I know that it’s probably a little late to still be posting photographs from our Cananda trip. Especially since we have been home now for over two months; but I still have a few that I really want to share so hang in there- ok?
One of my favorite things that we did while in Calgary was go to the zoo. It’s a wonderful zoo with all kinds of animals and Jay LOVED it! It has fun kid parks, really amazing animals and Jay got to take his first ever carousel ride (which he loved). Jamie and I really enjoyed it as well, it honestly makes me jealous of Jacksonville and their zoo… By the way my personal favorite animal was the giraffe. I seriously could have stood there all day long and been pleased as punch, it might have been the playful baby that was bouncing around their area chasing birds or just that they are so majestic looking- I am not really sure but I was like a kid in a candy store and even requested we stop one more time before leaving the zoo just to see them again.
Jay using the information station as a phone- I love his expression in this photo, it is just so him right nowthe baby :)isn't it cool how close we were able to get to them?!?we were so close- I didn't have a huge zoom lens on to take this photoJay loved them toothe zoo crew aside from Jamie and Auntie Marilyn who were taking the photosJay and Bradey, fast friends- love this one :)
Jay playing with my Auntie Deb at the parkhe loved these bouncy things at the parkbig kittiesa rare photo of just the two of us
Jay playing on the hill outside the place where we had lunch. He loved playing on the hills and running down them, something that we don't get to do in Florida too often.running down the hill
I probably have close to 500+ photos that I would love to edit and post (the selects from); however, I just can’t seem to find the extra time to get through them these days. Jay is down to one nap (for the most part) and it isn’t really that long, so my productive time has been cut in half AND if you consider that I nap often (being 38 weeks pregnant and chasing Jay is kicking my booty) these days too you can pretty much say productive time has gone out the window. Along with cutting down on productive time it also feels like my list of to do’s just keeps getting longer the closer we get to having baby brother. Oh well, not much I can do about it and if I look on the bright side the only really huge thing I need to do before this second little bundle of joy comes is pack my hospital bag… It’s funny how much things change with the second kiddo- with Jay my bags were packed and ready by the door one month out, with this one I will be lucky to have them packed the night before :)
Okay, enough with the random chatter (thanks for listening by the way) and on to some pretty random photos. I let Jay eat his breakfast the other day at the “big” table. He was so darn proud of himself and thought that he was such a big boy for sitting all on his own. It was pretty darn cute to see only his little noggin’ popping up over the table :)
waiting (pretty patiently for him, I might add) for his muffin
Six years ago today I was introduced to my husband. We were set up by a dear friend/colleague of mine and my now father-in-law. When Lisa asked me if I would be interested in meeting Jamie my statement was- “Sure, what have I got to lose.” What I didn’t know was just how much I had to gain…
this was the oldest photo I could find of the two of us without too much digging... it's was taken shortly after we started dating- enjoy the flash back :)
This is probably the only good photo I got of Jay on Halloween since he was so busy and not too interested in posing for his Mommy. However, I love it!!
We really had a Monster of a good time (sorry couldn’t help myself) this year; it’s been so much fun especially since Jay is a little older and able to participate in the holiday activities. I decided that it was time to let Jay help make and decorate some sugar cookies. I figured that it could be the biggest disaster ever or we could have a great time… It was the later ;) He loved every minute of helping to pour in the ingredients (which he has done on multiple occasions while helping with other baking projects), mixing everything together, spreading the flour, rolling the dough, using the cookie cutters but I am sure that his favorite part of it all was decorating the cookies. He spread icing on a few of them but sprinkles were by far the best part of the whole deal. I am sure that he would have put a whole bottle on each of them if I would have let him. The whole project honestly took twice as long to finish as it would have normally but every time I looked over and saw his little face I was reminded of how precious and totally worth it that “extra” time was.
taste testingtaste testing some more, don't worry I switched knifes after this...
Tonight Maggie and Josh came over and joined us in our pumpkin carving adventure- we didn’t carve pumpkins last year so it was Jay’s first time. He was excited and kept saying “carve pumpkin” over and over again :) Jay helped me to clean out all of the seeds before he headed to bed and Jamie designed and did the carving (it was getting late and I don’t think Jay would have sat for much of the carving). It was fun and such a great end to our weekend.
the finished products- ours on the left, Maggie and Josh's on the right (sorry I didn't actually get a photo of the two of you, just your pumpkin)
See that face? The one that melts my heart and pushes every button that I have all at once? Well he turned 21 months old today- I know, it’s crazy isn’t it? He is the main reason that I have been such a horrible blogger lately, that and the little one growing in my tummy, the two of them plum wear me out these days!! We have been busy lately, yes it’s true, we’v been traveling, celebrating with family, preparing to add to our family, I’ve been working (I had 5 shoots this month- yay for the work but boo for the extra work) and trying to get client images up but nothing has kept me as busy as my boys.
