More One Year Photos!

always so happy!

i'm coming to get you!

look at this face, i mean seriously??

Connor's Happy Birthday photo! I actually wraped a gift up to use as a prop here. yes, it purposefully matches his outfit. done. and. done.

more present fun
One of my favorites!

you can see his teeth in this photo which i love--he has 8 teeth now!

chomp, chomp!
um, this next one is possibly my favorite photo of all time. how freakin cute is he??
i have it in sepia and it's just amazing.

This is Jeffrey's favorite. he has his tongue out and his foot is levitating!

he kept throwing the wagon and knocking his toys out so it's

pretty amazing that we got an acceptable one
Connor's party was baseball theme and we're

kinda a baseball family so we went with it...

more baseball...

we had this shirt made for his party. overboard table for one? yes.

more baseball still...

your table is this way ladies...

happy baby boy!

i love this pic!

Anything worth doing is worth doing to excess

My baby turned one this past week. it's both exciting and a bit sad. I can't believe how fast he's grown and how different he is from the little lump we took home a year ago!

He was just so tiny. only 6 lbs, 2 ounces when he was born and lots of dark, dark hair. his feet were huge and he had fuzzy hair all over his body! We had to stay at the hospital for 4 days for me to recover from my surgery and for connor to get over his jaundice. by the time we left, he was down to 5 lbs, 13 ounces. such a tiny guy. we thought he may be a little premature, although the doctors put me at 39 weeks when he was born. For the first several days at home we just sit and stared at him. he was so tiny and so helpless. we worried about everything! oh how things change!!

This is Connor in one of his one year pics! he's walking! actually walking and such a big, smart boy. mom's brag so here i go. he's truly a loving, sweet, playful little boy. all who meet him fall in love with him and i can't blame them. he's quite the charmer! i kinda think he's a genius too. i'm allowed...he's my kid! he loves feeding himself and nearly always refuses when we try and spoon feed him anything. he's almost always happy and welcoming to family, friends and new people alike! he loves playing outside, watching Cars and loves all his toys. He's just content wandering around the house!!

So, we had his birthday party this weekend and it was lots of fun. I think everyone there had a good time as well, i hope anyway. i put a stupid amount of work into this party, stressing over every last detail from the text on the custom screenprinted shirt i had made for him to the color of red piping on the baseball cookie favors i gave out at the party. rediculous. i'm aware. first of all, it's his first birthday and he deserves a great party! please don't tell me that he won't even remember it. If i have to explain why this isn't something you say, please refer here!! maybe he will, or maybe he won't...but you can guarantee that when he looks back at the photos and watches the videos, he'll know how much we all tried to make it special for him, and that's what counts!

Here are the cakes. The little baseball cake is Connor's own

personal cake so he could smash, lick, etc. without ruining it for everyone else!!

Here's Connor enjoying the cake.

Connor and daddy playing a little baseball

I love, love this picture! It's like all the kids are sharing some kind of personal joke. Connor's cracking up so clearly he finds it hilarious!

Here's Connor thanking mommy for his party! i love my little man!!

I thought you said green was whorish

so, to thank the world that The Office is finally back, i thought i'd start posting the Office Quote of the Day to my blog. See it? over there to the right. Of course, since i'm a Monday-Friday blogger, The Saturday/Sunday quote will make it's appearance on either the Friday before or the Monday after-who knows.

Anyway, they are from my Office Quotes page a day calendar.

survey schmurvey

I like surveys. I love getting them and i love filling them out about myself, my friends, my family, etc. i think it's this unspeakable thing we all have about liking to talk about ourselves. when someone sends you one of these, you can fill it out and not feel totally self absorbed about completing it. Yeah, scapegoat!

How long have you and your husband been together? Well, we’ve been together for just about 9 years and just celebrated our 4 year wedding anniversary last month :)

How long did you date? Well, we dated for about 3 years before we got engaged, then we got married a couple years later and the rest is history I guess!

Who eats more? Jeffrey, hands down. I can’t put away large amounts of food.

Who said, "I love you" first? Ok, so Jeffrey says that he said it when I was sleeping one day in the very beginning of our relationship. I don’t know about that, but we’ll stick with it.

Who pays the bills? Jeffrey likes math and numbers and really likes to actually write the checks, so he does that. Anything we do online, I tend to handle. Obviously, we both contribute to all bills—and have for nearly 7 years!!

Who cooks dinner? We both do. Wish we cooked more-so tough with working and a kid!

Who is more stubborn? I guess it would be me.

Who kissed who first? I think it was mutual, but he probably made the move. We were just talking about this at a party a couple months ago and Jeffrey totally got our first kiss story wrong. The real story was that his parents were out of town and he had a party (wow, young right?) and I was there. I had to go out to my car for something and he followed me and kissed me in the middle of the street. Aaawwww. Smooth move mr. barnes!

