icy dayz

yesterday was a snow day, today is an icy day; and i mean ice!!!  yesterday the snow was powdery and easy to walk in, but today was a disaster because freezing rain came down last night.  there is an inch of ice on top of all of the snow on the ground.  jay and i ventured out in it today anyway.  he enjoyed it and maybe more than yesterday when it was the fluffy white stuff.  we would slip and slide and both fell down in the middle of the road and as i was getting up heard him say "let's do it again".  that's my boy.  never gets hurt and always wants to do it again.  jay would walk around the porch in the back picking up big ice sheets and throwing them to the ground and watch them hit and shatter.  he would say "that's a big one".  nothing outside can get jay down and he wants to go out again this afternoon.  sorry no pictures because the camera is dead.  you can enjoy the ones from yesterday.  they look the same except jay had red pants on today.

oh and how to dress a two year old in the snow.  i keep hearing we don't have anything to go out in the snow.  jay is probably the most well dressed kid on the planet in the snow.  After the snow after Christmas, we had gone out shopping to return a couple of things.  we stopped into children's place and garrett and jay found a pair of boats.  we bought them way too big so he can wear them next year.  the rest of the clothes we had.  we layered jay in a pair of sweatpants that we stuffed in his boats with a pair of windpants over top.  on the top half of his body he has a long sleeve thermal, shortsleeve t-shirt of some sort, a hoodie and a puffy jacket.  on his head we put his most favorite carolina hat with both hoods.  and of course we can't forget the gloves or "mittens" as he calls them.  he's all decked out and ready to play in the snow or ice.  he could play for hours like this.

i think i'm over these snow days.  we are suppose to be starting exams and my first one is to be an eoc for my algebra II honors folks.  yikes!!  they will probably do well, but i need one more review day to make sure they are ready.  i'm afraid we will be out tomorrow again, i hope not because we already have two make up days to do already.  that's a bummer, but i'm had some great days with jay and yesterday with garrett as well.

snow dayz

today was a monday, turn snow day.  garrett worked from home for a little while so i got the chance to take jay outside for an hour and a half.  if he had his choice, it would have been much longer.  we did make it back outside for another hour in the afternoon, but it was much colder.

 jay and mommy

 sand shovels and buckets turned into snow buckets and shovels.  jay would take a few steps and take and scoop and put it in his bucket and then would do it again.  he had no interest in using the neighbors sled. 

 noah came out for a little while to join the fun, but he hated to fall in the snow.

 peyton and sara king also made their way out for a little fun.

 garrett preparing to throw snowballs at the king's house.

jay and peyton making snow castles!!

it's a wrap!!

2010 has ended and 2011 has begun. we ended the year off on a good note this last month. we convinced jay to give his pacifier to santa in return he would get presents. to our surprise, it worked like a charm. we haven't had any problems with it since. the key is, actually have a present ready at the house when they give it away.

we want to leave you with a couple of photos of this last month. it has been pretty busy visiting family and finishing up work for the month that i haven't had time to post anything since thanksgiving. that's what working full time will do to you.

christmas night and the day after snow started to fall and really accumulated. i think we had about 4 inches around our house or so. jay really liked walking in the snow, but we soon found out tennis shoes is not the way to go. his shoes and socks were all soaking wet. he definitely had a warm bath afterward.

at the beginning of the month, my dad and i took jay to the tree lighting in mint hill. garrett had practice with his basketball team and my mom had to work so dad and i thought it would be cool to go. we wanted cookies and hot chocolate, but there was way to many people there and jay was not going to wait on it.

christmas was great and full of presents. jay has most of the toy story gang and all three movies now. one night he even had to sleep with all the gang.

santa brought jay a tool set. he loves it and loves playing with the drill especially. one of the drills is from my grandmother that he got the night before.

as you can see, jay and noah enjoyed playing and "fixing" things in their new wagons. i think this was the highlight of christmas.

jay has power now!! (the batteries have already gone out once)

christmas eve, jay and noah helped make a mess and clean it up too at my parents house.

uncle chip and aunt kim gave a cool toy story car to jay. steering is a bit of a problem so he just goes around in circles in the yard.

also this month jay has grown fond of his jacket and "mittens". no it isn't cold in our house, this is just how he likes to play.