So give me a minute and I will fill you in a bit…
Jay Bird is non-stop these days… I saw a sign the other day on pintrest that said “a Mother of boys works from Son up until Son down”; it’s true I tell you- so true…
*He runs everywhere- literally runs, as fast as his little legs will take him, all the while saying “race”, “fast” and sometimes “super fast”…
*He repeats virtually everything that comes out of our mouths- this is funny and not funny all at the same time. He also talks non-stop- about everything and nothing all at once.
*He has opinions, strong opinions, about the most random and unexpected things. A few days ago he had a complete and utter meltdown because I tried to put the truck bib on him for breakfast and NOT the fish bib like he wanted.
*He will eat everything on his highchair tray like he is starving and hasn’t been fed in days but only if it’s his idea and if it happens to be placed there in the correct order (did I mention that the order changes daily?); however, if it isn’t in the correct order it’s full on meltdown time. Some of his favorites right now include peanut butter (which he basically licks straight off of the bread and calls “butter”), waffles (he can eat 3/4 of a Belgian waffle or two eggos on his own), yogurt and black olives.
*He is funny and he knows it… he will ham it up for people if he knows that he is being watched and he will laugh this awesome laugh at things he thinks are funny. He also loves to watch himself in videos and smiles at himself the whole way through.
*He loves to dance and will start shimmying whenever he hears music. He does have some serious white-boy moves but I love them!
*He loves to be read to and has an attention span for stories that is astonishing to both Jamie and me. He will sit through lengthy story after story every night before bed and frequently throughout the day parroting his favorite parts and pointing out things he loves to see on the pages. He also makes requests for certain favorite books and will search the house until it is found.
*He knows most of his colors… with the exception of a few he can name colors when asked with very little need for correction.
*He loves to play, mostly with duplo and cars. I am pretty sure that the first word out of his mouth when he gets up in the morning is cars and aside from the kisses and request for juice at bed time it is the last word that he utters. He knows all the names of this cars (some are die casts from the Disney movie Cars and have actual names) others are the names that he has given them but either way we play with them ALL DAY LONG! They zoom around my feet while I make dinner, they “crash” and flip off of the coffee table and they race man do they race. We talk about cars non-stop when we are in the car- he can spot a “jeepie” (a jeep) from a mile away. By the way a jeepie has to be a wrangler and a rag top is preferred.
So basically, I am exhausted most days when Jamie gets home because I spend every moment chasing this little one and as you can see he keeps me pretty darn busy. However, he is precious beyond words. He gives the best big hugs around, will freely give out kisses and tells me “love you”. It is melt your heart worthy, I promise. So even though I am tired and my days are not my own, I know that it won’t be long before I have another one to split my time with so I am trying to cherish every moment that I have with him and ignore all of the things that can wait.
Everything else is pretty good, we don’t have many things to complain about and the things we do have just don’t seem worth it. Hope you all can say the same :)
Here’s a few other photos to help fill you in on our happenings…
playing outside- also something that he loves right now. He always seems to get filthy regardless of the amount of time we are outhelping to blow out the candles on Jamie's birthday muffins
eating yogurt all by himself- it's a messier process but he is getting better by the day
Last weekend, Jamie, Jay and I went to a stable that was hosting a fall festival. They had all kinds of entertainment including pumpkin painting, face painting, music, pumpkins to take photos with and pony rides. Jay rode a pony, enjoyed watching the people and children that were around and carted pumpkins around most of the time that we were there. We didn’t actually pick our pumpkins here (they didn’t have many big ones) but we all enjoyed ourselves.
Watching the ponies during our pumpkin patch adventurehe wasn't so sure about the big horses in the stable- he liked them but he wanted to keep his distancepumpkin relocation project
the best "posed" photo we could get of Jay and the pumpkins- he started tossing them shortly after thisMommy and Jay- please excuse the dirty face... we were outside so he was dirtyJay's first pony ride- you can't really tell from the photos (since he is pretty serious in all of them) but he really enjoyed his ride
our second pumpkin patch adventure- the place where we got our pumpkins to carvegourds! also good tossing size...
