Been a Bad Blogger...

I've become a bad blogger...it's been an entire week with no new posts...sorry! Here's a quick recap of why I've been so slack in my blogging endeavors lately.

Let's venture back to last Sunday where my two J's were looking so cute on the way to church. Especially the little one with his seersucker pants. Oh my Southern-Gentleman in training...I love it!

Tuesday, Harry & I took a day trip to Greenville to visit Granny in the hospital. Harry was pretty tired & decided to take a nap in the hospital bed. This is him waking up as the nurse is standing over him with a BIG needle. :)

He also got to feed Little J some yogurt during breakfast Wednesday.

I've spent a LOT of time trying to keep Jeremiah & Baxter safe around one another. Jeremiah is in love with Baxter right now - he sees him as the ultimate playmate. Baxter does not reciprocate the feeling. Baxter is in for a rough few years...

I've also been working with the tomatoes in our garden. Have you forgotten that we have 60 PLANTS! In case you're wondering, that's a LOT of tomatoes. So, here's what I've done just this week.

In case you're wondering, that's 13 pints of Pasta Sauce, 12 Pints of Salsa, and 13 Half-Pints of Salsa. There's a good chance you'll be getting a tomato-related product for Christmas if you know us. Be excited -it's all very yummy!

I've also been doing laundry, packing, and cleaning because tomorrow we are BEACH BOUND!!! Jeremiah has been practicing wearing his hat, I'm really hoping he'll keep it on while we play in the surf & sand. I do not want his precious little scalp & face getting sunburned.

Prepare yourself for cute beach pictures to come soon!

"TP" Play

You often hear of "Water Play" at preschool and in lower elementary grades. Something fun for the kids to do while they express their creativity. Jeremiah's creative outlet is toilet paper. Not a great art medium, but he really seems to enjoy it. I thought we had passed this stage (for at least 2 months all the TP rolls sat on counter tops instead of being in their normal holders just to stay out of reach of tiny little fingers), but boy was I wrong. In the 2 seconds it took me to go from the bathroom to his room to dump his cloth diaper in the diaper pail, I came back to find almost an entire roll of TP on the floor. I quickly sprung into action to salvage as much TP as possible, as you can see from the picture below, I wasn't very successful.

Check out this short video of Little J playing with the TP. I especially love when he puts the TP & bath mat in his mouth like a puppy dog. What a silly boy! It ends pretty abruptly because J was trying to take the camera from me...just like the phone, the remote, and anything else electronic :)

Hey Granny, it's Little J

Happy Birthday Grandpa B!

Happy 94th Birthday Grandpa Brannan!!

94 years...isn't it amazing! Grandpa still lives independently and shuffles himself around town in his Cadillac. He can also still give Jim an earful (which is a quality that we love!)...once a dad, always a dad. We love you Grandpa & can't wait to see you again!

(Jim - I know Grandpa doesn't have Internet, so I'm expecting you to show this to him at some point)

BEACH COUNTDOWN: 10 DAYS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

In celebration of the blessed vacation, Little J wanted to play in his crab outfit today (or you know...Mommy just wanted to take pictures of him to put on the blog for the countdown...whatever!). After several FAILED attempts at pictures, I put him in the only place he will currently stay still - the grass. No clue why, but he doesn't like the grass & stays as still as possible.

What could an 11-month old have to be so serious about?

He lifts up his leg to get away from the grass...HILARIOUS to me :)

Mommy, let's hurry up & go to the beach where there is sand & no grass!

Speaking of sand, we scored a FREE turtle sandbox for Little J today - WAHOOO!! It looks just like this.

I can't wait to clean it up a little, get some sand, and let J play! I think he's really going to like it.

We had to go to Lexington to pick the sandbox up, so I had to wake up J a little early from his morning nap. This is what I found when I went to get him...isn't he SO cute!! I could just eat this kid up!

Practicing for the Beach

The countdown for the beach is on: 11 DAYS!!!!!!!!!!!

In honor of the blessed upcoming event, Little J needed to practice wearing his beach hats so we can keep that pretty little head from being burned. Here's how it went...

This hat isn't so bad...

Alright, I think I'm ready for you to take it off

(I attached the chin strap so he couldn't remove it...ha!)

Pick me up & take this hat OFF!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We'll keep practicing because practice makes perfect, right? Uh, hopefully...

Garden Update

OK...here's a picture of the most adorable, snotty-nosed & drool-filled face. I just love this kid!

