Merry Christmas!!

So it's that time of year already.... and I can't believe it. I've been struggling to get in the spirit of Christmas. Maybe it's because we are used to Nashville weather and Nashville malls and stuff... but it just doesn't seem like Christmas to me. We've already done 2 family gatherings, went Christmas caroling, had a Christmas party at the church and with the youth group and done all our shopping... but still not feeling it. We are spending Christmas Eve with my mom and family. Then we are spending Christmas Day home, just us. I am so excited to wake up and do presents with Will here and be lazy most of the day. We are heading to Memphis on Sunday after church to celebrate Christmas there. We will be there the 27th-30th and I am so excited to see Ryan and Casie and the in-laws and all of that family. I am excited that it's not rushed and we will actually get to relax some with them.

What are your plans for Christmas? Are you in the spirit?

In close, here's a picture of Will with Santa. Needless to say, he hated Santa this year. I was expecting this, so I wasn't too surprised.

We Are Alive!!

I'm so sorry it has been a while since I have posted. I did really good for a while. Boo. Things have been so crazy around here... you wouldn't even believe it. I swear my house turns into a disaster in one day.. it's very frustrating. So I spend a lot of time trying to stay on top of it... with the key word being trying. Stephen and I have been passing Will back and forth as we come and go a lot lately. But this weekend, we finally got to all spend a lot of time together. We went to the movies Friday night with Jonathan and Danielle. Mom kept Will. That was such a nice treat. And then Saturday was my mom's extended family Thanksgiving so we had that. Then there was a party Sunday for Jason to honor him for going to be a torch bearer in the Winter Olympics. Now, we are packing and cleaning to head to Memphis to visit Stephen's family for a few days. We haven't actually been to Memphis since March. The in-laws have made a few visits here.. but boy does Will change a lot every couple of weeks. I'm so glad everyone is getting to see him. It will be nice. Well, I don't really have much time but I did want to touchbase... hopefully after a trip to Memphis and a basketball game, we will have some exciting pictures to share! Happy Thanksgiving all!

Halloween 2009

I know it's a little late. Things have been VERY crazy around here this week. My house is an absolute wreck and there are piles of laundry to be put away and washed... but I have absolutely no motivation or energy to do it. I have no idea what's up. Anyways, to the point of this post: Halloween!! I think the pictures sum it up... so enjoy!

Will was a monkey!!!

The Davis Family!!

I'm showing Will his singing card from Grams.

Our little pumpkin hanging out!

That sweet face could never scare you!!

Such a happy monkey!

He seemed to like his costume pretty well, which I'm glad for.

TGIF!!

As I'm writing this, I'm facebook-chatting with my friend Michele. Michele and I are high school best friends. We actually met on a trip with our old church our freshman year. After that, we were inseparable. I love this girl... and I am so glad that we are still so close! We text almost daily and stay pretty well updated with each other. I love her!!

It has been a good day around the Davis household! We had a bit of a lazy morning.. and by lazy, I mean relaxed. You can't really be too lazy with a toddler around. But we stayed in our pajamas all morning and just hung out. After lunch, I was determined to get some housework done. So I took some before pictures to motivate myself. I really can't believe I'm doing this. Here was my house before the 45 minutes I spent cleaning it:

And here it is after:

After we cleaned, my dad came over and played with Will for a while. Will sure does love his Pop-O! And other than that, we have just hung out. Sorry for no pictures of Will today. But he just woke up, so there's always a chance for one later!

Hurray for a clean house!!

Another Sunny Afternoon!!

Thank you Lord for another sunny afternoon. Will and I ventured outside before and after his afternoon nap. It was fun as always. Here's the pics of what we did today:

Trying to climb into the neighbor's driveway...

Sitting on the bench...


And climbing off...

We go up and down these stairs a thousand times when we're outside. He loves it so much!

