Girls night, playdates, cooking and naps

I got my car back yesterday from the shop. She's good as new. I'm very happy to have a car again. Last week, I forgot I didn't have one. I made a doctor's appointment for Joey, got us all ready and was walking out the door before I realized I had no way to get there. Luckily, my friend Bonny was already on her way past my house, so she stopped by and got us.

We had a dinner out, just the girls, last weekend. Our last group get together before everyone starts moving away. ^ Christina, me, Mandy, Bonny and Angela.

Christina, me, Mandy, Bonny, Olivia, and Angela

Another silly group photo ^
Ryleigh and Kyle at a playdate last tuesday.

Joey was Kyle's little shadow the whole playdate.

Hanging with the Day girls (who are moving this week!) :(

Ryleigh, Allie, Mackenzie and Landon

Angela, Bonny, Erin and Christina

Helping me cook (not sure what the above pouty face is about).

My sweet sleeping Prince today. He doesn't do regular naps during the day anymore, but sometimes I can get him to fall asleep on my shoulder and then lay him down like this.

Earl gets promoted to Gunny on Monday the 2nd. Me and Joey will go watch his little ceremony.

Joey's still doing his cute funny things. He uses "think" and "thought" all the time: "I thought my flashlight was in my room." "I think it's getting light out." It's pretty funny hearing it come out of his mouth.

Also, he's obsessed with making up words. It's a cross between gibberish and spanish, I think. He'll just repeat the same made up word over and over again. Sometimes he'll play along when I say "What's that mean?" and he'll answer, "jublo means mublo" or something equally silly. He finally got his last two 2-yr molars in, so he's sleeping so much better these days.

He's naming more of his toys these days. He has a lot of toy frogs. The other day I asked what their names were, he named the first one Bradley, the 2nd one Joey, the next 2 were Mommy and Daddy. Then the next 3 were Mandy (even though he only knows 2 Mandy's). After that, he got bored with naming them. He made sure the Joey frog was the biggest though.

Our "weekend" project that lasted a month

We never get things done in a timely manner around here. We planned to just redo the vinyl flooring in the bathroom, and replace the quarter-round. Then I decided to go a head and put up some permanent shelves. Then I though, well, might as well paint now before we put up new shelves.

The old floor looks like it had been there since the house was built in the 70's.

Then I realized when I was about the paint that the old paint was really flaky, so we had to get rid of that first, and sand and spackle and blah blah blah.

We decided to go ahead and replace the toilet while we had it out. Our old one had lots of scratches inside it.

Finally, a month later, we finished it:

The End.

Josiah's First Snow

It doesn't usually snow here in Jacksonville, so this is the first time Josiah's got to play in it. It wasn't much, but we did get an inch or two today. (And it's still snowing).
Before we went outside, Joey was holding the dog door open to let the snow come inside. He told me, "I want to touch it!"

At first, he didn't want to step in the snow, he stayed on the walk.

Thor and Lars miss snow. We used to get many many feet of it when we lived in northern CA, and they had a blast. This is the first time they've seen it in a few years. Thor is our snowbunny, actually.

It was coming down pretty hard.

Once he figured he could make footprints, that's all he cared about.

Earl tried to show him to throw snowballs, but Joey wanted to play catch with them instead.

Throwing a snowball at me (wanting me to catch it).

Our little bitty snowman.

Mmmm, hot cocoa!

All in all, Joey loved it! He didn't want to come in to warm up. We had to drag him in. He must have had fun because he took a nap for the first time in days! (He's sleeping now actually).

See, I told you so...

Remember the picture I posted on the last blog of Bradley in a helmet when Earl was driving? Now you know why. This is what happens when Earl drives:

I felt like saying, "please take care of my baby" as the wrecker was pulling off. :-) I love my durango. If they can fix it, I'll be happy. If they total it out (I don't think they will) then I'll still be happy cuz I'll just go get another Durango.

This happened last night around 6:20pm. It was rainy and wet outside. On the trip out the grocery store and McDonalds, we had to lay on the horn multiple times for negligent drivers pulling out in front of us. This time, someone pulled out of a gas station in front of us, and Earl kept the horn blaring and swerved, but couldn't stop fast enough. Our passenger side front side rammed the other SUV's rear driver side lights, and they kept going. Earl was driving, and me and his mom were in the car. I was in the front seat, and had a close up view of the license plate, but it didn't dawn on me to remember it, I was just watching us make contact and lights exploding. LOL We waited for the cops and filed our report and called the insurance company. A local repair shop loaded up my precious Durango a few minutes ago and took it away to get an estimate. I feel like I should have named my car. But now I can just call it my precious Durango.

But we're all okay, and Joey and Bradley were both home with Grandpa and Aunt Louise, so they didn't have to go through it.

Ohhhh, my poor Durango. :-(

Family Weekend

Earl's parents, his sister Louise and his nephew Bradley are all here for a fun weekend visit. When Joey found out Bradley was coming, he was counting down the days. Then, one night while we were laying around in his car bed, I told him he should give his red teddy bear that santa gave him, a name. Joey thought for just a minute and then announced the bear's name is Bradley. :-)

Is it sad that I take my camera to the supermarket?

They were kind enough to pause their wrestling to say cheese for me.

Bradley knows the stakes when Uncle Earl's driving.^

Grandparents and their precious boys.

He turned his head right before the flash.

Louise and Bradley both trying to fit in the crab face hole

Cute Joey the crab

Mamaw's turn!

He's a jumper

Best buddies!

I see a resemblance^

Seahorses

Bradley the crab

Louise the crab

Oh yeah: Joey finally jumped up to the 10th percentile. He now weighs 25 lbs! He's sick right now, with a cold. But hopefully he'll get better in the next day or so.

Oh yeah: Happy 44th anniversary to Earl's parents (it was on the 15th).