OK...now on to the garden. We headed out to the garden again today to gather & plant. Before we got started, I decided to take a few pictures. We've already pulled all our green bean plants & are in the process of planting more (because the Hanes LOVE green beans!), so no pics of those.

Because there are about a million pictures in this post, they are small. If you want to see them BIG, just click on them :)

First off a pic of me & my favorite little monkey!

He had some issues with the sunshine in his eyes...if he would keep his sunglasses on it wouldn't be so hard on his beautiful blue eyes!

Here's J checking out the gourds. Heaven-forbid he let go of that wrench.

Mom, I could care less about the watermelon. You know I'm not a fan of the grass on my bare legs. But I do like making silly faces for you!

On to the garden goodies!

Gourds...

Cantaloupe & Watermelon...

Okra & Peppers

Squash! Baseball-bat size squash :)

Tomatoes...LOTS of tomatoes!

And here is the beginning of the barn for future farm animals!

Catching Up

Sorry I've been a bit slack about posting lately. We've been busy...cleaning, gardening (I've been meaning to take pictures to post of our garden...especially since Ken weeded it to perfection!) and Little J is going through a VERY clingy stage right now, so my hands haven't been particularly free lately. Just thought I'd take some time to post some milestones & dates that I feel I might forget soon! I'm using this to help make Jeremiah's scrapbook, so bear with me...

Army Crawling - 7 months

Really Crawling - 8 months

Pulling Up & Cruising - 8 months

First tooth (actually teeth - the bottom 2 front teeth broke through at the same time) - 9 months

Walking - any day now?!?! Although we've been thinking this for a while, so who knows. I'm not really trying to rush that along anyway.

Jeremiah - you are really into tools. You love to play with your tool table Mimi got you & the tool set (that looks real!) Nana bought you. You get pretty upset if I try to make you leave them behind, so I think there are currently a hammer, screw driver, and screws floating around near your carseat right now.

You also LOVE food...which you got honestly from both sides of your family. You are on all table foods now - no more babyfood for you! Here are your typical meals...although I think it's important to let you know that I HAVE to give you something as soon as you get in your high chair or you throw a complete fit (so you usually get a Gerber Wagon Wheel to chew on because that buys me some time).

Breakfast: You eat a YoBaby yogurt & LOVE it. Lately you really like Blueberry Waffles & will eat a whole waffle (with a tiny bit of butter) all by yourself. Then usually whatever else I throw on your plate while I try to wash any dishes that are hanging around & stuff my own face with something resembling breakfast.

Lunch: Your favorite is Peanut Butter on Graham Crackers (like little sandwiches). You pull them apart and get all the PB off, then eat the graham crackers. If you don't have Graham Cracker sandwiches, then you will have 2 chicken nuggets mixed with string cheese (which I cut into small bites). You usually get some applesauce & peaches as well.

Dinner: If I have dinner ready earlier enough, you eat what we eat...green beans are your favorite! If not, you'll have Velveeta Rotini & Cheese with Broccoli. You find this delicious!

Other fav foods: You've recently discovered Goldfish & you love them. They currently make Honey Graham Goldfish too, so I'll give you these for dessert sometimes. You still love Puffs, yogurt melts, and dried fruit bits. Actually, you just love fruit! Strawberries are you current favorite, but you're really not too picky...bananas, cantaloupe, watermelon...whatever is around you will eat it!

Now on to the pictures...because grandparents might get upset if I post without pictures!

Mimi & Grandpa came up to celebrate Mimi's birthday this past Sunday (which happened to be your 11-month birthday...can't believe you'll be ONE in less than a month!) Here you are having fun with Mimi.

You've started sitting with your feet tucked under like this lately. I think it's funny & probably means you're going to walk soon. But that's just my guess. I also thought you looked absolutely ADORABLE in this Nautica outfit Nana bought you.

And here is one of the aforementioned tools that you love so much. I'm pretty sure you were trying to tell Grandpa that wrenches are not used on the nose!

We are on a countdown to BEACH WEEK! I think I'm most excited out of everyone to go. I just LOVE the beach and think you're going to enjoy it as well. Of course, you've been before - but you were only 12 weeks old at the time. I bought you a bucket of sand toys for you to start exploring at home so you'll be ready to have lots of fun playing with those at the beach.

I think you thought this was just another laundry basket to crawl in :)