As I'm typing this, Will is in his crib fighting sleep a little bit. Mostly he's just talking with an occasional whine. I still rock Will but only for a short period. Mostly so he knows I love him and he's safe.. but I sing 3 or 4 songs and then lay him down. He's done very good adjusting to soothing himself and getting himself to sleep.

Anyways, back to today, we had a pretty good day. Stephen worked all day. I did very little cleaning unfortunately. I did put away one load of Will's laundry... and washed another load and put it in the dryer. That's about the extent of it. I have felt so tired today. I'm not sure why. Just exhausted. I did nap during Will's afternoon nap, which was an hour. But I woke from it with the most horrible headache. And it hasn't really gone away.

Mom and I took Kalon and Will to eat at Chick-fil-A today. Will played in the play area with the kids. He absolutely LOVED it. I have no doubt that the "Terrible Two's" really will be TERRIBLE in his household. When it was time to go, Will pitched the biggest fit. He was screaming. And I had to sit him down to get my keys out, and someone opened the door to the play area, and he took off! He was there so fast! His short, little legs moved so fast! I do wish I had the camera with me but the battery died, and I'm not good with the big, expensive one.

Tomorrow is Friday... and I can't wait!! Hope you have a good night!

Sunny Day!!!

Well, today is a sunny day!! It brings much joy here to the Davis household. I'm sitting outside on my laptop watching Will play. He loves to just explore and play with the balls. It's so relaxing. You can tell we play outside even when it's cool because Will knows how to hold his arms for me to put him on a jacket! Today he started trying to unzip it though. Not cool. Here are a couple of pictures of him playing outside today. And yes, I know my child is dressed in clothes that are on the verge of being too small. That's what we choose to let get dirty.

Trying to unzip his jacket

Will with all the balls he likes to drag out one by one

Playing with his toy lawn mower




Again, playing with the lawn mower... if only he could really mow... one day though!

On another note, I feel the housework is going to get under control in the next couple of days. After I posted my second post yesterday, I folded two loads of laundry and cleaned out Will's drawers and closet of all the clothes he had outgrown. And we got the living room back put together. It's been a little disorganized since Will was sick and we spent so much time in there holding him and rocking him. Today is Wednesday (as I am sure everyone is aware) so we are leaving in a couple hours to head to Decatur for church. While Stephen and the preacher have their meeting, Will and I will make a run to Kroger. I'll let you know how that turns out! I'm hoping to save a lot!!

Update on Ugly Day

Well, the raining has quit outside, so it's not quite as ugly, but it's still ugly enough that we can't play outside. And that's a very sad thing in his household. Will thrives for his outside time. So today after his morning nap (yes, still taking two naps) we ate lunch and loaded up to go to Mama Rie's house for a little change of scenery for a little while. Will loved getting out. We got to see Mama Rie and let her pick out the pictures she wanted from Will's portrait session. I am dying to share these with you guys. They make him look so grown!! Then to make the day better for Mommy, we went and got a Route 44 Coke from Sonic for a buck. The extra caffeine helps me out. I think I figured out that I need to start taking my iron again and maybe that will help with my energy level too. So when we got home I was determined to clean some. Will and I emptied the dishwasher and vacuumed over the floor. So it looks a LITTLE better. Far from clean but able to function in by my standards now. I'd love to do more but now I'm just pooped. I'm ready for Will's second nap, if only he was.

Speaking of second nap, any advice on this? He takes two short naps. By short, I mean around 45 minutes to an hour. I'd love for him to take one long nap. But before lunch he's unbearable most of the time he's so sleepy. What's some of y'all's schedules with naps and bedtime? Are we maybe putting him to bed too late and that's why he can't seem to do with just one nap? I'd love some help here!!!

