We had a Merry Little Christmas

Baby's First Christmas!

I was so lucky to have John Huston's first Christmas off work. I worked Christmas Eve and as soon as I got home, we went straight to the festivities. We went to Nanny's house for our family's Christmas get together. After stuffing ourselves with seafood gumbo, shrimp and appetizers, we played Dirty Santa then headed home to get ready for Santa. John Huston woke up at 8 am and we went straight to the den to see what Santa brought. He got a workbench, pull along doggy, cell phone, clothes, and the baby Einsteen DVD collection.

I could not resist these outfits!!

He also got a reindeer puppet book and snacks in his stocking. We went straight to MeMe & Pop's to eat our traditional Christmas breakfast. They gave him a rocking horse, 4 wheeler ride along toy, camouflage onesize and money. Nanny gave him diapers, pop up toy, pull along phone, cell phone toy and hoodie jacket. Uncle A gave him a mini football.
After breakfast, we went to Lloyd's sister's house to have the Eicher Christmas. All of Lloyd's family was there. We ate a wonderful lunch and had a good visit. Then we went home and had a good nap and went to MeMe & Pop's for Christmas Eve leftovers. We were also blessed that John Huston was a healthy boy on Christmas!

John Huston's big spread from everyone!!

One the Eve of Christmas...

John Huston turned 11 Months Old!! Wow, one more month until..I can't even say it. We have had a busy and hard month with this little man. He got a terrible cold the first of the month and it lasted a horrible 3 weeks. At first it started out with the runny nose and sneezing which progressed to a nonstop cough and led to him not having a appetite. The pediatrician diagnosed him with sinusitis and a mild ear infection and after 10 days of antibiotics, he was a new baby. We are still struggling with the eating since he does not want anymore baby food. I have been trying to get him to eat tablefood but anytime a spoon goes near him, he locks those jaws down and shakes his head. But if you put food on his try, it goes straight to decorate the walls and floor. Oh the joys of a growing baby! At his pediatrician appt he weighed 21 lbs, 2 oz!!

MeMe & Pop kept him for us one evening so we could go out for Lloyd's 33rd birthday. He had an ugly fall at their house and got a bad owie to his nose so we had to put off making Christmas card pictures a little later. At least his 9 month pictures had just been made the week before! But he is a tough little boy and bangs his head around at least once a day.

He finally took his first steps on Dec 10th. He took 3-4 steps from the coffee table to Buster, of course! and then yesterday was his first time actually 'walking'. I had to work an extra 12 hr shift and Lloyd looked up and he walked right from the coffee table (far end) to the fireplace where Buster was. Then he did it again so Lloyd got it on video so I could see it. We will be purchasing a leash very soon!

He is quite the talker/babbler now. When he sees me he makes the 'mmm' noises but hasn't quite said "mama". He also like to hollar "hey" and other nonsense words. Another sweet milestone is that he has been giving those big ole' kisses. Doesn't close his mouth for them but loves to get you right on the lips! We can't wait for his first Christmas and ours as a "real" family!!

One small step for little man...

leads to many more! Here is our little walker...he started walking on a night I was working an extra 12 hr shift and Lloyd caught it on video the second time he took off.

The joys of Christmas card picture time

This is what goes on trying to get a hyper baby to take pictures!!



And I thought it was hard to take pictures of just us and Buster. This year was a real challenge getting John Huston and Buster to cooperate for pictures, oh and don't forget about a grumpy husband too! After looking back at all 40 pictures taken over 3 different nights, here are some other pictures that were not chosen but were just too cute not to share.

Some Good Ole' Buster & JH Fun!

My Winter Wonderland

A Few of My Favority Things:

Snowman Birdfeeder

Snowman tealights on each side of the front steps

Big wreath on window with pinecones & berries

Snowman windchime

tree topiary I made with pinecones and berries

mantle in den

9 Month Pictures

sweet mischievous grin


I can stand up on my own



baby boy!

I look like a porcelain doll

look how much I've grown!

Ho Ho Ho

We took John Huston to College City Drug's open house in Marion to meet Santa for the first time. He has started going through the stranger anxiety phase so I didn't know how he would act. He just stared at him with his mouth wide open but didn't cry. We got a few decent shots but I wished he would have pulled his beard down ;)

We found the perfect gift for John Huston, a rocking horse, he loved it! Hopfully Lloyd can build him one soon.

Before we left, we had to stop and get some goodies. MeMe gave John Huston some cookies & he loved them. Yum, yum!

Waaar Eagle!

We attended the annual Iron Bowl party at Uncle Pop's house this year. I had to work but joined everyone when I got off. John Huston was decked out in his Auburn gear for the occasion. Even though Auburn lost, we are proud of those Tigers and are glad they improved from last year.

