Life Is Good

For several weeks now, the leaves on the trees have looked as if they are holding their breath, about to burst into brilliant colors. And now, they have taken a deep breath, and come alive. We headed to Oak Mountain for a picnic and a hike to enjoy the magnificence of it all, the magnificence of fall. Ah, life is good.

Election day

Most of us treasure our right to vote for the leaders in our country... and we proudly display our "I Voted" sticker on this, election day. Clayton and I went to visit Clay at the office today... I was chatting with a friend when Clayton came back to me with this sticker on his shirt. I thought it was adorable and thought I'd take and post a photo of it. That is much easier said than done! He is getting harder and harder to photograph these days; he would neither sit still nor stand still for one moment!

Halloween

Halloween wasn't so happy for our little boy this year; he had a fever around 102 degrees all day and night. Nevertheless, we still dressed him up in his bear costume long enough to snap some photos and trick-or-treat at five of the houses surrounding ours. We couldn't pass up an opportunity to enjoy his cuteness in that costume!

Almost

walking

Step 1, get ready

Step 2, get set Step 3, make sure mommy is there

Step 4, go!

Happy, happy birthday

It is amazing that while it seems like yesterday we were coming home from the hospital with Clayton, those first weeks and months with him seem like ages ago. It was fun celebrating Clayton and his first year this weekend...

more pictures here

Daddy's boy

Lately Clayton can't seem to get enough of his dad. These pictures show Clayton, first, at the door after Clay has walked out for work, and second, at the door watching Clay mow the yard. Anytime I mention "daddy" as I'm talking to Clayton, he immediately starts looking for him... when Clay comes home from work, Clayton is so excited he is almost like a panting puppy... he wants Clay to hold him and follows him around the house... It has been so sweet to see this attachment, this enjoyment, this delight, this love...

It goes both ways.

Vacation

We spent a weekend at my sister's house in Columbus celebrating my sisters' birthdays; Clayton and I stayed the week. The change of pace was great for both of us. My six nephews and nieces entertained Clayton every moment of every day-- if they weren't actually engaging him, he was entertained by just watching them. Most of our time was spent by and in the pool, as usual at "Camp Sidor". It is such a wonderful place to get away and to entertain kids-- complete with pool, hammock, Jimmy Buffett music playing overhead, Kevin's famous smoked meats and mixed drinks and fresh cut fruit enjoyed poolside, go-carts, golf cart rides, feeding the fish at the pond... It is chaotic, to say the least, with seven kids under one roof, but so special to be together with family.

Clayton and I met Clay at Lake Martin on Thursday and his parents joined us Friday for the weekend. We had a relaxing weekend-- boat rides at sunset, grilling out, watching movies, reading, taking naps, good conversation on the porch...

New toy

for husband, not for baby.

Clayton and I will be in Columbus this week spending time with my sisters and their families; Clay will be at home without us. I love knowing the details of Clay's days, especially when we are apart. There is no question in my mind about what he will spend his time doing while we are apart this time...

11 Months

I can't believe our baby will be ONE year old in one month.

Some of his favorite things right now include:

waving at EVERYTHING (including mostly inanimate objects),

pulling up on EVERYTHING,

playing "fetch" with himself,

turning the page for us when we read to him,

puppy dogs,

making a clicking noise with his tongue,

looking at himself in the mirror,

drinking out of his sippy cup (and spitting out half of it),

throwing food on the floor...

he is not an easy subject to photograph these days; he is always on the move. every time i tried to snap a picture he was moving so quickly toward me and the camera that this is what i found in my viewfinder

I love today

To me, today was the perfect Saturday. We had no "plans" for the first time in a while. We made the most of a sunny, lazy summer day; we made today fun. It didn't start out the best, with Clay having to deal with some unexpected work issues, but it quickly got better. I love nothing more than spending time with my men, alone, outside, relaxed...