Ugly Day

It's an ugly day... both inside and outside the house today. The rainy weather makes me so sleepy and just want to lay on the couch cuddled up with Ellie and watch TV all day... but those are the days of the past. Now, I spend my time chasing a little toddler, changing diapers, and trying to clean. If people I went to high school with came over, they'd be amazed that this is my house. The floors haven't been swept/vacuumed in like a week or so... there is so much dust on the hardwood floors. Don't even get me started on the bathrooms. Gross. I used to be such a neat freak. I straighten my house daily, if I have the energy. But man, Will these days wears me out. I am terribly frightened of the terrible 2's. I mean, he already pitches these horrible fits where he throws his head back and arches his back and screams... it's quite a sight.

Three things Will loves this week. Climbing in our shower... with all his clothes on... with the shower wet. We go through at least two outfits a day fighting this. I close the bathroom door and then get in a hurry one time and forget to close it. We are already on our second outfit of the day, if you want to keep track. We awoke in pajamas and changed, and now, we have changed again. He also LOVES to flip the switches on surge protectors. It's really beginning to be a problem. And this goes with the surge protector, he LOVES to turn on and off the flat screen in the living room. Both of these present problems, and "no" just doesn't seem to do the trick. And finally, Will has found his nose and that it has two nostrils. He hasn't learned to "pick" his nose...yet anyways. But he loves to walk around with one of his fingers stuck up his nose.... for no reason.

So today, I am going to try to clean my house a little bit at least and manage to have patience with Will. These two often don't go hand-in-hand, but we'll try. I'll be back with a recap of if inside the Davis household is looking prettier both with appearance and attitude. :)

Week from You Know Where

It has been quite a week around here. Very, very, very busy and stressful. As many of you may know, my parents own a few Domino's Pizza in Northern Alabama. This week is national Customer Appreciation Week... meaning you can get a large 1-topping with free extra cheese for 5.99. It's crazy at the stores! And I had already precommitted to help during this week. I worked in the Guntersville store three days.

So I knew I had this going into this week. But on Sunday, we were at church getting things ready to do the activity with the youth... and one of my old bosses from V&J called. He said an attorney had contacted him on a case I did almost two years ago requesting that transcript... and by the next night! Well, since we were at church, we were an hour away from home. Thank goodness Jon and Danielle were in town because they came over and found most of the files and told me how many pages the job was. Thankfully, my boss called back and said the attorney changed his mind and just needed the job as quickly as possible. I thought the job was around 75 pages from what they were able to find. I get home and I start working on the job, which was every reporter's nightmare. I forgot that during this time, my laptop was broken and sent in for repairs so I didn't have it in realtime files and had to download it from my machine and use my digital recorder files in Windows Media Player. But after many long days and nights, the job is finally with my proofreader. I sent it to her in three parts so that maybe we could tackle it sooner. After finding ALL the files, it really ended up being 200 pages. I'm so glad she was able to fit me in! She's the best. If anyone is looking for a proofreader or scopist, e-mail me and I'll give you her contact info. She's awesome!

So that was my side of the crazy week. Stephen has to teach Sunday School, preach during worship, and plan a video scavenger hunt for the kids... all for this Sunday so he has been crazily busy too. Poor Will has had no home-cooked meals... lots of grilled cheeses and chicken nuggets.

OH, which reminds me... Tuesday evening Will was so fussy... actually, he was screaming. So even though I didn't want, I gave in and was going to let him take a second nap at 5:45 because there was no way he was going to make it to bedtime... I didn't feed him dinner or give him a bath because I thought this was a NAP... but no, he slept until 7:05 the next morning!!! I guess he was just completely worn out.

Well, hopefully now that I have the transcript mostly tackled, I will be able to blog and relax a little more and tackle housework... don't even get me started on my house. Will and I are riding with my mom in a few minutes to deliver payroll to the stores... just so I can have a second to visit with her. We have both been so busy that a few minutes in a car together technically still working is the only way we can spend time together!

