What the what?

In less than 1 month my baby boy will be 2!!!!!  How did this time get away from me?  This little boy amazes me everyday.  When your kids get older you forget how fun it is to watch them learn.  Simon is really into learning and we have so much fun doing it.  Right now he is working on his abc's.  He can count to 12 but still doesn't recognize the actual numbers.  He can tell you when he sees two or three items.  He knows colors, red, blue, green, orange, yellow, black, brown,pink, and purple.  He knows shapes circle, square, triangle, diamond, rectangle, octagon, and pentagon.  He loves to sing and his favorites are skinamarinky dink, my bonnie, Jesus loves me, the abc song.  He loves to watch baby einstein movies, and anything on disney and sprout.  But Simon's all time favorite thing is all things garbage.  Garbage trucks, garbage cans, garbage bags, etc.  He has 5 garbage truck toys at the moment and I'm sure there are more to come.  He rides them like riding toys all over the house.  With his love of Garbage I felt the best theme for his 2nd birthday party should be garbage.  I have his invitation designed and am saving up bottles and newspapers for decorations.  Here is a pic of the invitation.

Now about the rest of us.  Eric is still working his tail off at Southern Motion, Tyler is rocking it out his senior year.  He was accepted in the honor college at UAB and has earned almost enough in scholarships to have it all paid for.  Bryce is doing great in 4th grade, and is also doing great healthwise.  I can't even remember the last time he had an allergic reaction.  And I have been working in the tax collector's office for the past 2 months.  So we have been super super busy. I hope to get a few minutes this weekend to post some catchup pics.

Simon sings Jesus loves me

I've been trying to teach Simon the words to Jesus Loves Me for a while now, and everytime I would sing it to him he would cover his ears...of course this coupled with the way he's been acting when we go to church had really gotten me wondering what kind of child I had spawned.  Last night after trying once more to sing Jesus Loves Me to him I gave up.  I was in the kitchen and I heard him singing, and to my surprise it was Jesus Loves Me...he is gonna turn out just fine after all LOL!

Tis the Season

It's that time again for everyone to start decking their halls with Christmas cheer.  It has been a little difficult to get into that spirit with the weather being so warm...thank goodness it's starting to cool off and I'm feeling a little Christmasy again.  I am happy to say that all of my decorating is done and so is my shopping, so now I just get to sit back and enjoy the season.
We have several traditions around here and this year we started off with a trip to see Santa.  Since Bryce had gotten older and doesn't feel the need to sit on Santa's lap anymore I was glad to be able to start this tradition again with Simon.  We met Grammy and Parker at the mall and tried to have a few photo shoots, but with a 3yr old and a 1yr old they were not in the cheesing mood.  Here are a few that we were able to capture.

Parker and Simon "racing"

I just couldn't get a cheese

Simon would rather ride the fish

Parker was so good sitting on Santa's lap...Simon not so much

Of course you can't go to the mall these days without a ride on the train!

Our next stop on the tour of Christmas traditions was Parade Day.  This was Simon's first time to attend the Tupelo Christmas Parade and I was a little worried because Simon is a little spitfire!  We enjoyed watching the parade with our D'nana and Stefanie and Lyndon.  The boys had a wonderful time and Simon didn't move, he sat through the whole 2 hour long parade!  We went back home for a short nap and then headed to Mantachie to ride our church float in the Mantachie Parade.  Once again the boys did great and we had a blast!

 

 



 Getting ready for the parade

Stefanie and Lyndon

Me and my boys

They needed to rest between floats

Our church float

Our next stop was the Cantrell family Christmas get together. This year we had our get together at the community room at Grandmother's apartment complex.  It is a very nice room and perfect for the little ones to run around in.  We didn't have too much of a dinner because some of the family members weren't able or didn't contribute this year, but all the tension aside due to some bad attitudes and snide remarks made, my family made the most of it for Grandmother's sake.  We don't know how many more years we will have her around so I think we should spend as much quality time with her as we can.  Some of the family members sang, and the kids opened presents.  Tyler was exhausted so he slept most of the time and Bryce and Dalton spent their time playing the xbox so all in all I think everyone was happy.