we hope your month has been great. we look forward to a great 2011 and hopefully will have some great things come our way this new year.

what we've been up to

thanksgiving went off with a bang. noah and jay love to play with one another and the boys know what to do with leaves all piled up.

here are all the grandkids on the wagoner side of the family. jay is holding the newest addition, seth, noah's little brother. noah didn't want anything to do with him, but jay didn't have a problem holding seth on his own.

here's my sister and my families.

jay's really gotten good at throwing balls, including footballs. i think he'll be a good little ballplayer.

here's a picture of gramps with two of his grandkids reading books. i think they all had fun.

sundays have been reserved to cheering on the panthers. maybe they will get another win some time soon. jay loves to wear his panther jersey also known as his "football player".

on november 20th, we went with our sunday school class to the lazy 5 ranch. we had a great time and got to feed and pet all sorts of animals. at one time, jay was chasing a pig with a few of the girls. here's a glimpse of our trip to mooresville.

somehow jay made it in a picture with all girls. he's our ladies man.

our little monkey

i wanted to share a glimpse of our weekend starting from sunday night and going backward. we gathered the kids together to go a little trick-or-treating around the neighborhood before it got dark. i know it is better in the dark, but with little ones, when it's light outside is way better. jay was a little taker of candy. he doesn't know when to stop. one of our neighbors just let him keep taking it. jay finally grew comfortable enough to wear is monkey costume. earlier in the week i thought it was going to be impossible to get it on him.

here's a picture of all the trick-or-treating buddies

peyton king, olivia williams, natalie rhyne (olivia's cousin), jay, noah belote

saturday night we helped to celebrate jake trent's birthday. he turned two a couple of weeks ago. he got all sorts of cool toys and even had a little fire to roast marshmallows. i was surprised they weren't in the fire themselves.

saturday afternoon we went to our church's fall festival. there were so many people and so much fun. jay couldn't get enough of his candy and putting it in his bucket. we kept running into all sorts of people we knew.

here's one of jay's friends we ran into from daycare, alana. jay always talks about her and from the sounds of it, his name is common around their house too.

early saturday morning i took jay to the grocery store where they had pumpkins to paint for free. it was a cool idea and jay enjoyed it, even the cookie and juice he got.

we will just have to wait until next year to get more candy and to paint more pumpkins.

firetrucks and pumpkins

tonight, jay and garrett were busy carving the pumpkin. since jay is really into monkey's, why should the pumpkin be any different. take a look at the finished product.

here's jay manhandling his piece of pumpkin with his own carver.

jay didn't want to help garrett clean out the pumpkin. that would be too yucky!!

on sunday we went to noah's first birthday. the theme was firetrucks and even had his own firetruck at his party.

this is as close jay gets to eating cake; dipping his fingers in the icing and licking it off. well, this is a start since he didn't want to touch his own first and second birthday cakes.

jay and kayla hurd on the firetruck.

my turn to get on with my hat.

jay with his raisons that he has come to love.

september and october all mushed together

it has truly been a while since i've updated the blog, but here is a quick look at what we've been up to lately. between parades, birthday parties, going to the mountains and work ourselves, we have found a few down times, but not many. for me, work has been all about the P's (PLC's, PEP's, PDP's). these only make sense if you are a public school teacher, or maybe they still won't because i think i'm still confused. we've really been on the go.

here's jay and mommy at the labor day parade at matthews alive

noah, jay and livvie all ready to get their candy at the mint hill madness parade (sept. 25th)

jay has really come to love blowup bouncy things. here he is with hayley and calon at calon's birthday party.

another bouncy slide at lyla and sage's birthday party, (oct. 2nd)

yes, he's king of this castle

the next few pictures are from this past weekend when we took a trip to the mountains with our friends matt, bethany and jake trent. we visited grandfather mountain while we were there and had a blast.

we didn't know we would see any animals, but got a glimpse of a few bears on the way.

here's matt on the bridge. the first time he made it halfway and turned around. he did make it to the end the second go around.

jay wasn't scared though. he wanted daddy to take him everywhere on the mountain and didn't seem to mind the bridge at all.

here's the gang!!

daddy and jay posing for the camera.