Chilly Saturday Morning

Wow, is it a chilly Saturday morning or what? We turned the heat on low when we woke up. It's going to be hard to know if I'm for sure keeping Will warm enough these days. I mean, he runs around all day therefore keeping his body temp up I would imagine. And then Stephen and I are complete opposites. I freeze all the time, and he's always burning up.... so I'm not sure what Will is going to be like. I sit and cover up with a blanket a lot, but obviously I can't keep my busy boy under covers all day. I've been dressing him in socks, pants, and a long-sleeved shirt for now. Any suggestions would be welcomed!

The picture yesterday with the mascot didn't happen. We left right before the pep-rally ended, and the mascot was no where to be found. But we are about to get ready and go get his professional portraits made. Woohoo!! I don't know if I'll come back with proofs or not, so stay tuned.

Hope you stay warm on this chilly day!!

Ready for the Weekend

Well, let me just tell y'all... you are in for a huge treat come Halloween. We put Will's costume on him the other morning because we were so excited, and it was the cutest thing I have ever seen. And much to my surprise, he didn't try to pull the hood off or anything. So I'm very eager to show off pictures... but I'll wait until the big day to keep you curious and coming back for more!

Today is Homecoming for the high school. I had hoped to take Will to the parade, but instead of having it on Friday afternoons like they normally do, they moved it to Thursday evening, and I would have had to take him alone... so no thanks. And I was going to try to brave the football game, but with the very cool weather, we are going to sit it out as well. We went to one game and I thought Will would be super interested in the band and all... but he wasn't. We are going to go to the pep-rally at the high school this afternoon though. I'm going to try to get Will's picture made with the mascot. I'll let you know if that happens or not.

Tomorrow we are getting Will's 1-year portraits made... a little late, but hey, we've been busy. So I'll have those to post soon hopefully.

I think we have finally transitioned to one nap a day. He goes to bed a little earlier with that one nap so if we need to stay out past 8ish then I'll have to let him have another one during the day. But when we're home, I love having some down time just Stephen and myself.

Jonathan and Danielle (my little brother and his serious girlfriend) are coming home this weekend too! I'm excited to see them. It's been like a month. I saw them just a little the weekend of Will's birthday, and then they came home last weekend, but Will was sick and housebound, and we weren't really supposed to have visitors. So I am excited to see them!!

Anyways, I'll be back with some pictures and a weekend recap soon!

Our Little Monkey

Will's Halloween costume just came... and I am so excited. It is soooooo cute! I definitely love it more in person... and I already loved it online. I can't wait to put him in it!! I think the candy pail is just adorable too!!

Will's First Birthday Pictures

Will's birthday cake. My grandmother always homemade from scratch icing and all all of our birthday cakes growing up. She made his too. It was very special. His favorite stuffed animal that he sleeps with at night is this blue dog. We call him "Blue" for obvious reasons. So we decided to put Blue from Blue's Clues on his cake.

Will's individual cake to tear into!

The table

The presents

Us with the birthday boy

Mommy and Will. I stripped him down to a birthday bib for the cake eating part.

Will eating his cake... although the pictures are deceiving. He really didn't like it that much. Sad.

Will playing with some of his toys. He loved the ball Uncle Jon gave him. He LOVED having Casie and Ryan (his god parents) visiting. Ryan could lift him and let him touch things Mommy & Daddy couldn't reach.

Grandma (Stephen's parternal grandmother) and his sister Kristin gave him these shakers and an outfit to wear to the Memphis Tigers games this year. The outfit is adoreable. It will be pictured on him at some point I'm sure. :) In case you are new, we are HUGE Memphis Tigers basketball fans. But the shakers are a daily play toy... he LOVES them!!

Happy, happy birthday boy!! I think he had a blast. Of course, we have a ton more pictures and videos, but these sum up the party for the most part.

Will's Sick

Sorry, I come without pictures.... again. Stephen has successfully downloaded them to his computer, but he hasn't had the time to upload them. The files are unrecognizable on my computer, since the pictures are on the big, nice, expensive camera.

