Easter Sunday

We always love Easter Sunday. Second Presbyterian has a sunrise service each year at the Botanical Gardens. It's so awesome to worship God at 6:30am surrounded by gorgeous flowers and breathing in the fresh air. Here are some pictures of the day.

Botanical Gardens

Hmm.. which is more fun to look at? A camera or pretty flowers?

Family picture at home

Enjoying outside after a nice lunch.

James bear crawls when he is outside.

It's so funny to watch.

Playing on Daddy's washer board

Easter baskets from Mommy and Daddy and Meme and Papa.

Thanks for my horse Meme!

Good Friday 2010

I know you all have probably thought that I have fallen off the face of the planet, because I haven't blogged in forever! But actually, for some reason, I couldn't get my pictures to upload. But finally everything began working again, so here are pictures way back when it was Good Friday! We went to Nashville just for the Friday and had a great time with family.

Playing in the grass with Nonie

James LOVES being outside. Can you tell?

Not sure what they are both staring so intently at??

(and yes, James is eating bark)

OOHH.. we don't have this foreign object in our yard at home!

Can you eat this stuff?

Justin and Kramer playing

Looks like these two are going off to get into trouble somewhere!

Great picture with Pops!

Justin playing ball with his nieces and nephews outside at the home of the Fishes

Anna Blair and Caleb sang their sweet song and also used sign language.

James LOVED watching them. He just hummed and danced in my lap.

Can you tell he was cracking me up?

Such a sweet boy :)

Always love playing with the donkeys!

No sleeping in for me!

Well, last night, Justin and I went out for a dinner date while Mom Payne stayed at home with James who was asleep in bed. Justin and I got back around 9:30 pm, talked for awhile, and went to bed fairly late. Oh, the days of sleeping in on Saturdays. For those of you who don't have kids yet, just go ahead and sleep until 11 am if you can!

In the middle of the night, James woke up at 12:30 am, 3:30 am, and was screaming and up for good at 5:30 am. I always say these crazy nights are because he is teething, but then months go by and no teeth pop through. Well, this morning I thought it JUST HAD TO BE teething this time. And sure enough... a little sharp tooth was poking through James' gums. Finally! At almost 10 1/2 months.

So James takes his first nap early this morning, at 7:30 am. I put him down and all of a sudden had an AHA moment! I could go back to bed! So I tip toe back to our bed room where Justin had been sleeping so soundly through the crying in the middle of the night, and the toys playing music at 5:30 am. And this is what I find!

Kramer had completely taken my spot, cuddling up next to my (once again) soundly sleeping husband. Oh well, ...forget going back to bed. And you can better believe I will be changing those sheets as soon as my lazy dog gets out of bed! Haha.

13.1 miles

On March 21st, Justin and I ran our first half marathon! We weren't able to keep up with the training as well as we had intended, but we were still happy with our results. The weather was pretty awful for running. It was in the low 5o's and it rained the entire time we were running. It was well worth it, though, because we both achieved our goal of completing a half marathon!

Justin finished 17th in the male 25-29 division in 1:52:12

When asked if he will do this again,

"Only if I have a mid-life crisis!"

Mandy finished 35th in the female 25-29 division in 2:08:49

When asked if she will do this again,

"Do you think I can do the Nashville half next month?"

Our good friend, Travis, also ran the half. He did GREAT and is always training for triathlons or duathlons in addition to road races.

James is 10 Months!

James is now 10 months old and is beginning to do some crazy, silly, and sweet things! He loves giving kisses on your face. He hums when he hears music or singing (or when he is in the swing). He flies up the stairs and then attempts going down face first. He crawls with one knee and the other foot. And so on.... He is losing his baby look more and more every week. Here are some pictures to show you what else he is up to.

10 months

16 lbs 1 oz

(not on the chart because he is so little)

I tried to get a picture of his hair after he put bananas in it.

He is finally experimenting with more table food. He has tried banana chunks, cantaloupe, strawberries, white beans, kidney beans, green peas, cheese, bagel with cream cheese, sweet potato chunks, carrot chunks, green beans, yogurt, mashed potatoes, etc. Some things he likes, some he does not!

James gets into all the cabinets, so Justin put locks on a few of them.

James is his little helper.

He loves playing, "Where is James?" under the table.

He sits in his room for like 15 mins by himself just "reading" his books.

So sweet!

He LOVES to pull things out of the fridge.

His new favorite thing is to climb on EVERYTHING!

The fridge...

His toy bin...

Boxes...

His Noah and the Ark toy

("There are more shelves up there?")

He absolutely loves to swing!

He has thrown some major temper tantrums when I let Kramer go outside and not him. He is definitely going to be an outdoor kid.

He tries to take Kramer's bones all the time.

Ha..Got it!

Helping mommy with the laundry

He is interested in hats and glasses

Playing daddy's game of being tossed in the air!

And James also loves Kramer's bed. He crawls over it as fast as he can and then plops his body and face into it! So fun!