New Hobbies

Joey has many new hobbies these days. He's growing up. (And I'm pretty sure he's hit his 'terrible two's' already!
He loves helping his Daddy work on the motorcycle:
Loves eating chocolate and having his feet tickled. ^
More working on the Harley^

Playing with the digusting Diaper Champ. He throws away diapers for me now. He's a great helper!

Talking on the phone ^

More motorcycle work^

I dont know if you can tell, but in the picture above, he's actually put Earl's Harley muffler in his toy car. That's my little handyman!

We tried and tried to wait for Christmas to give Joey a present his Aunt Angie sent him, but that only lasted a couple weeks. We finally put together his slide set yesterday and let him play on it. I figured Angie wouldn't mind him getting it early. ;-) He loves it!

It lets him do his favorite thing: climb!

Looking for the kitty under my car.^ He actually crawls all the way under Earl's van because it's so roomy under there.

He's taking a fall^

Loves playing outside!


This is Joey's biker jacket from his Daddy. The name tag says "Little Joey" (Earl has one that says "Big Earl")

Joey loves to tickle us now. He just lays his open hand on our arm or shoulder or ribs, and expects us to laugh like crazy. He doesn't realize that he has to move his fingers to tickle us. It's hilarious.

Chuck E Cheese's

Went to have pizza and fun at Chuck E Cheese the other day, this first picture was supposed to be Joey and Earl, but at the last minute, Joey jumped in front of his daddy! We're still not sure if it was a coincidence or on purpose. He's a sneaky little devil.

He held this smile for a long time, I was very surprised! What a cutie. And he already needs another haircut!

He likes to sneak around corners and say 'boo' to us! And he learned 'knee' the other night in the bath tub. He's needing his pacifier less and less, mostly only for naps, bedtime, and occassionally in the car during extreme tantrums.

And he now has 9 teeth!

Updates and Playdates

First of all, Congrats to Christina on her new baby boy, Landon. I know he has pnumonia and needs everyone's prayers, so keep him in yours.

Joey found a dry erase marker and decorated our step ladder!

We had playdate at my house on the 4th. Here is Christina, above, holding Michelle's precious baby, Adam.
The Day girls! ^
Allie loves Joey's Harley. I think she makes her daddy proud. ;-)

Jessica's youngest, Ruby, having belly time.

Chubby, cutie Adam, grinning.

Michelle and Adam. ^

Joey and Mackenzie, rolling around on the floor being silly.

Thomas and Ruby riding the Harley.

Joey's aunt Darlene sent him a new backback/suitcase. He loves the monkey ("min-no-me").

He's very helpful around the house. Letting me know when/where there is a mess ("meh-meh"). And he loves helping to unload the dishwasher. One item at a time...a painfully slow process, but he loves it.

The little buger can drink from a cup on his own. I don't fill it more than half full, and usually he has me or Earl hold it for him, but sometimes he just picks it up and drinks on his own. This is new, just started doing that the past couple days.

No, I don't normally give him glasses, but Earl had just finished his Mountain Dew and Joey wanted more ("moh"), so I put some water in there for him (and supervised).

He has cut another tooth. It's one of his molars. He still doesn't have all the non-molars yet, but I guess he feels like switching things up. You can imagine what our nights have been like, along with his horrible cough. He's usually fine during the day. But last night he slept from 8-1am. I had went to sleep late, at 11:30 (yes, thats very late for us). So I get up with him at 1am, trying to get him to go back to sleep, thinking its just the cold/cough bothering him and finally after an hour and half of standing above his crib, I finally picked him up and tried to get him to sleep on my shoulder in the rocker. Didn't work. I brought him to my bed with me at 3am, where Earl is trying to sleep because he has to work today (saturday). Joey must think its morning time because he leans over and kisses his daddy, and scoots off the bed and runs to the living room saying 'ttteee' (TV). By the time I get in there he's already turned it on. We put in a movie and stayed up until 4:45, eating lots of fun snacks and reading books very loudly (sorry, Earl). We watched the Ant Bully. Finally I put him back down, and figured out he might be teething. So I gave him some baby orajel, thinking I'd get to sleep half the day away, but he woke up at 7:15am!!!!! I put him in bed with me, and he slept for one more hour only.

And he took 2 very short naps today. So, its been a bit rough today, but luckily Earl only worked a few hours and got to come home to help out.

