Mondays with Crosby

At 11:24 am, Crosby Fox turned 1 year and 36 weeks old!!! And doesn't he look adorable standing on top of his favorite stump while wearing his daddy's overalls and frog boots?!?! I thought so!


Crosby gets to share the spotlight with a few other "folks" this week. 2 were planned. 1 was NOT. We will begin with the first of the planned spotlight sharers (not a word. I know...) Blake. It was his 33rd birthday on Thursday. I made one of his favorite meals, meatloaf, mashed potatoes, peas and Grands biscuits. Yes, Grands. I served Sister Schubert's rolls with this meal when we first got married and got the ole "my mom usually made Grands with this." Needless to say, that didn't earn him a single point at the time. Actually, he subtracted a few. To appease, we always have Grands now. Where was I? A yes...his birthday. The Thompson's came over to share in the birthday feast. When they were leaving, Nugget followed them out the back door and went CRAZY on us. He was running on and off the deck. In and out of the bushes. Back and forth. Like a chicken with his head cut off. It sort of smelled like a skunk outside but I didn't see a skunk. It took 10 minutes or more for Nugget to calm down and come inside. I decided to investigate. Flashlight in hand, I looked between the boards on the floor of the deck until I saw what had him so crazy...

I know the focus is off, but you can see the nose and eye if this nasty creature if you look reeeeeeal close. Blake used a broom to get a better picture of our unwelcome guest...
An ARMADILLO!!!! This is Tennessee. What are armadillos doing in this state? I thought we were only blessed with lovely opossums. Armadillos, too??? I could barely walk around outside after I made this discovery. Blake was yelling for me to go get the camera. I was screaming with every step it took. Just nasty...

I cannot begin to tell you how happy I was to see this armored varmint gone the next morning.

Thankfully the second planned spotlight sharer is MUCH cuter! In fact, she is officially a one year old doll of a little girl...Miss Charlotte...

That is right! She had her first birthday party on Saturday. It seems like just yesterday I was posting this on the blog. I can't believe it has been a year since she came into our lives. What a joy she is. And what a joy it was to celebrate her!!! Anne Claire and Jeremy had the house looking adorable for the festivities...


And she was dressed for the occasion...


Is this not the cutest bum you have ever seen??


Crosby had a good ole time celebrating his cousin's big day...

One of the highlights for him was eating her pink birthday cake...


We actually got a decent family picture...


After Charlotte's party, we celebrated Blake's birthday a little more. Gid helped him open a few gifts... Then the big boys headed off to watch Auburn's first football game of the season. All the little boys supported the team by wearing their Auburn attire and shouting a little WAR EAGLE!!! (this was the best picture we could get...)
We attempted a shot of all the cousins. That proved to be difficult as well. Poor Crosby was falling apart by this point in the evening...
Lulu reading a book to Gid and Crosby...

Crosby was up from 7:15 am until 9:15pm. To top that off, he only had an hour and a half nap, and even it was interrupted. Despite his lack of sleep, he was such a trooper. I caved and let him veg on Mickey at the end of the night. He was pretty sweet while doing so...


My sleepy boy...I didn't have any problem taking advantage of his exhaustion. It gave me the opportunity to snuggle up with my cuddle bug...I kind of live for those moments...

Happy Birthday Blake, aka Daddy!!!

Happy Birthday Miss Charlotte!!!

Never come back again, Armadillo!!!

We have a pretty big day planned tomorrow. Maybe I will sneak in an extra post this week to share. Just maybe...

The vows I promised...

You may recall we found a beautiful bouquet of flowers floating in the Mexican Gulf while we were in Cancun... We got a little closer and saw it was attached to bottle, tightly sealed with paper inside.A hidden treasure!!!! Our curiosity got the best of us and we pealed our way through gobs of tape to reach the treasure inside. We just knew it would be something amazing based in the quality of the floral arrangement attached. We were sorely mistaken. Here is what Nick had to say to the lovely Dolly...

Seriously? People mention remotes in their wedding vows???? Seriously??? If that didn't blow you away, maybe the words from Dolly to Nick will do it for you...



So...is "sweetness" the dog? Natalie, was this really you and Scott posing as "Nick and Dolly"???
And The Cure? They are good in all. But including them in VOWS?? Nice.

I really do wish Nick and Dolly well in their married life. Really. I just worry about the way they started things off. You know, the depth of their commitment. I am afraid we may have made things worse. There were instructions to return the bottle to sea if it was found so their "love would live forever". But we didn't have packaging tape to re-seal the bottle. And I couldn't
stand the thought of that bottle floating around, littering our ocean. So, we brought the contents
back to TN instead. And decided to share it with you!

Mondays with Crosby

At 11:24 am, Crosby Fox turned 1 year and 35 weeks old!!! He was officially TWENTY months yesterday. I am not fond of this "twenty" business. We are very close to the age where you no longer refer to their age in months. It will just be years. And maybe you get to throw in a "half" in the middle. Nope. I don't like it. I can remember saying, "He is 5 days old." And then we got a few weeks to refer to his age in just those terms, "weeks". It has been "months" for more than a year and a half. I am not ready to go to "years". But who says they have at "25 month old"? Or a "72 month old"?" I guess I could start that trend! No one would think I am strange for doing so. Right? I would do just about anything to keep my boy a baby...

We had a first last week. Blake was gone for 4 and 1/2 days. He left Wednesday and came back last night. That meant I got to experience a smidgen of the life of a single mother. What a hard job that would be. It is one I do not envy. I say that, and I had a lot of help. Crosby spent time with Pop while I shopped at a consignment sale on Thursday. We both spent the night with Grammie and Pop on Friday night and Crosby stayed on through Sunday. I had a MILLION places to be on Sunday. Had I forced Crosby to tag along with me, he would have missed his nap. I can only imagine how ugly that would have been! Thankfully I didn't have to fight that battle.

