Legos Rock!

Lego party is what he asked for so legos it was!

We searched high and low for some lego decor and couldnt find a thing. I was able to put my cake decorating talent to use.. as you can see its practically professional quality. ha

Next year if he decides he wants a monster truck cake I'm in trouble!

                                              Please make note of the fancy art work on display... that would be the art work of the birthday boy himself. He said he would draw some legos for our decorations.

brothers 

totally worth prying them away from the wii for this cuteness,

even if they still had the remotes in their hands!

 Think it's safe to say he was happy with all of his gifts :)

  Papaw was trying to get Kellen to go for a ride but he wasn't having it..

he will run and climb onto the trike and pretend to drive it and push all the gears and buttons but he refuses to go for an actual ride. the other boys love it.

 Happy early 6th birthday Jaxson

We love you lots

The Catch of the Day!

Yesterday evening we went with my parents to a fishing spot down the road from my brothers house. He just got home from a ten day fishing trip to Alaska so we also wanted to stop by and see him and hear any wild fishing tales he might have!

This was Kellen's first fishing trip and our first time to take Jax. We were a little bummed that Jon was working. Jax had made cookies with Mimi earlier that afternoon so on our way home we swung by dad's work and took him some cookies and told him about Jaxson's FISH

 Pops got his pole ready and gave pointers on how to get it done.. Not even 15 minutes after being there Jax hooked him one and and Mimi helped him reel it in.

The look on his face was priceless. He was so excited and a little shocked that he had caught one so quick. We knew he had went before because he had told us about it on the way there so we assumed he would hold it and touch it and stuff, but he was a little stand-off ish about it. Later that night I asked him if he had ever caught a fish before and he said 'yeah, but not one that big, so thats why I didnt want to hold it.'

ha

(make note of the BLUE worm)

Fishy fishy

                                                   My baby cakes got in on the fishing action too! Not sure his technique would have hooked anything though, but he had the jerking for perch action down pat! :)

                                          My mom got a picture below of him casting his reel with his hands. He was standing by watching Jax, my dad and me fish and started copying what we were doing. So cute.



Silly Faces for Gramma's scrapbook

OH BOY!

Tha Five are together again.. This time we rounded them all up for some silly face photos for Gramma's scrapbook. These were too goofy not to share with friends and family.

                                                            24 eye balls are staring me down

A Gramma group hug

                                                           What are they doing Kellen ???

                                               Jaxson, as usual, is in a world of his own. ha

 Cousins make the world a little funnier and Gramma's make it sweeter.

Hawt hawt coffee and plastic golf balls...16 Month Milestone

From the plastic golf balls I find under the covers of my bed to the hot wheels he stashes away in my sock drawer this little dude keeps me entertained and on full alert at all times...

Tomorrow he will be 16 months old and its been an adventurous time in our lives! 

The vocab bank is expanding with every passing day.. 'Taint two' is thank you.. peaze is please..He says nack for snack, poon for spoon, peesa for pizza, chic for chicken, and teettthh if he wants to brush his teeth. (aka waller the tooth brush around in his mouth and chew on it with his now 14 teeth!!). Go figure that the clearest sentence he says is 'get the ball' ..
He can THROW a ball practically across the room.
Jon is a lefty, and is thoroughly enjoying the fact that Kellen is throwing balls with his left hand. We will even hand it to him in his right hand and he will switch it over to his left hand before throwing it.. maybe a lefty pitcher in the making ???
We're having to try hard to teach him the difference of it being allowed to throw balls but not everything else, as we have both been pegged in the head with flying random toys.. and let me tell ya, when a wooden block is chunked at your head from close range it HURTS.

As you probably know by now, Jon and I are coffee fanatics! We set down regularly in our living room to enjoy a cup of joe together, and from day one Kellen has been infatuated with our coffee cups.. He will try to touch them and just keep saying hawt, hawt.. The other day Kellen said 'cof' so Jon was like 'fee' .. for some reason or another this was hysterical to Kellen. Jon would be like kellen say 'cof' , so he would and then he'd be like say 'fee' and Kellen would giggle and laugh.. This went on for several minutes we were all entertained. 
 He's a mess!

Such a happy happy baby with a kind personality.. He gets a little shy and quiet if a lot of people are around. He comes by this all too naturally :)

In the last month he's discovered he can scale the chairs at the kitchen table so I can leave the room for five seconds and find him setting on top of the table when I get back... Just pilfering through my wallet or bag or whatever else is up there.

I'm struggling to get him to eat his vegetables and fruits now.. he is even refusing bananas which he has loved from day one..He needs his greens!! ugh

We have been to the pool a few times this year and he's not crazy about it and I'm guessing it has to do with the water temp. The first day we had our redneck backyard pool the water was cold and he wouldn't get in.. but the next day it had warmed up and he got right in. He's timid about some things and that's ok by me. Maybe that means he inherited my dads 'proceed with caution' demeanor and it will help him stay out of the emergency room! Jon is the polar opposite so its a toss up...This momma can only hope! ha
He loves his family and nothing makes him happier then to be surrounded by his cousins and grand parents..
He is steadily growing in leaps and bounds.

Heart Goes out to Joplin

Just weeks ago these streets of Joplin were filled with homes just like ours, and in those houses were scrapbooks and pictures and family heirlooms and warm clothes and comfortable beds... and within minutes it was taken from them and this is all that remains.  We took a 30 minute break the day we were there and drove through the area and I did get these pics from the window of our car. It didn't feel right to get out and pilfer through the piles of rubble. I can't even imagine what these families are going through. My heart goes out to them. I feel like if I were loaded I'd help as many of them  as I could to try and rebuild their homes and replace their cars.. the only thing we knew to do was to go and volunteer to work for a day. We didn't really know who to help or what we would be doing, but Thursday we went to Joplin and prayed on the way there that we would be able to be of use to them for the day...