Jay, baby #2 and I are so lucky to have you in our lives; we couldn’t ask for a better Daddy or husband. We love you and hope you have a wonderful day!!!
p.s. this is the reason that Birthday isn’t written out in it’s entirety… this was no easy feat with a duplo lovin’ helper ;)
Also, Jay wanted to send along a birthday message as well… I apologize in advance for the lighting issues we were “filming” by the window and the clouds kept changing the light. I kept all of the video since it’s just too cute listening to him chatter on at the end. Who knows what he was saying but I bet it had something to do with how much he loves his Daddy ;)
The big event for our trip was the 85th birthday party celebrating my Grandma. It was such a wonderful event that celebrated an equally wonderful lady; we ate, caught up with family I haven’t seen for a while , watched a video that had wedding footage from when my grandparents got married, looked through old photos and just enjoyed the afternoon. It was such a nice afternoon and I am so thankful for my Aunts and Uncle who worked so hard to make it happen, they are great!
my cousin Rileymy Grandma and two of her siblings
the birthday girl :)my Grandma and her four children- Doug, Trish, Deb and Trudyduplo and a few cars to keep this little one entertainedmy great Aunt and cousin- Auntie Florence and Barb
Scott and Frannie- my brother and sister-in-law
Jay's first juice box :)letting the balloons free after the party
another of my Grandma and her kidsAuntie Trish and two of her three kiddos- Amy and Rileymy Grandma and her grandkids (by birth and marriage) and great grandson
These are a couple from my Auntie Deb’s camera, I rarely get photos with me in them…
The day after my Mom, brother and sister-in-law flew in everyone headed to the mountains (well not really the mountains but the foothills rather) for a picnic and wiener roast. It was a beautiful day outside- perfect for jeans and t-shirts :-) We were able to grab a great spot next to the river with a beautiful view. Jay loved tossing rocks into the river, something he doesn’t have much of a chance to do in Florida, so we spent lots of time down by the river. We were also able to take a short hike, roast marshmallows and we stopped for ice cream on the way home. This has always been one of my favorite things to do whenever we visit, I just wish that we were closer and could do it more often…
Bradey taking a turn tossing rockseven Grandma tossed a few rocks in too
my cousin Riley enjoying the river water, he basically swam a little later in the afternoon while we were hikingfamily photo- that is one happy boy!Jake- one happy puppy... wish Piper could have joined us, she would have had a ballwiener and marshmallow roastingmarshmallows!!Amy, Auntie Deb and Auntie Trish at the beginning of our short hike
Auntie Trish and JayFrannie :)sweet boysome scenerymore rock tossing (can you see the splash?)
love these next twoLOVE this one!the whole groupJay and Bradey riding on a horse at our post picnic ice cream stop. The ride wasn't actually working but Jay loved it just the same.racing some of the ice cream energy offa dancing Bradey
I usually stray away from spliting up posts into multiple days, it’s not my style or preference; however, we have quite a few photos from our trip to Canada so bear with me for the next few days while I update you on our travels…
At the beginning of this month Jamie, Jay and I made the 8+ hour trek to visit my family in Canada and to celebrate my Grandma’s 85th birthday. I can’t lie and say that the long flight, early departure time and 19 month old didn’t make me completely and utterly nervous- it did, BUT I think I handled it as best as I could (or as best as Jamie could have hoped for). I prepared like crazy, brought a ton of entertainment for Jay- new toys, new books, pipe cleaners, bags of blocks, bags of cars, new and special snacks, an iPad stocked with childrens’ movies, and we left with a hope and lots of prayers. He did surprisingly well for his age; this is not to say that we didn’t get a few dirty looks from fellow travelers and have a few difficulties but we made it and really enjoyed our trip.
Most of the trip was spent hanging out with my extended family, we didn’t plan any elaborate trips to the mountains or want to see anything in particular while we were there and that is exactly what happened. It was perfect and just what we hoped for.
I don’t have any photos from when we were actually on the plane that weren’t taken on my phone (I had no desire to haul our mega camera down from the overhead bin to capture any of it). So enjoy the phone photos and then a few from our first couple days hanging out at my Grandma’s house.
Our first flight left so early that we just grabbed Jay out of the crib, changed his diaper and took him to the airport in his jammies. He was wide awake from the moment that we got him up until his short nap on the plane. He loved looking at the airplanes and even more so the trucks from the terminal.
iPhone photo from the first two flights- watching a movie on the iPad.
Jay loved playing with an old Barn that my Grandma had, he used it like a parking garage for all of his cars. He also loved the wind-up toys that she had. Especially the zebra that he called a Z-B :)
While my Auntie Deb was grilling we played outside on the back porch (where I had spent tons of time during the summer as a kid) with some bubbles. It was so much fun to see Jay run and play in the yard.
a new favorite of my two guys
part of the garden that my Aunt and Grandma have... I can't count the number of things I have eaten out of there over the years
the return plane trip via iPhone…
crashing after watching part of the Cars moviepoor Jamie sat like this for the hour plus that Jay slept- both of us worried that if he moved an inch Jay would wake up...fun with cars and painter's tape roadsJay fell asleep on the very last flight as we were landing. He stayed that way while everyone deplaned, as Jamie moved him to be able to pick up a bag and all of the way through the airport until we got to baggage claim. We can only think of one other time he has crashed this hard- I guess the trip really wore him out!
one last photo of Jay sleeping on Jamie in the airport- taken with the big camera
the perreault family 