We pulled into the driveway after Saturday lunch to find one large piece of equipment in Grammie and Pop's yard. Crosby eagerly waited as it approached...

He was in awe as it passed by...

Were his eyes deceiving him or did a farmer on a big, red tractor just wave at him as he passed by????

It finally sinks in..."Tractor!!! Tractor!!!"

We sat outside watching the tractor way off in the distance after breakfast. Little did I know it would still be going after lunch. That farmer sure did make Crosby's day!

Blake was off today. We took Crosby on a wagon ride (Nugs on a walk) down to a school playground. He did his share of swinging and sliding and climbing. But the mega fork lift sitting off to the side of the playground caught his eye as soon as we walked up. We just had to let him "drive"...

All he needs is a hard hat and he is ready to go...

Pretending will have to do for now...

I often comment that Crosby is fearless. I wonder why?

Do parents of girls encourage this behavior as well? It can't be a good thing...

Crosby was kind enough to share our (mine and Blake's, that is) cup of water with Nugget...

Don't worry. I quickly dumped the remaining water out of the cup. Although, he would have been more than happy to take a big gulp of Nugget's slobber. I preferred he just stick to his sippy cup from there on out!

The cat was running around the yard when we got home. I asked Crosby where she went. This was his "I don't know" response...

And I just had to share this one of ole Nugs. Look at that gray beard. That sweet (but bad sometimes) thing. I was pretty impressed with myself for getting the fly in the picture! I remember thinking, "He was going to eat that fly if it doesn't leave." He has done it before! Thankfully not today.

I will leave you with one of 2 videos I was supposed to post last week. I thought I saved an edited version, which was MUCH shorter. Apparently not. I apologize. You may want to skip the first 35 seconds, unless you want to hear my horrific version of the "ABC" song. Hey, he likes it! And then you will probably want to skip the good byes at the end, unless you are a grandparent. Even then, you may want to skip it!! :) We think he is going to be a genius...

But don't all parents think that about their children!?!? But ours, of course, is different... ;-)

Mondays with Crosby

At 11:24 am, Crosby Fox turned 1 year and 34 weeks old!!! All things considered, this was a relatively calm week. We had a few exciting events that I will share. But first things first. I failed to mention a HUGE accomplishment last week...

Crosby was in the nursery during church on the 15th. I went to pick him up at the end of service and Courtney met me at the door. With a huge smile on her face, she informed me he had been saying, "Momma! Momma! Momma!" over and over! "WHAT????" I was soooo very excited to know he was FINALLY saying my name. I have been hearing it quite a bit since that Sunday morning. Needless to say, it makes me pretty happy! He has been talking about "Daaah" long enough! :)

Speaking of Courtney, she invited us to their house on Saturday morning to celebrate sweet Leighton's first birthday. Too bad I don't have a single picture of the birthday girl. I have a GREAT excuse though. Courtney asked me to take pictures of Leighton with her camera. I was more than honored to take pictures of that sweet little angel on her big day. So I put my camera aside an snapped a away with Courtney's instead. Well, that was after I got these...
This Cozy Coupe was one of Leighton's gifts. I think Crosby was "driving" it within 5 minutes of walking in the door. He did not care that it is tacky to play with some one's toy before they even open them! There is something about big, bright yellow and red objects with wheels that my boy absolutely cannot resist! I am thinking we may need one of these come December 25th. Or 29th. Poor baby gets it all at once...Sigh.

We came home from Small Group Sunday night to find a really exciting surprise waiting for Crosby. You can see the great reveal below...

(well that didn't work! you'll have to check back in...)

Crosby LOVES a slide. Little did I know that LeAnne would travel to Mississippi and have her dad build one! She took pictures of the one he loves at Monkey's Treehouse and...Voila! Now he has one of his very own right here in our house! He cried and cried last night when we parted ways with the slide to take a bath. It was the first thing he did when he woke up this morning. He wanted to show it off to his friends today before lunch. It is the first thing he did when he woke up from his nap! I think we will be seeing lots more of this...

Here's where I say, "On your bottom"...

He thinks it is a funny trick...

Counting...

Down he goes...

And he crawls off to do it again!

His friends did come over before lunch. And they did have their turn on the slide and thought it was pretty cool! It wasn't the only hi light of the morning. Little did we know they would be here when the garbage truck came!!! Just look at those faces. Complete disbelief at what they are seeing...

They...

crack...

me...

up!!! I mean, John Christopher's gestures are hilarious!!! And Margaret may not look thrilled to be out watching trucks with the boys, but I am here to tell you she loved it, too! As a matter of fact, she took a seat right in my lap just to get a better view!

There was a comment a few weeks back. It was from another momma. I had written about our not so lovely visit to the Williamson County Fair. She was "glad" to hear my toddler throws tantrums. It confirmed that her little man was "not the only one"!! I hear you there! Let me reassure you that you are far from being alone! I know two more little ones (pictured above...;)) that also have their "less than perfect" moments. These days can be messy at times. In more ways than one. And here is the proof...

Snotty nose...

(As if anyone buys that he is a shy child... ;))

Pretty demanding a times...

Downright grumpy at times...

And then you get this...

And you just have to smile...

Being a parent isn't easy. We SURE don't get it right around here...A LOT of the time. But loving this little guy is!

Avocado stain wearing, snot nose smearing, messy hair sporting, sockless shoe wearing, temper tantrum throwing! Yep! That's our Crosby! And I think we'll keep him!