 We pulled into the first church parking lot we found after entering Joplin. Forest Park church. They directed us to the Samaritan house set up on location to direct volunteers to various places. We ended up in the Lowe's parking lot down the road where Jackson Brothers and Tyson were set up serving free lunch and dinners to anyone that showed up to eat.. Throughout the course of the day we helped on an assembly line to make over 1,000 lunches for workers and tornado survivors that came through. We met several wonderful people from different parts of the area that were there volunteering their time as well. We heard stories of survival, some tragic and some heart wrenching... On the short drive around the area we noticed something that I think is an incredible act of humanity.. People were there from all walks of life, offering their individual service or trade.. vendors were on site donating their food items, while people with smokers were there cooking it, one guy was set up offering free tire repairs (due to the nails and debri this was much needed)... Through the heart ache of not understanding why natural devastation occurs it was uplifting to see that there are still so many people in the world that are willing to give their time and sacrifice their own comforts to serve others in time of need. An EF5 tornado is NO joke... It will take this community many years to rebuild all they have lost. This could take place anywhere and happen to any one of us.. To me, it's an eye opening example of why it is so important to live life right, be humble, and thank God for everything in this world that matters, our salvation and our family.



Five year full circle...

Let me start by saying... Congratulations to our cutie kindergarten graduate.

Last weekend was a road trip to the bluff to celebrate Jaxson's graduating kindergarten. We FINALLY caught one of his baseball games and spent the weekend in Little Rock hanging out with the graduate.

It had been awhile since I had been to my nieces and nephews ball games at this age so I had forgotten how entertaining these little sluggers can be... hoot!

This collage or one like it I'm going to have made into a poster, give it to him as a birthday gift and we'll hang it in his room. Action Jaxson!

We stayed the weekend with our friends and their 3 month old baby girl who is precious!

                                                                          Madeline Grace..
She is a great baby that is easy going just like Kellen was at 3 months old. She coos and talks to her momma and smiles a LOT to only be right at 3 months old.. She's beautiful which means she looks just like her mommy(sorry clay).   If and when (IF) we have another child, I think it would be neat to have a girl this time.. Of course we already have a boy name picked out, so we'll see...

                                                          The Davis boys, always charmers... We took Jaxson to Target to buy TWO toys for a graduation treat and as always he flirted with the girl at the check-out.. He asked her if she liked his shirt, and then told her he'd have them make her one and needed to know her name so he could bring it back to her. ha

I love these 2 pictures... Jaxson turned ONE a couple weeks after Jon and I started dating. I hadn't met him yet and Jon emailed me pictures of him and Jax from his first birthday party his Gramma had for him. We met a few weeks later, Jon brought him up to the mall. They were coming out of the restroom at Dillards and I could hear Jon talking to him and telling him that he wanted him to be good and smile because he really liked this girl.. (it was cute.) Around the corner came the stroller and this little blonde headed baby boy looked up at me and gave me one of those looks of, 'now who are you.' I thought oh boy, this kid isnt going to like me.

But it didnt take long to win him over.. We went to the park and to eat at Buffalo Wild Wings.. After a few silly faces, some swings, and some dip and chips from bdubs and I had won him over :)

Now five years later that sweet sweet little tyke that was crazy about Thomas the train is a wild indian kindergarden graduate smarty pants that corrects everything I say!! lol I still love him very much... and seeing pictures like this one reminds me of just how much.. No matter how grown they get, they are still the same little charmers that melted your heart and had you spending every penny you made on over priced Thomas the Train toys. (I still to this day know most of the names of those goofy boring trains!)  

                                                                              Infact, we still have all the trains and tracks and broke them out of the attick for Kellen recently.. He isn't as fascinated with them as Jaxson was, but he likes to run them around the house like cars. Two cuties!

 This pic makes me smile every time I see it.. Jon said come here jax and so jax went over to the side of the bridge, steadily doing exactly what Jen has trained him to do , look at the camera and smile... Jon had to be like, its ok jax, you can look at this and not the camera for a minute.. haha and Kellen was just looking on at the big boys with his cute little self.

They were laughing and spitting into the water below and watching the menos go crazy and swim up to the spit..  sigh Boys will be boys!! :)

And bless her heart, Racheal took some family pictures of us. I thought it would be good to mark Jaxson's k graduation with some rare family pics.

---------------

Yesterday was also five years to the day that Jon and I went out on our first date. He messaged me on instant messenger at work needing help for one of his drivers and we struck up a conversation from there.

Our mutual friend Heather sat beside him at work and she told him and I both seperately that we needed to date.. We had talked for a couple weeks on instant messenger for something to pass time at work, but I think we were both in jaded places and didn't really take it seriously... That is until he knocked on my apartment door for our semi-blind date and I swung the door open and said 'hey'. To here ME tell it, he was hooked from first sight!

I was NEVER good at dating. I didn't have long term relationships because I found flaws in every guy that truly liked me, and I spent an embarassing amount of time drinking away my sorrows, or chasing after guys that were 'jerks' to put it nicely. (expect barbie but look like sponge bob rather than ken. you know the ones).

I dreaded dinner dates because it always felt like either an interview or a snooze fest.. zzzzz. but with Jon and I none of that was the case. We both had a care free attitude about it so conversation was easy going and the chemistry was there. and the rest is history. In 19 days we leave for our 7 day cruise. were stoked!

 I love our little family.

                                             I feel truly blessed to have exactly what we have.