Pillowcase Dress

::Warning::This post is NOT about Jeremiah...shocking, I know!

I have recently been honing my sewing skills (or just learning them!) with my ABC Quilt (that is still in-progress) and a not-blogged-about-but-pretty-cute-brown-shirt. Well, my friend Nicole has asked me to help her make a Pillowcase Dress for her daughter & Jeremiah's good buddy, Anna. (Note about the Pillowcase Dress: it should fit sizes 12months - 3T, so these dresses should get plenty of wear - score!) Well, I thought it be best if I tried to make one before she came over, to work out any "kinks". Surprisingly, this didn't take long at all & turned out really cute! Here is a fall version of the "Pillowcase Dress" that does NOT involve any pillowcases. Wouldn't this be so cute with a long sleeve shirt & leggings at a Pumpkin Patch?!?!

Sidewalk Chalk

Today we enjoy some "creative" time with sidewalk chalk. Or at least I was hoping for some creative juices to flow in that quickly-developing brain...J thought it would be much more fun just to hold the chalk and walk all around the yard. :)

This was how I showed J what to "do" with the sidewalk chalk.

This is him saying, "Yeah Mom, that's great but I just want to walk around holding the chalk"

3 pieces of Jumbo Sidewalk Chalk was a bit much for his little hands

concentrating really hard to pick them all up...

YAY!!! I got them all at once!

He did try to color a little bit...

and I mean just a little bit :)

When you are covered in chalk, it's time to clean up!

Happy Birthday Daddy!

This post is a little late, but better late than never :)

Yesterday was Big J's 29th Birthday. Only one more year in his 20s...he's getting old! hehehe! Anyway, we've celebrated the last 2 weekends with our families & eaten lots of good food. The Wolfpack even gave Josh an early present with an exciting WIN against Pitt Saturday. How nice of them! :)

Little J & I wanted to take a special moment to say HAPPY BIRTHDAY to the best husband & daddy around! We're so thankful to be in this little family & couldn't imagine life without him. We're looking forward to many more great years to come!

Here's a recent picture of my two favorite guys...it just makes my heart melt!!

Frenulectomy - check!

We just got home from Little J's frenulectomy procedure. He made it through the (incredibly short) procedure just fine. I hadn't even finished talking to our friends, the Butlers, when the ENT came to speak to me. In recovery he was pretty miserable until they brought him some applesauce. He was HUNGRY!! He wasn't able to eat since dinner the night before, so no breakfast = unhappy Jeremiah. After he demolished that container of applesauce they brought him more, as well as a packet of graham crackers. On the way home he had the crackers & a box of raisins & a little bit of yogurt once we got home. Now he's upstairs hopefully settling in for a nap.

Nana took some pictures of Little J while he was (rather impatiently) waiting to go back for his procedure. Hopefully I'll get those pictures & add them to this post because he was awfully cute in his gorilla PJs playing in the wagon they had there. Update: here are the pictures from today!

This is the "impatiently waiting" I was referring to...

Being silly & standing on the bed

Hanging out with Mommy

So glad we found this wagon!

Cuteness of an (almost) 14-month old

My friend Lori just wrote a cute blog entry on things her precious boy, Whit, is saying & doing right now. I thought it was a great idea & I'm stealing it (hope you don't mind Lori!).

• Jeremiah has just learned what a cow says & it is so cute. We'll ask, "What does a cow say?" and he'll go "Mmmmm!" - close enough for me! I'm sure once Popa gets his cows he'll hear enough of the real thing to get it right.
• When asked to give you a kiss, Jeremiah will lean his head in for you to kiss him. He doesn't quite get the "giving" kisses yet, but he loves to receive them! And lucky for him he's got plenty of people willing to freely give them!
• Even though he hasn't quite gotten the "giving kisses" thing down yet, he can give you a hug and my heart just melts when those little arms wrap around my neck. Oh I could just squeeze him until he bursts!
• I've just recently started putting real shoes on J and he loves to take them off. The other day I went to get him out of the car seat, he had un-velcroed them & taken them both off, and handed them to me when I opened his door - silly boy! Yesterday, I put him shoes on him so I could get him out to run around during tailgating & he IMMEDIATELY took one them off. I don't really blame him, I'd rather go barefoot too.
• (Like Lori, I'm afraid to write this one but I'm going to do it anyway & PRAY!) Jeremiah is really LOVING his sleep right now. He sleeps 12 hours at night & takes two 2-hour naps a day. He didn't sleep through the night for his first 9 months of life, but he seems to be making up for it now!
• Jeremiah also loves to EAT! Ok, so that's not a new thing, but I just have to reiterate this point. Seriously - the kid chows down! And thankfully he likes lots of healthy stuff, most specifically fruit. He eats pretty much any fruit & will continue to eat it until you put it away. Please Lord, let these good eating habits continue!!