Anyways, the real reason for the post is to ask for prayers. Will started running a temp of 101 on Wednesday night. I didn't really pay much attention to it, but we did give him medicine. The fever lasted all through the day Thursday. So this morning I decided to take him to the doctor. And what would you know, the flu test showed a faint line. :( They are treating him as if the line was stronger because of his age. We started on Tamiflu.

We think he got it from one of Stephen's youth at church. He loves Will to death and last Sunday he was all over Will as normal, and they announced Wednesday night that he has Swine Flu.

But we think we caught it super early enough... since he doesn't have a super high fever and he still has some energy and he isn't throwing up and all that mess. So please remember us over the next 5 days. We are housebound.. and it will be hard on Will and me. Be back soon with an update.

Will's the big 1!

Okay, it happened. I survived it. Will turned one. There were many tears shed by this mama over her baby turning one. But we laughed and we played and we had a good day. Stephen is so busy these days with balancing Domino's and the church job that he hasn't had time to download the pictures and videos yet but we will be back soon to post those, PROMISE. It was a great party all around. Will was loved on and played with by numerous people who loved him.

We went for his one-year check-up. It was great! He weighed 22 pounds, 4 ounces (39th percentile). He was 30 inches long (51st percentile). I was so happy he had grew a good bit since at his 9 month appointment he was only in the 8th percentile for height. I don't remember his head circumference but it was in the 90th percentile so he has a big head! Haha.

He's to the point of running now. And he is a climber. If you turn your back for second, he's onto something. It's unbelievable. He eats solely table food now, and I love it. He's only on whole milk as well. He doesn't miss his bottle at all! Life is so much easier now. He still sleeps great at night and naps totally depend on the day and what's going on. He's a very happy baby. He's very ticklish. He absolutely LOVES being outside. He fusses to go outside all the time.

Anyways, we will be back with pictures soon.

PS- He didn't really love the cake, in case you were wondering.

11 Months Old

It is so hard to believe but Will is already 11 months old! I don't have any new pictures to post right now. We have tons, but they aren't on my computer so I can't upload them. I will get some on here as soon as I can though.
Knowing that his birthday is nearing constantly makes me tear up. I cannot believe my baby is about to be 1. It just blows my mind. At the beginning, in those rough times between 3 months and 6 months, I wished for this time... now I want to be back at those rough times.
But boy, this is such a fun age. I just love this age. My favorite new thing: Will gives hugs... and means it!! It makes my day when he walks (Yes, I said WALKS!) over to me and gives me a hug. Right after Will turned 10 months he started walking. And boy has life changed since. He gets everywhere so fast. We have to keep our bedroom and the hallway bathroom door closed. He loves to play in the trash and with the toilet paper in the bathroom. And he finds such joy in pulling everything (clock, laptop, picture frame) off Stephen's night stand. So we've just started closing the doors.
Will has 8 teeth! He didn't get his first till 9 months but boy they just keep coming. He has 4 on bottom and 4 on top. And it makes for such a cute smile! Will loves to read books.... all the time! He never gets enough of them.
OH, another big change, Will is completely off baby food. Still on formula for just a bit longer, but he eats table food. This is so fun. I like cooking for all of us or going out to eat and him being able to eat off my plate. And he's a good little eater at that! I can't wait to go for his 1 year check-up to see how much he's grown. I don't know that he's much taller but I do think he's slimmed out a little in his legs from walking.
Well, I will be back as soon as I can with pictures. Thanks for checking in on us!