He says so many words, I can't keep up anymore. Some of the most popular that I haven't listed already are Snack ('nack'), Drink ('teh'), Lights ('arh'--I'm serious. thats what he calls the Christmas lights), Bed ('beh'), Cheerios ('chee'), Eye (he says perfectly, so i dont have to translate that one), Nose ('no'), and I'm sure there's lots more, but I'm sleep deprived, so that's all I can think of right now.

He likes to spin in circles and loves when we say 'do it again' about anything.

Oh and today he did the most clever thing. Earl has been showing him how to throw things away in the trash can (which is closed inside the pantry door). That's also where we keep the dog food that Joey loves to get into and throw at the dogs and all over the kitchen floor. He was wanting to get into the dog food and we wouldn't let him, so he came over and grabbed a tissue and blew his nose (he does really good at blowing out now, no sucking back in) and takes it to the pantry door and shows us that he wants to throw it away. Earl knew what he was doing BEFORE he even finished blowing his nose, but I was thinking, 'no, he's not that sneaky'. But yes, yes he is. So I had to let him in the pantry of course, to throw that away, and once he did, he went right for the dog food. Luckily, he doesn't eat it. LOL

Oh and tuesday I have an appointment in Chapel Hill with a back specialist to see if my back is getting much worse and if there's anything that I need to do about it.

Okay, nite everyone!

Joey's chipped tooth

On Wednesday night he tripped over a pillow in the floor (or maybe over his own feet, who knows) and fell face first into the seat of plastic Harley Davidson motorcycle/big wheel. Poor guy, he cried and cried, and there was a lot of blood. It broke the tip right off of a tooth he just cut a month ago. We went to the doctor and dentist and there's nothing to do about it right now. Poor guy is probably stuck with it until he loses that baby tooth in many many years! and yes, I saved the broken tooth. ;-)

This morning, Earl put Joey on the fridge and tried to take him down and Joey pitched a fit, so Earl had to put him back up there and wait, and wait, and wait while Joey played and got into everything up there.

Last night we went to the Jacksonville Christmas Flotilla, where boats are decorated with lights and float down the river for us to see. It was cold, so we had to bundle Joey up good.

You can't see really good with Earl's camera (I do NOT recommend anyone buy the Kodak easyshare c530 - i know it's too late for you Mom, sorry) but the picture above was the last boat in the flotilla that carried Santa, and you can see Rudolph lit up in front.

Joey's new favorite bathtime position: on his belly!

Joey has some new words. He says motorcycle (mwaooooo ohhh) with a growl in his voice and mess (meh meh). You can imagine who taught him motorcycle. Mess he learned because of me always saying 'Joey, you made a mess', so now anytime he sees messes on the floor or something the dogs have drug out, he points and says meh meh and then picks up ONE SMALL piece of the mess and puts it away, and smiles and goes about a new mess.

He also says meow (mawwww) and woof woof (just started that yesterday at the Flotilla). Earl taught him to bump fists too. He loves to mooo like a cow. And quacks like a duck (ah ah). He has a book that you push the button and hear the animal sounds, so he started copying the duck all on his own. The cow I had to demonstrate and I must have lifted my chin while I moo'd because thats how he likes to moo, but turning his head upward toward the ceiling. It's very cute.

He says ear (eeea) which he just started this morning. And eye, while he pushes his sharp little finger into your eyeball. And belly and belly button (bleeee and blee bu).

He dances a little more. He does the normal bouncing up and down with his knees, but now he also does a river dance thing, where he stamps his feet pretty fast. He still climbs on EVERYTHING. Me and Earl were talking the other day how we were actually surprised he didn't break a tooth until now, at 16 months old. At his rate, he should have broke one a long time ago.

He wears size 5 shoes now, he went through the 4's really fast. He weighs 19.9 lbs...but the doctor said he's gaining weight just fine (2 lbs in 4 months) so everything is good.

He loves Cheerios for breakfast (or any meal). He loves peaches. He loves pizza. He brushes his teeth (by sucking he water out of the bristles).

We will be coming to Asheville probably on Christmas night, so that Joey can get Santa's presents here at home on Christmas morning. And we'll stay about a week or so.

Can't wait!

And we found out our friends in NY, Dustin and Helen, are having another baby, their 3rd! Congrats!

And Happy 29th Birthday Michelle!!!!!!!!!