We started out at Botanical Gardens for a picnic lunch and a stroll...

then took a drive through Market Day in Mountain Brook Village and residential Homewood (we love that community), then home for Clayton's nap, then ended the day with dinner at The J. Clyde...

Clay and I both agreed that it feels like vacation to spend an evening on Cobb Lane

the J. Clyde is Clay's favorite place in Birmingham to get a good beer

Clayton wearing his dinner

he has started another quirk as of late-- wrinkling his nose, furrowing his eyebrows, and saying "nana" in a very nasaly voice

And now we're home. I love today.

rug burn

or hardwood burn or deck burn... I feel sorry for Clayton's little knees and shins and the tops of his feet. It doesn't seem to bother him, though; he still drags those legs across any surface with amazing speed.

He always crawls with his left leg out to the side like this...

and that is what makes rug burn on this leg so bad!

There it is

Finally a picture that shows Clayton's tooth! It is hard to even catch a peek of this tooth, and the second one just beginning to show, much less get a picture of them! The reason for this picture was not even the teeth, but rather the Cheerio stuck on his chin that we thought was hilarious. I love that he was oblivious to the Cheerio being there; he probably wondered why in the world we were all laughing so hard.

Coffee Geek

Most of you may know that Clay is a big coffee geek, or coffee snob-- however you choose to look at it. He got the itch to roast his own coffee beans this weekend. He had heard that an old fashioned popcorn popper could serve as a personal roaster, so he dusted off my family's old popper and gave it a try.

green beans from one of our favorite local coffee shops, Primavera

Clay stirring the beans as they "roast" in the popcorn popper. (The black and white was an accident but makes the process look a little less redneck than it is.) If you look closely, you can see the chaff flying off the bean.

cooling the beans

dark roasted beans

the finished product

Clay is waiting at least 12 hours to grind and brew the beans, so we don't know how they taste yet, but hopefully he'll be satisfied!

Long Gone

Ok, this is getting ridiculous... It has been WAY too long since my last blog post. It is not that I don't think about posting; it's that I find so many other things to do with my "free" time. I will clean the house, do laundry, talk on the phone, read, cook, think about taking a nap... and so on and so on... all before blogging. I really do want to be a consistent blogger; I know that consistency is what makes a good blog. So, I'm breaking the ice again... I'm hoping that maybe this will jump-start me from thought into action...

Really, so much has happened since my last post! The biggest things include Clayton starting to crawl about 2 weeks ago (and pulling up on everything this week) and getting his first tooth about a month ago (and working on #2 right now). For those of you who are moms, you know that those two things bring many other changes along with them. Clayton was baptized in May, he is expanding his vocabulary from exclusively "dadadada" to include "nana" and a few "mama's", is finally sleeping and napping well consistently... he is sometimes sort of waving "bye-bye", is working on finger foods-- all the typical developmental changes that are so exciting for moms. I am so proud of him. We learned at his 9 month check-up that he had not gained even one single ounce since his 6 month check-up, so, upon the encouragement of our pediatrician, we have been feeding him TONS of solid food. We will find out Monday if he has gained some weight! I think he has; I hope he has!

We have been enjoying summer and all that it brings-- cooking out with friends, traveling to see family, the lake, Clay's softball games, walks around the neighborhood, playing in the baby pool with Clayton, eating and relaxing on the deck (that Clay built) in the evenings...

That's a very brief summary of where we are and what we're doing... I realize that most of you (whoever you are) would rather see pictures of Clayton than read my thoughts and words, so here you go! I could post a ton of pictures of some of the things we've done this summer so far, but I'll just stick with a couple from this last week and let you look at the other pictures here.

Easter

1 Corinthians 15 says...

"Now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised... And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins... If in this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied. But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead... In Christ shall all be made alive."

I stand in the Gospel.

I am being saved by the Gospel.

We had a wonderful Easter. Here are a few pictures of Clayton looking like a little Easter egg.

His latest cute thing is biting his lower lip like this

Too many pictures, mommy!