Life in Guntersville

So as we have mentioned before, we moved to Guntersville in the middle of May to be closer to family. We are loving it here! We see family almost every day. It's fun to get to watch Will getting to know these people better, and it's nice to have a break every now and again. Here are some pictures with descriptions of what we've been up to here:

Will absolutely loves to swing on Kalon's swing set at my mom's. He will stay in this as long as you will stand there and push him, really. We think this is a family trait or something, because Lauren, Stephen's sister, her kids will swing ALL day long if you let them.
We have made a few trips to the walking trail by the lake. Will enjoyed eating by such beautiful scenery.
On Father's Day, being Stephen's day, I gave in and went to the State Park and hiked with him. For any of you that know me know that I am NOT an outdoor person. But being his day, I obliged and went and never ONCE complained. I carried Will like this the whole way... for three miles!! It was quite the workout!
I love this picture of the two of them. We go to swim at Grams' sometimes. Will loves the water!
However, this is Will's real love of water... his baby pool we bought for him. He loves to crawl around and play with toys... and try to climb out of it.

We really are loving life in Guntersville. We will have to do another blog on our trip to the beach and Stephen's parents weekend here visiting.

A quick update on Will's checkup and stuff. He went to the doctor on June 23rd, and he's as healthy as we could hope for! He weighed 19 lbs, 3 oz, which put him in the 23%. He was 27 inches long, which put him in the 8%. Poor baby boy, he's going to be short like his mommy. At 9 months, Will have four teeth. He crawls like a pro. He walks behind toys and down the couch. He calls Stephen "Dada" and me "Nana". We can't seem to master the M sound. But I'll take Nana over nothing! :) He's such a sweet and happy baby. We're having so much fun at the age he is now!

Short Update

So I do not have very long but just wanted to let everyone know we are alive. Things have been so hectic lately. Will has started crawling which puts me chasing after him all day, and then we just moved back to Alabama. We are so excited to be close to family with Will and let him spend time with them and get help and such. So packing with Will was quite difficult and took a lot of extra work. So anyways, as a short update, we are alive and living in Alabama with an 8-month-old who is all over the place. Pictures and more details to come!

Our Little Memphis Tiger

Will is already a huge Memphis Tigers fan, and he makes us so proud. He has been to five Tigers games in the last year, and he has a blast everytime. Three of those games were when he was still in the womb (the regular season finale against UAB, and then the Final Four and the National Championship games last April). We know he was having fun at the Final Four because the first time Jennifer ever felt him kick was in the middle of the beatdown that Memphis put on UCLA. Will kicked extra hard when CDR dunked right in Kevin Love's face. Will's first game post-birth was the UAB game on January 17, just before he turned four months old. Here is the whole family decked out in our Memphis Tigers gear. It is hard to tell in the picture, but Will is wearing Memphis Tigers socks, polo shirt, and hoodie.


Jennifer and I bought season tickets this year for $100 a piece (they are in the nose-bleeds) even though we were not able to make most of the games. This is much easier than trying to buy individual game tickets on StubHub or from a scalper, and we were able to sell or give away the tickets for the games we didn't go to. So when we took Will to the UAB game, we were only three rows from the top of FedEx Form. As you can see in this picture, Will was a little scared of the height...


Even though he was a little scared at first, Will had a great time. He was mesmerized when they introduced the Tigers' starting line-up (They turned off the lights and had spotlights roaming the arena and had a loud video introducing the players). He also had fun looking around during the game at the 18,000+ people at the Forum, and was intrigued when everyone cheered. It was an exciting experience for all of us, although Will kept us up nearly the entire night after the game because his schedule was so out-of-wack from staying out till nearly midnight. It was well-worth it to enjoy a Memphis Tigers game with our son! We took him back two weeks later for the Houston game, but this time we sat in my dad's company seats and not at the top of the arena. It was much more pleasant only carrying Will to the lower-level, and my dad's company seats are in the handicapped section, meaning we weren't stuck in the middle of a tightly packed row when Will would start to get fussy. At the Houston game Will got scared during the intro video and started to cry because the video was MUCH louder in the lower section of the arena. After that we all once again had a great time. Will loves his Memphis Tigers, and we all look forward to going to lots of games as a family for the rest of our lives! Here are a few more pictures from the UAB game in January.