Gobble, Gobble

The little gobbler making his way around Nanny's house.

We had a great Thanksgiving with family and friends. I had to work that day and we had a good spread at work and then they gave us a free meal that we got to save for the next day. I got off at 3 pm and came home to get ready for supper at my grandmother's house. John Huston has been sick with a cold for the past two weeks but he stayed in good spirits for his first Thanksgiving. Lloyd bought him special baby food for the occasion but he didn't want to hardly eat it because of him not feeling well. He did enjoy some of Nanny's dressing though. We celebrated all of the things that we were thankful for, especially having a beautiful baby boy and for my dad's good health report from his heart surgery.




Our little Turkey's first Thanksgiving

He had yummy babyfood just for the occasion:

turkey and gravy, corn and sweet potatoes & vanilla custard dessert.

A Big Ole' Ten Month Old!

I found my friend in the closet!

Yes he is a big ole' boy! John Huston is getting to the fun part in baby. He is so active and is starting to entertain himself more. He loves to open and shut cabinet doors and grabs whatever is in those cabinets too. He is really getting to be a climber and not only pushes the walker but climbs up on it with his feet hanging off! He finally got that 4th tooth up top so we have 4 teeth on the top and 2 on the bottom. Pretty pearly whites! He is still loves his babyfood eating 6-7 jars a day. He does get bored with it sometimes and we have to give him a toy to hold while he eats. When Lloyd and I are eating supper, he will come up to us and will eat small bites of table food at times. We took him to church for the first time the first of November and he did really well. He only cried when we came back to get him from the nursery and then he realized we had been gone. He loves to push toys in his wagon and one day while I was at work and Lloyd was with him on the weekend, Lloyd put Buster in the wagon and John Huston had a blast pushing him around. We have so much to look forward to coming up with him and his firsts with holidays, Santa, and being with family for the first time.

It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas

Well I did a big 'no no' at my house. I decorated before Thanksgiving. My family and I always decorate the weekend after Thanksgiving but since my pattern falls on Thanksgiving this year, I wouldn't be able to decorate until two weekends after and I didn't like not having my decorations up very long. Last year all we put up was a tree since I was all huge with John Huston in my tummy and didn't feel like decorating. So Lloyd and I dragged out all 5 big tupperware boxes plus deer and outside decorations from the attic. World War III didn't happen as bad as it usually does when this time comes. John Huston wasn't very patience with me as I tried to unpack so I had to work on it when he went down for his afternoon nap. When he woke up, he thought we were in a different house.

Lloyd and I decorated the tree after supper and John Huston helped by crawling under the tree

and unpacking my ornament box.

We did on purpose go ahead and leave off ornaments on the lower part of the tree to keep our ornaments safe.

So far he has been good and hasn't messed with the tree. So here is our finished tree!

Little Bit of Fall Flavor

front yard decoration

I love this time of year! I love the weather, colors, decorations and comfort food. Here are a few pictures of some decorations I put out as soon as the first day of fall hits and keep them out until Thanksgiving. As much as I love decorating for Christmas, I still love to keep my fall decorations out as long as I can.

one of the Autumn urns I made

front porch

front steps

Miniature Farmer

I have been loving taking pictures of John Huston in fall scenes. I decided to go visit Lloyd's work place at the John Deere store and get some pictures with the mums in front of the store. He had a cute tractor overall outfit that I couldn't resist dressing him in and then Lloyd had got him a hat that said "Miniature Farmer" on his last business trip. After posing in front of the mums, Mr. Scott put him in the tractor bucket.

And then we had to go inside and look at all the cool toys. He loved the wagon and mini gator. Can we say future Christmas list?? haha

silly boy!

(he loved honking the horn!)

Trick Or Treat!

We had our own little pumpkin patch for Halloween. I had always wanted John Huston to be a pumpkin for his first Halloween as it has been a family tradition for the first Halloween for our family members to be pumpkins. I had to search a while to find the perfect costume since most of them were just pumpkin outfits with hoods and a jack o lantern face. I wanted a real pumpkin outfit with the stem hat. I finally found it online and it was perfect on John Huston. We couldn't leave Buster out since he had dressed up for every Halloween since we have been married. Buster was also a pumpkin and it was so hard getting a good picture of them together.

After I got in from work, we got on our Halloween gear and headed out to MeMe & Pop's house for trick or treating. John Huston got a pumpkin full of baby food and a pony to ride when he starts walking. We then headed to Southern Academy's carnival. We entered John Huston in the costume contest and even though he didn't win I thought he was the cutest baby there.

We did the fishing pole game and walked around visiting with friends and their babies. After we left the carnival we visited a friends house and Aunt Melanie's house for trick or treating. He got another bag of baby snacks. When we got home, John Huston was exhausted and slept soundly all night!