Watermelon and Babies

This weekend was a pretty easy and relaxing weekend. We stayed at home most of the weekend and enjoyed the downtime. We watched movies and kept the curtains closed. It was nice and dark and perfect for watching movies. I slept through most of the movies on Saturday and played with Stratton some too. I bought a watermelon on Friday and Stratton was just dying to eat some of it. Saturday before his nap I cracked it open and we all three sat on the back porch and gorged ourselves with watermelon. It was SO good!

 Stratton thought it was pretty cool that he could take a big bite out of the big slice.

 Daddy was eating his with salt so Strat had to give it a try too.

 Cheers to watermelon!

Sunday my friend Amanda and I threw a baby celebration for our friends Lauren and Alex who had a beautiful baby boy about a month ago. His name is Everett Dale and he is the cutest little thing.

He sleeps so well even though there were a million things making noise around him.

Stratton loved giving him kisses too while he was sleeping.

Alex and Stratton are best buds.

We had lots of yummy treats for everyone.

Amanda brought her new baby Lulu to the party to hang out too. Isn't she the cutest?

The boys played redneck golf in the front yard.

Stratton hadn't had a nap that day and was SUPER fussy.

Alex had quite the green thumb. This is one of his flowers in front of their house.

Look at that cute boy!

She is so precious. Stratton liked Lulu too. She kept giving him kisses.

Amanda with Everett. He is such a good baby.

Already sporting his cardinals gear. haha. We will have him dressed in Red Sox gear soon enough. ;)

Amanda spiked his hair. This kid has more hair at one month than Stratton had at one year.

Ice cream cake!

We love baby Everett.

These pictures of him are so adorable. These are his new born pictures.

Ashley came by to celebrate baby Everett.

Even Derek got to hold the baby while he slept. He said he could get used to this. Good thing! Because only like 7 more months and he's going to be doing this a lot.

This is Ashley's daughter Ella. She's 3 months younger than Stratton. They were definitely partners in crime on Sunday.

Our friend Lego and his girlfriend Sammy brought their puppy with them as well. His name was Weston.

He's a silver lab. Super cute! He had the biggest paws on him.

We say outside and soaked up the fresh air. Everett loved it.

Look at those cheeks!

Ella thought it was pretty fun to throw water at the boys.

Derek was her target for a few minuets.

I think Alex needs a little Lulu too.

Let me just go on record for just a minuet and say that I was actually dressed nice in a pretty dress with my hair down and no glasses but my son decided to spray the entire back side of me with the water hose before we got any decent pictures. So yes, I look like a slob but that was only because my son decided I needed another shower.

We are so blessed to have such great friends. We really enjoyed getting to see everyone and are so thankful for everyone that came and joined us celebrate.

Thanksgiving Picture Dump

Thanksgiving was so great this year. We didn't stress about going to a million places we just went where we needed to go and ate when we got there. It was so nice getting to see the family and getting to spend time with the people we love the most. I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving. Enjoy pictures from our day.

The beloved kids table.

 The ever cherished adult table.

Stratton loves playing with the blocks when we go to Great Grandma Marge's house.

Stratton is so good at stacking these blocks. Way better then I ever was and still am.

Look at that face. This is by far the most adorable thing in my world.

My beautiful sister, my beautiful Grandma Marge and myself.

Grandma B and I having a serious conversation...about something.

Showing Grandma B my smart phone. She's never really seen one before so I explained to her what all it did and showed her how you can play games and movies on it. She was amazed.

I finally got my dang sweet potatoes!

My beautiful sister, my other beautiful Grandma B and myself.

Love my sis!

Love my kid!

He loves when I wear my hear down so he can run his fingers through it. Last night I work it down in bed while we were laying down and he kept running his fingers through it. It was so sweet.

I love my Grandma Marges kitchen and all of her fiesta ware. I'm hoping maybe this year I might get my first set. Fingers crossed. I haven't told anyone I wanted them yet but I'm kind of hoping I might start to collect them.

Love my husband!

Oh yea! There's a good one!

My beautiful Grandma B

Great Grandma B and Stratton.

He's so dreamy.

My sister's dog Sage begging for food. It's so funny. She will put her paw out for you to shake it but as soon as you touch her paw she draws it in and won't let you grab it.

Four Generations (Great Grandma Marge, myself, Stratton, Grandma Kathie, and Casey.

The whole famn damily.

Thanksgiving 2011

Thanksgiving at Dale and Lisa's

Aunt Stephie, Payne and Uncle Garrett on their way out to go to STL.

Cobie with Grandma Lisa.

Little Miss Cobie. Isn't she the cutest.

Stratton and JD were having so much fun playing with Papa Dale's iPad.

They were seriously enthralled.

More movie watching by the boys.

They even got comfy on the couch and snuggled up next to each other.

That afternoon we put up the Christmas tree. It's our family tradition to do it on Thanksgiving as a way to kind of wind down from the day.

Gosh I love getting my picture taken....not.

Stratton was such a big helper.

He brought me all the different sized branches by the color tags that are on the bottom of them. He is getting so good at knowing all the different colors.

He was fast too. He handed them to me before I was ready.

Me and my little man.

He's the best.

Me and our Charlie Brown tree.

The finished product.

I know this is going to spoil some surprises for Christmas for a few of my readers but I just thought this was such a cool idea that I had to share it with everyone. I made ornaments!

I took loose glitter, clear glass ball ornaments, and pledge floor shine.
You first pour some floor shine into the ornaments (after you take the tops off of them) and swirl it around to coat the inside of the ornament. Then you take a funnel and pour glitter into the inside of the ball. Swish it around to cover the whole inside and bazinga! You have sparkly Christmas Balls!

I thought they were pretty and all but they needed a little something extra. SO, I made Stratton get his hands dirty and we put his cute little hand print on the outside of them! They turned out AWESOME! Stratton hated having his hands dirty though. He's so funny about that kind of stuff. It was cool for about a minuet then after that it was torture.

He thought it was so cool that he could see his hand print on the bulbs.

What the heck is this stuff on my hands?

He hated it.

He wanted to touch EVERYTHING!

Cheese!

We wound up doing 5 ornaments that night. We still have like 9-10 more to go. I'm hoping he will last longer with the paint on his hands the next time.

I had him hold his hand out and then grab the ornament. It worked really well that way.

I didn't really think it through very well as to how to dry these things. I wound up hanging them from some ribbon I got for gift wrapping. I had to keep in mind the cat too because he wanted to play with them.

 I'll post the final product closer to Christmas.