And so it begins...

The other day while I was feeding Joey supper, the doorbell rang. Earl went to answer it. There were 3 little girls from our street smiling when he opened the door.

"Is Joey allowed to come out and play?" they asked.

They are 7, 10, and the older one is probably around 11 yrs old.

So, after he ate, Earl took him outside, where he ran away from his dad, to sit in a circle with the girls. He's a ham. When they had to go inside, he tried running after them.

Joey also now says "cheese" (as in the food, not the picture taking motto). He says "teesss" and rolls his 's' at the end, the same way that he says Kitty (just a rolling of 'Ks').

He is now 30 inches tall and 14 months old! Yikes. Time flies. He still doesn't weight quite 19 lbs, and doesn't have an appetite lately, probably because he's teething (please let him be teething...how else to explain the whining and crabbiness?)

He loves playing in the pots and pans and cabinets.

Also, he's still climbing...and climbing...

And he still loves playing in boxes and with his doggies.

I am still planning on getting my LASIK surgery on Oct 10th. And Earl leaves for California around the 15th, for a month.
That's all that is new for us!

SC HOG Rally weekend

Me and Earl had a lot of fun at the SC HOG rally this past weekend. My dad and Wanda went with us and they had a blast too. Here is me trying to get me and Earl in one photo while we were stopped at a red light. I didn't do too good:

Me and Earl played some bike games. I didn't do so good, but here is me trying to joust. I only got one plate out of six:

Dad and Wanda driving on the way to SC^

Joey and his uncle Ray^

On the day we left Asheville. Hanging out at my dad's.
Paige's pose ^

Sandrina's hair cut. ^

Me and my boys at the rest area on the way back to Jacksonville^

Joey throwing the ball to his pawpaw^

Playing at home on his four wheeler^

Joey and Kiwi^

Another rest area shot. He sat in the water puddle and got drenched!
At the rally, me, Daddy, Wanda and Earl got 3rd place out of 5 teams on the photo scavenger hunt, AND we had an hour late start. AND some of our photos didn't turn out because we must not have wound the camera before having strangers take our pictures. So we might have actually been 1st place...who knows.

Joey's Harley

Earl couldn't resist. Me and Angie came in one day (before she left for Iraq) and Earl had bought Joey a Harley of his own. He was so excited when he got home with it that he forgot to take his keys out of the front door. I came home and saw his keys there, and the door half open/half shut, and there he and Joey were--on the living room floor playing with the new toy. Earl said Joey picked this one out. There was another Harley toy that Earl prefered that looked metal/chrome, but Joey liked this one better, so Earl, being the good dad that he is, sacrificed his own wants for his boy's. :-) he he

These pictures were taken later, when Joey was enjoying it. It's too big for him really, it is like a tricycle, with pedals he can't reach. But he loves the turn signals ("You are turning Left") and the music and the start up noise. He climbs all over it, watches TV while sitting on it, and plays with it.

And here are some other random photos of the cutie pie who is probably teething, but no teeth have poked through yet...
He likes to put this bucket on his head.

Angie's cat climbed in the box I was trying to mail her.

Joey likes playing with phones of course. He actually puts it on his shoulder and walks around saying "da da" like he is talking to his daddy. so cute!

This weekend is the HOG rally in Greenville SC, we won't get time to visit much in Asheville, but hopefully I'll be back with Joey in a month or two, when Earl leaves for CA for a month of training.

My LASIK eye surgery is October 10th in Raleigh, so long as Earl can get off work to go with me, to watch Joey and drive. I have to stay overnight there because I have to go in the next morning for my follow up appointment. I'm very excited! Can't wait to know what it is like waking up being able to see the clock, and not having to put on glasses or contacts to go get Joey out of his crib, and taking a shower and being able to see when I shave my legs (okay, that's probably more information than you wanted to know).

More Joey "Firsts"

On Monday the 3rd, Joey said "Ball" for the first time, and actually knew what it meant! That was nice because it happened while Angie was here, before she left for Iraq! At first he was saying "ba-wwwwww" drawing out the "awwww" while his little mouth was in a perfect circle. Now he has shortened and just says "baw."

Then yesterday, Saturday the 8th, he blew a kiss to his daddy for the first time! He wouldn't blow kisses to me, just to his daddy! Earl came out of the field on Saturday after 4 days, and Joey was so happy to see him. Earl was going to take a shower and, in the hallway, he turned around and blew a kiss to Joey and Joey did it right back! Today after church, after I blew him so many kisses from the front seat that my lips got sore, he finally did it to me! So precious! I don't have pictures yet, but I'll post them as soon as I do!

And his other first, that he started yesterday, is shaking his head 'no'. He has no idea he is saying no. He just shakes his head like that, waiting for our reaction...which is always laughter. He started it when I was feeding him something. I'd try to give him a bite and he'd shake his head no. I think he really meant 'no' then, but now that we started laughing at it, he does it at weird times when it's obvious he doesn't mean it.

These are some pictures we took before Angie left, I just wanted to put some of them on the blog because I don't have any new ones yet with his new 'firsts.' This picture above here is cute. One morning he woke up with that hair, sticking up like that. Angie loved it. She wanted it to stay that way all day. She is really trying to convince us to give Joey a mohawk. Which we totally wouldn't mind except for the fact that his hair is so thin and straight on top right now. When he has a little more, it might look better. Who knows, the next blog update might have him sporting a mohawk!

Notice Angie is too busy posing to find the door handle correctly. :-)

I heard from Angie. She is still in Kuwait and is very ready to be in Iraq. She's afraid she's going to get spoiled, sleeping all the time, drinking at Starbucks, eating at Taco Bell, and not having anything to do. She's ready to start her job and have some kind of purpose. I say she should just enjoy it while she can. She expects to be in Iraq near the middle to end of next week.

This picture above is how Joey fell asleep while me and Bonny were out shopping one day. He knows how to fix the pacifier in his mouth the right way but he was way too exhausted. He fell right to sleep as soon as I gave it to him. We are using the pacifier less and less, but we haven't officially tried weaning him. We just stopped buying replacements when he loses them or the dogs eat them. Ha!

This picture above is Joey and his friend Garrett. He really loves other kids...sometimes agressively. Ha! They are good sports about it, though. All his friends are great. We love them. This picture was too cute not to share. They are on a swing at another little friend, Allie Day's, birthday party last sunday.

This is Joey's "Finding Nemo" tattoo he got at Allie's birthday party. It's been a week and it still hasn't washed off! He wore it to church today. :-)

This is Joey and the birthday girl when she got her cake. I think he strategically planned that seat for himself.

Thanks for reading!