Simon and George on our way to Hamilton...When we were getting ready Simon insisted George needed "tothes on" and a "pabby" so we got him some clothes a paci and a blankey just like Simon.

Eric's mother Viki playing and singing Christmas songs to Simon and Keona

Tyler was exhausted after eating, couldn't resist putting George in his arms for a photo op.

Bryce helped Simon open his gift from Grandmother...Simon was so excited about his "peplane" or airplane as we would say it.

Simon insisted this was "dabage" and it took us forever to convince him that he had a present in there.



And he loved the present, he sings and plays with Elmo almost everyday!

 

That is all I have for now but there are still 2 weeks left until Christmas and many more things to do.

Where have I been?

I have been so busy the past few months, I'm sure that's every mom's excuse.  I don't have time to post an official update blog but I wanted to put in writing some of Simon's favorite words and how he is saying them so I will remember.
elephant - fammet
vitamin - bite a meen
milk - me-ulk
strawberry - bebby
paci - pabby
blanket - bantbits
biscuit - bibbits
rabbit - babbit
giraffe - draffe
garbage - darse
diaper - dite doo
elbow- bobow
hello - ho
He also says: chair, up, down, juice, tea, cheese, fruit, chip, socks, shoes, clothes, face, ear, nose, eye, hair, mouth, knee, foot, toes, people, and he knows his family's names.  Momma, Daddy, Pop, Grammy, Bryce, Ty Ty, Nana, and Mamaw.  He calls all older men Papaw.
We have run into some issues with leaving Simon.  We have picked him up from the nursery at church numerous times with vomit all over him and they tell us he cried till he got sick and then cried some more.  This is a challenge for me since Bryce never met a stranger!  I will leave this post with a sweet pic of little Simon and hopefully I can get a minute to write a few catch up posts!

Simon Says

I have recently started a new home based business to make a little extra cash here and there.  If you have Facebook, then you can check out all of my products there at https://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Simon-Says/310964875616594 .  I will be setting up a new blog in the next week dedicated to the business. 
Simon Says offers unique handmade gifts for baby from appliques and monograms to custom paintings and door hangers.  We also specialize in children's birthday cakes, and we offer top 8 allergen free cakes as well.

No I did not drop off the face of the earth!

I have just been extremely busy.  Life with a 3rd grader and a baby has thrown me for a loop!  Bryce is doing great...he had an appt with his pediatrician last week and other than his blood being 27% eosinophils, everything else looked great!  He is having a great school year, but he's starting to get burnt out.  Tyler is on the home stretch of finishing up his Junior year.  He took the ACT again this month and he's shooting for a 30.  His highest score so far is a 27, I think he can do it.  He is getting ready for Prom in 2 weeks.  I can't believe my baby is going to PROM!  No girlfriends yet and that is fine with us.  Simon is just precious.  Everyday I am thankful that God gave me such wonderful boys.  Simon is almost 11 months old!  Can not believe it has been a year...the time has really flown. 
Since I last posted, Simon has learned so may things.  He can say Mama, Dada, Nana, Bubba, TyTy, Ziggy, No No, book, baby, bite, and bye bye.  He can also tell you what the cow says (he says boo LOL) and what the sheep, chicken, and tractor says.  He loves to read books, and will give kisses to the pictures.  He can wave bye, play patty cake, can put toys in holes that they belong in, and he started walking at 9 months.  This week he has also started dancing.  He is starting to graduate from the baby food.  He will still eat some of it, but he really likes the toddler meals and finger foods.  His favorite breakfast is cheerios and yogurt or waffles and banana.  He loves the pasta pickups and meat sticks, and especially green beans.  His favorite fruits are banana, pear, and peach.  He hasn't had a bottle in a week.  He only gets 2 10oz cups of formula a day.  He is really starting to be a big boy!  He takes 3 naps a day, and goes to bed at 8:30 and sleeps until 7:30.  He has 1 tooth on the bottom right, but is cutting 3 more all at the same time!  I think that's all I need to remember for now. 

I had some really great pics to upload, but sadly while holding sweet Simon, he somehow hit the appropriate buttons on the laptop to delete all of my pictures.  I was able to retrieve most of them, but I am so defeated by losing some of my faves that I won't post any today.  Big first birthday party is coming soon and I hope to definitely have some pics to post then!

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