Who is more sensitive? Probably me, but he is too.

Who wears the pants? I’m going to say me, only because I’m super opinionated and jeff is indecisive—someone’s gotta make the decisions.

What was I doing 10 years ago? I was a junior at Dobson High-um, go mustangs I guess. I liked high school. Had a bunch of great girl friends who I am still close with and I’m a huge nerd and loved school! I’m sure I was dating someone at this time, but junior year is fuzzy on the details.

What snacks do I enjoy? I like crackers, cheese, fruit, veggies, granola.

What would I do if I were suddenly a billionaire? Wow, well pay off our debt first. Jeff’s student loans, cc bills, etc. I know we’d buy a new house for sure. We’re bursting at the seams of the one we have now…it’s amazing how much stuff such a little person acquires! Also, I’d quit my job, but I think I’d finally start the event planning business that has just been a side thing for years. I’d do it from home so that I could be with connor. While I appreciate stay at home mom’s-I couldn’t do it. I want to show my son that I can do both.

Three bad habits?
-I’m judgmental-I hate it.
-I have extremely high expectations for myself and others. This typically ends with me feeling let down. I’m working on it.
-I bite my nails.

Five things people don't know about me? I don’t know if there is much. I’m pretty open.

1. I sometimes wish I’d pursued singing after high school. Loved it in high school, but was way focused on the academics in college and didn’t do too much of the arts. I think I’m ok, maybe even pretty good so I should have stuck with it.

2. I think about not having any other kids. Connor is pretty freakin amazing, and I was a nightmare of a kid, and a teen, and in college, so Karma has got to catch on sooner or later. Also, I cringe at weird looking kids so I’m guaranteed to have a strange one next time. Don’t know if it’s worth the risk. I’m 100% serious even though I sound insane here.

3. I think that one of katy’s business ideas should be renting baby crap. In saying baby crap, I should be much more specific here. I’m referring to all the stuff you buy for your child as an infant and then stop using within months. Baby swing, glider, pack and plays, walkers, activity centers, big stroller, infant carseat (up to 20lb one), etc. because once your baby is over these items you have a decision to make—a. do I sell the stuff and get it out of my house? Well if I do that I’ll have to buy all new stuff next time around. Or b. do I keep it and magically have the places to store it in my too small house. Yeah, katy get on it. Maybe it can be consignment or some kind of timeshare thing where a few families share the items, because I can tell you that just the above list of things cost us about $650. Hmmmm.

4. I cannot stand my neighbor john. He sneaks into our backyard and turns off our sprinklers because the water wets his wall-guess what dummy your wall gets crazy soaked when it rains so why don’t you calm down. We didn’t catch on that this was happening until all our backyard grass was dead. A-hole. I’m watching you. Ps-he’s 94. seriously, he’s 94 years old. Maybe I’ll just wait it out.

5. I think ettiquite and manners are a lost art. How difficult is it to open a door, stand when you are introduced to someone, or place your napkin on your lap? How about sending an nice, appropriate invitation to something rather than a text message? I just bumped into you-I’m sorry. Please. Thank you. You are welcome. How about rsvping to something you are invited to…am I talking crazy or is anyone with me on these things?

After you, Mr. Papagiorgio

oh vegas. my inlaws are fascinated with vegas. that's not totally true. they are fascinated with anywhere they can gamble--vegas, reno, laughlin, reservation casinos. when each of their kids turned 21 the family would all go to vegas. they made jeffrey wait until i was also 21 so they could cover us both in one trip. anyway, this has always been a family vacation spot for them. i find this odd, but they really enjoy it.

i dont see vegas as a family destination. i think it's a huge waste and even a bit selfish to take your kids to vegas and call it a family vacation. there is nothing for kids there-nothing. and don't tell me that kids love circus circus. they do not. it's dirty. it's old. no one loves circus circus. not even this guy.


the point here is that my inlaws have a vegas timeshare-of course :). and aparently our entire family is going to vegas at the end of may. groan. so don't get me wrong, i like vegas. anywhere i can go and have free drinks brought to me simply for sitting next to a slot machine sounds like good times. my issue is that i have a one year old kid. i also have nephews that are 2, 6 and 12 who will be going along. how much fun are they going to have? atleast the 12 and 6 year old will have some rides i guess, but really how long can that last? 3, maybe 4 hours tops? what the hell are they going to do for the other 3.75 days that we're there?? i've been checking online and with friends who lived there and have seriously come up with zero ideas of things to do with connor. right now, we're figuring lots of time in the hotel pool and maybe finding a mall that has a kiddie playground. wow. awesome. so glad i'm taking time off work for this awesomeness.

anyone have any other ideas??