Ok...that's all I can think of now, but I'll try to keep this up periodically because it's so hard to remember all these cute things since they change so fast. Oh, we're so in love with that little boy!

First Wolfpack Football Game!!!

Jeremiah attended his first Wolfpack football game yesterday! We beat Gardner-Webb 45-14. WAHOOOOO! OK, so that wasn't that big of a surprise but a win is a win! :)

We enjoyed a Bojangles Supreme Tailgate Special, which Jeremiah loved! I was afraid the supremes would be too spicy, but he didn't seem to notice since he ate 3 of them. After our tailgating we went into the game & J was mesmerized by all the sights & sounds. He was completely glued to the field & jumbo TV screen the entire first quarter. He sat so contently on Josh's lap & just took it all in. They were SO cute together...melt my heart!!

The second quarter he really enjoyed going between Derek, Josh, & my laps, as well as playing with my sunglasses. Thankfully Mimi provided curbside service at half-time to take Little J home. I decided to head out too since we were up 24-0 at that point in the game & our back-up QB had been in for a couple of series already.

Looks like Jeremiah will be ready for many more games in the coming years...what a fun family tradition it will be!!

SO sad that I left my camera at home this weekend :( so I have no photographic proof (except for 2 pictures on my phone that I have NO idea how to upload to a computer).

Family Pizza Night

So it's no secret that the Hanes Family LOVES pizza! We have pizza almost every Friday night...it's become somewhat of a tradition. Jeremiah seems to be just like Mommy & Daddy - he loves pizza too! Little J's schedule was a bit messed up today since he played so hard at MOPS this morning, he missed his morning nap & had a later nap at Nana's early this afternoon. It was pretty clear about 4:30 that he wasn't going to make it to his 7pm bedtime without another nap, so he took a nap from 5-7pm, when Daddy got home. We woke him up to enjoy family pizza night with us & I'm so glad we did! I think he enjoyed the pizza...what do you think? ;)

Gross Boy Stuff

Jeremiah proves over & over again that he is 100% boy, but today was just about too much for this girlie-girl to handle. Even though he was happy & as sweet as could be all day, he was just plain GROSS!

Here is a rundown of the events that transpired throughout the day:

• playing with the recycling (which means the recycling container went on top of the kitchen table)
• opening the trash & diving in 3 different times today
• grabbing his poop while I'm changing his dirty diaper
• splashing around in the toilet (which was closed, but he's learned how to open)
• opening up his cloth diaper pail to fondle his soiled diapers
  

but the one that really got me...ugh, I'm shuddering just thinking about it...right before bath time (side note: it wasn't a bath day, but after the above events a bath was certainly in order!) I had just dumped a big poop into the toilet from one of his cloth diapers, I then closed the toilet and went back into his room to dump the diaper into his diaper pail. When I come back into the bathroom he has opened the toilet (again!) and is about to grab the big ball of POOP!!! The loudest scream of "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO" comes out of my mouth. Honestly, I'm not sure if he actually touched the poop or not because I swiftly stripped him, put him in the tub and gave him the best bath of his life! He even got into all the scrubbing & lathered his belly and legs just like I had done. I think even he knew that he needed every last inch of his little toddler body scrubbed CLEAN!

Thank God for FAMILY!

This has been a tough week since I managed to sprain/strain some major muscles in my back on Tuesday when putting my ever-growing toddler in the shopping cart at the Wal-Mart. Literally I stood in the ladies clothing for almost 10 minutes doubled over in pain trying to stand up straight (with no success) before I finally gave in & called Josh for help. I mean really, how embarrassing to have to call your husband because you are stuck at the WAL-MART! But, it couldn't be helped. I have NEVER felt pain like that before - excruciating...brought tears, quite a few of them.

