This is my one and only nephew Jack! He turned 2 yesterday! Some of his favorite things right now are trucks (big time- he even sleeps with them) and babies (he loves all babies). What a guy. Jack's trademarks are his utter sweetness and his 5 o'clock wake up time.
Here is newborn Jack!
Here is 1-year-old Jack
Here is our big guy now (or kinda close to now). :-)A few thoughts for you tonight...
1) This blog was originally created and purposed to serve as an online, easy scrapbook for me and to keep my beloved friends and family up to date on my ever-changing daughter.
2) That being said... I apologize for my very one subject blogging. I don't think I would enjoy my own blog if it were not my own life. Did you catch my last blog? The better part of it was about napkin rings. Napkin rings. I think there might be some people out there that enjoy a good random anecdote, but I can do better.
3) I have been inspired by some of my dear friends on their blogs and have thus had my mind expanded and seen all the good that can come from blogs other than capturing cute videos of their kids.
4) There will still be cute videos of Annie. However, there is a lot about our lives that I leave out. I will aim to post about more subjects, give you excerpts of books I read, tell you some of our dreams that you might not know about, etc.
5) Don't expect too much. I didn't blog before I had Annie and would not be driven to update (even as little as I do) unless I felt the pressure to share her with those that miss her across the country. Be patient with me as I discover new blogging opportunities.
As many of you know, Annie is a big girl. It's not that she's extremely chubby, she's just big all over. She has always been about 95% or over when it comes to height and weight on the growth charts and it has never really surprised us considering Justin's size. In clothes, she's always a good 6-12 months ahead. At her 6 month appointment she still wasn't rolling over (2-4 months late). She did sit up on her own early and has always loved to be on her feet, but hates to be on her stomach. Because of the combination of her preferences and size the pediatrician told us not to worry about the rolling over and to not hold out a ton of hope for crawling.
Well, folks, she finally rolled over at 8 months! Woohoo! Not only that, she started bear crawling a couple of days after Christmas. She probably has been able to do this awhile, I just haven't put her on the tile (and that carpet is tricky stuff). I can't say that she is extremely thrilled about it. She still needs a lot of enticing.
Here is one unsuccessful attempt at enticing... take special notice of Justin's cruel trickery.
and success!
Hooray for napkin rings! These napkin rings have been entertaining children at my home for 3.5 years, long before Annie was around and long before I had any other toys. They have been enjoyed by Ellie, Samantha, Eli, Jack, Micah, Halle and now Annie in that order. They are magical magnets for children. They have been used to throw to the ground and make a huge clanging sounds, as symbols, as binoculars, as balls, as hockey pucks, you name it. Sometimes the bowl is filled with 12, sometimes with 3. Ellie came to my house every Thursday for awhile and would use them for binoculars like Diego. I was down to 3 and asked her where she put them last time. She said, "oh, they're under the couch." Sure enough. Not sure why. Pretty good memory, though. We retrived 9 napkin rings under my couch.
Celebrating Christmas with Annie was awesome. It was so cool to see what she ended up caring about. For those of you who don't know, Annie's favorite toy and snack is paper. So you can imagine how much of a hit the wrapping paper was this year. I don't know if we will be able to pull it off in future years, but some of Annie's gifts included batteries, bibs, and other everyday items all wrapped in her beloved paper.
Also for Christmas she got her two front teeth and a hippopotamus (stuffed). This we found ironic considering the Christmas songs about these very things. The stuffed hippo was a hit. You would have thought she opened her long lost best friend considering her reaction. Playing with the hippo consists of pulling it to her face and screaming as loud as she can and holding it's hands to dance.
Her other favorite... a big box with babies on it playing with a jungle toy from Nonnie and Tata (J's parents). The special part about this box is that it has a button you can push from the outside and it plays a (very addictive) tune . Annie has now mastered the command "push the button." This was really cool because it is the first time we were able to tell that she understands us. Big deal! Someday this jungle toy will come out of it's box, but we wanted to ride this out for as long as we can.
Annie with her special box.
This video actually features Justin whistling the addictive tune. :-)
As many of you may not know, J is really into photography as a hobby. He picked up in college and unfortunately doesn't get to do it a whole lot. He had some time off around the holidays so decided to bust out the photo lights and get some pictures of Annie. We found this elfish outfit when we were out on day that said "B' JOLLY" and thought, "what more could you want?"
Hope your holidays were merry!
Part of Christmas is going down to the mall and standing in the line to see Santa no matter how long it takes. Not for us. We figure, with all of photoshop's capabilities, as long as you get a good shot of the kid and a good shot of the Santa- the rest of the magic happens at home.
Here are the pictures we plan to photoshop. Thoughts?
Merry Christmas to Annie and her daddy!
Speaking of marriage (see my last post), Big Mike Roberts (one of our buddies) got married to Megan Jahnke (Yon-kee) (one of our other buddies) and she ended up taking his name so she is now Megan Roberts! Hooray! We are so happy for them!
The ceremony was awesome and sweet and the reception was so fun. The best dance time I've had in awhile. Part of what made this fun was the fact that I was filming so many of my friends dancing. After J and I reviewed these videos, he forbid me from posting them because we would like to keep these friends. They all looked cool dancing at the time, I assure you. I think the camera fails to capture the mood and only captures the awkward. Don't worry, friends! These videos can be purchased, if needed, for leverage. You know who you are.
Probably the best moment of the night was when J fell into the terrible predicament that every man faces...cake or dancing? Am I right, fellas? J figured out a way to take it all in.
While we were dancing the night away, Annie was having a dance party of her own.
It has been awhile since I have blogged. Happy Holidays, by the way!
I tend to loose track of time around the holidays. From Thanksgiving through January is all really called Decemberish.
First of all... Mark Lopez (Justin's brother) is one of our favorite people in the world. A brief introduction for those of you who haven't met Mark. He is much like Justin in many ways, but artsy and really laid back. He is also stunning. My grandmother Mary said he was the "most magnificent creature" she had ever seen. Well... Markie got engaged! For all of you Beyonce fans out there... he "[liked] it"... and "put a ring on it!" He is going to marry Alli Bryan this summer, Lord willing. Alli is just as stunning as Mark, both inside and out! We can't wait to have sweet Alli in our family! They met working at Camp John Marc a couple of summers ago. Mark is finishing his last stretch of school at Savanna College of Art and Design in Georgia and Alli is starting her second semester at UT Southwestern Medical School in Dallas. Mark proposed in early December and we got to spend a bunch of time with them over the break- lots of fun! Congrats, you guys!
Here are some shots from the engagment! Mark proposed and managed to film the whole thing while Alli thought he was charging the camera. What a clever boy. We surprised Alli at Maggiano's afterwards.
This is for you, Alli!
