by that point, I had been awake for 24 hours, so I was pretty exhausted, too. I could tell immediately something was wrong with Jake. He had been awake since 4:30 am and was fussy and irritable; not to mention, he had a fever. All the signs pointed towards ear infection, so I called his pediatrician as soon as they opened and took him in. It wasn't an ear infection like I thought...it was hand, foot, and mouth disease! (If you don't know what that is, you don't want to know...it is disgusting!) Jake had a really bad case; ulcers completely covered the back of his throat.

We got home from the pediatrician's office and I tried to lay down for a couple of hours (now going on 28 hours with no sleep) while Mom watched Jake. Sadly, though, I could hear Jake through my ear plugs just crying in pain. He was pitiful; he was inconsolable, wouldn't eat or drink, and couldn't sleep. And things have been that way ever since...no joke. Saturday night, he was up every hour crying, and Sunday and Monday night he was up every two hours crying. I am exhausted. My mom left Sunday and so did Tyson (and our BFF neighbors), so I have been all by myself....sleep deprived, with a sick baby, and no internet.

Jake did start playing today and has started to act like his normal self. He still isn't eating but he has finally started drinking. I don't know why his sleep is still affected as badly as it is; this is the worst I have ever seen Jake in pain...even more so than after his surgery! I feel so bad for my poor little fellow. This "hoof-n-mouth" (as my mom refers to it:) is really wearing him down...and me too. :( Maybe we're on the up-swing now, though.

My Blue Shirt

"This is my favorite blue shirt because it's the color of the PC Blue Hose!"

"Don't I wear it well?"

"What happened to the other shirt I had on earlier?"

"Oh yeah. Gross...how could I forget?"

"Oh well! Party on!"

We don't have too much going on around here this week (thank goodness) to post about, so I thought I'd post these cute pictures I took last week after Jake got home from school. I don't think I'll ever forget these pictures or why Jake was wearing this blue shirt.

On my way to pick up Jake from school that day, I realized I hadn't packed him a change of clothes for that day. I didn't sweat it too much because up until now, Jake has never needed a change of clothes for school. Low and behold, I get to school to find my lil' redneck baby in nothing but a diaper and his pants. His teacher immediately explained "it" had just happened and she was so sorry; I was half paying attention to what she was saying because I could think about was "how redneck am I gonna look carrying out a half dressed baby?" And not to mention, Jake's surgery scar is still so noticeable that all people do when they see his stomach is just stare at it...I felt awful for my poor child. I grabbed his stuff and cut out of there as quickly as possible. Once we were in the car, I settled down and looked in his bag to make sure I had everything, and then I saw it...the shirt. What was that all over it? I grabbed his sheet of paper from school and saw: "Sorry about his shirt. Jake did a little hand-dive during a dirty diaper." Gross. Apparently, he stuck his hand right in "it" and then wiped it on his shirt...ALL OVER his shirt! Gross.

Oh, how exciting is my life that I've resorted to posting about this? I love it and wouldn't have it any other way, though...well, minus the "hand-dive" during a dirty diaper part!

UAB's Spring Game

Yesterday was UAB's spring football game, and the Blazers won! Ha ha ha. Actually, the Green team (#1 offense and the #2 defense) won, but it was really close. Tyson's linebackers played well...for the little bit that I could watch with my active little man running around. I know one of his linebackers got an interception at the end of the game, but that's about all I can tell you. Once again, Jake decided to run "stadiums" so I had to chase behind him like a crazy mama. Thus, I was unable to get any action shots, but fortunately, Coach Callaway let the families come out on the field before kickoff and let us take pictures with the guys. Jake had a blast playing on the field! He kept running up and taking the footballs as the guys were trying to throw and running away with them; he thought he was hot stuff doing drills with his daddy. It ended up being a lot of fun despite the cold, muggy weather. Man, I can't wait until fall! I hope some of you will be able to make it to some games! Our schedule keeps changing, but here is a tentative schedule for the fall:

Sept. 5 vs Rice*

Sept. 12 vs SMU*

Sept. 19 @ Troy

Sept. 26 @ Texas A&M

Oct. 1 vs Southern Miss*

Oct. 17 @ Ole Miss

Oct. 24 @ Marshall

Oct. 31 @ UTEP

Nov. 7 vs Florida Atlantic*

Nov. 14 @ Memphis

Nov. 21 @ East Carolina

Nov. 27 vs UCF*

*home game

Go Blazers!

Happy Easter!

For some reason, I have writer's block. I guess it may be because I worked last night and I am exhausted! Either way, we are very thankful for today. He is risen!

Easter around our house wasn't very exciting today. I ended up sleeping half the day, and Tyson was too sick to take Jake to church. He had Jake dressed and ready to go to church and all and realized he couldn't do it. What a disappointment. Next year, I am DEFINITELY not working the night before Easter!

Jake enjoyed his goodies that the Easter Bunny brought him! He wasn't too thrilled with the bubbles, though, as you can tell from the pictures. Oh well. Take note Easter Bunny...no more bubbles...just stick with balls!

Happy Easter!

Happy Birthday Tyson!

On April 11, 1980 at 6:09 pm, Tyson made his grand entrance into this world weighing a whopping 9 lbs 1 oz. I was 3.5 months old at the time (ha ha), but I'm pretty sure he was already bigger than I was at that time! Poor Mrs. Mary Ann, she was already several weeks overdue at the time and then she had to birth that big boy! It was definitely worth it, though...at least for me! :)





I'm not going to embarrass Tyson by writing mushy stuff on here...I'll save it for our date tonight! :) I'll just simply wish you, Tyson, a Happy Birthday to the best... (in no particular order):

1) Husband

2) Father

3) Son

4) Friend

and 5) Coach...ever!

We love you! Happy 29th!

Love,

Your "soulmate." Sorry...inside joke.