Thankfully we have family close by who could take care of Little J (thanks Uncle Perry!) & take me to the ER (thanks Nana!) to get some good drugs. They continued to help us out by keeping the little one overnight so I could enjoy my drugs & get some rest without having to pick Jeremiah up (mainly because I couldn't!). And again, so thankful for family, since Mom (Mimi) came up Wednesday evening to take care of me & Little J Thursday. Little J was treated to a night away at Mimi & G-pa Jim's tonight (Thursday) so I could continue to rest my back & hopefully be 100% by the weekend. (Speaking of 100% by the weekend...let's hope the Wolfpack are at 100% because we need a WIN!)

That child is going to be so spoiled by getting to spend 2 different nights this week with grandparents - what a lucky little boy! And what a lucky mommy by having so many people who love us & will step in to help us whenever we need. Thank you family!! We love you very much!!!

What have we been up to???

We've been enjoying the last days of summer and the preview of fall with gorgeous, cooler weather this past week. Nothing feels better than the cool temps after the heat of summer!

Jeremiah is really enjoying walking (getting faster and closer to running), exploring, and just having fun! He still enjoys riding the Gator at Nana & Popa's house. His new favorite toy there is this tricycle-type toy because he's just big enough to walk it around the driveway. He's still learning to steer, so Daddy has to help him steer from the handle in the back. Jeremiah is way too independent for you to help him steer on his handle bars. He will promptly stop & push your hand off. Boy are we in for it in the years to come! :)

Little J recently got his first haircut. I was waiting for a few curls to show up, but it wasn't happening. A mullet was starting to appear instead so we HAD to get that taken care of. Little J did not enjoy this experience at all & let everyone at Great Clips know about it. He did however like the balloon & Dum-Dum that he got at the end.

We went to the Winston-Salem Children's Museum last Friday night because you could get in free if you bought a canned good along. I wasn't really sure how Jeremiah would like it because I thought it might be a bit too old for him, but boy was I WRONG! He loved it!! He ran around with all the bigger kids, played in all the different areas, and did not want to leave. He was still so wound up when we got home that he ran around the house for 40 minutes, refusing to eat his supper (unheard of!). We will definitely be going back for more playtime there, maybe even getting a membership because he had a blast!

We can't wait to try out the Life & Science Museum in Durham on one of our trips to Raleigh. I've heard great things & it looks like there is a lot for Jeremiah to enjoy. It's so fun now that he's old enough to enjoy all these outings!

I'm not even sure what we had been out doing the day I took this picture, but when I got home to take J out of his carseat he had fallen asleep (a RARE occasion these days). I noticed that he must have fallen asleep mid-snack because his hand was still in his snack cup with food in his grip!

We took a trip to Raleigh this week to visit Mimi & G-pa Jim, as well as kick off the start of FOOTBALL SEASON!!! Josh is a happy camper that football season has arrived. We are both hoping that the Wolfpack's dismal performance (on national television, no less) this past Thursday night is not a sneak peek of what we have to see the rest of the season. Aside from football, we enjoyed trips to the Farmer's Market, Flea Market, & Lake Lynn playground, as well as hanging out with the Watson family, and of course playing with Mimi & Grandpa! They got lots of time to spend with Jeremiah, especially since they kept Little J for Mommy & Daddy to have 2 child-free night outs in a row!!

This week we are starting our fall "schedule". We'll be heading to "Toddler Time" every Tuesday at the library for stories, songs, & a craft. On Wednesday we'll be resuming "Brunch Bunch" (Mommy is probably way more excited than Jeremiah about this time, but at least he'll get to play with his buddies). Thursday we'll start going back to "Musical Beginnings" class and every other Friday we'll have MOPS. Yay for structure & a routine to be starting back up again!! (OK...you can tell Mommy really likes all these social activities too).

Jeremiah has to have a Frenulectomy later this month. He has a heart-shaped tongue (also known as tongue-tied) because the skin that connects his tongue to the bottom of his mouth is too short & tight. This could cause speech problems later on, but worst of all he won't be able to lick ice cream! We just couldn't have that so he'll have his procedure done at a surgery center where they will put him under light anesthesia, clip the skin, & he'll heal up quickly with little pain.

Well, that's a bit of a "catch-up" on what we've been up to. Hopefully I'll get back in the blogging swing of things soon...for now I'm off to put out all the fall decor & maybe have a Pumpkin Spice Latte! :)