Happy Birthday, Jude!

Jen (George's sister) and Eric were so nice to host Jude's Birthday Party on January 1st! It was a fabulous affair with wonderful food and tons of family.

George putting the finishing touches on Jude's personal cake.

At Jen and Eric's house enjoying food and company.

 My mom and Glenn couldn't make it because they were up in New York visiting some of Glenn's relatives, but the rest of my family was there!

Mom, Eric, and Der

You can't keep Jude away from dogs. Poor Mocha wanted to be away from Jude, though.

Jude and Mason being buddies. :)

Jude wasn't too sure what to make of all the fuss that was going on.

I think he liked being the center of attention, but he wasn't sure what he was supposed to do.

So, Lance and George helped him blow out his candle.

Since Christmas was just a week ago, he understood what he was supposed to do with the gifts. 

He got lots of really nice gifts from George's family!

He liked grabbing things out of the bag. It was really cute.

I think the biggest hit was the Elmo card that Uncle Nate got for him. It had a button to push that would make Elmo talk. As you can clearly see, he loved it!

Birthday Boy!

Cake.

We tried to get him warmed up to the idea of eating the cake, but he wasn't having it.

He tasted it.

He picked at it a little and rubbed some in his hair.

He pointed at it a lot.

But in the end, this was all the damage the little guy would do.

 That's okay. Big brother liked it. :)

I still can't believe my baby is 1! Where has the time gone? Here are his latest milestones:

- He can walk a few steps before he decides that crawling is faster.

- He says "MaMa" and "DaDa", "this", "that", "all done" (sort of) and will try to imitate any sound you make.

- He knows what his tongue is and will stick it out if you ask him where it is.

- He is currently cutting about 6 teeth--three molars and three canines.

- He loves his baths and will try to get into the bathtub (or the toilet) whenever the bathroom door is open.

- Anything Lance is doing is worthy of attention.

- He's getting frustrated being a baby and tries to do things like feed himself with a spoon or fork. He will rip it out of your hands and proceed to stab at his food until he is successful getting the food from his tray to his mouth with said utensil.

- He LOVES dogs.

- He loves music and will turn on our iHome and start jamming to the tunes that come out. One way George helps him get ready for bed is to hold him and listen to jazz on the computer while they watch the screensaver lights.

Happy Birthday, Jude! You are the sweetest baby I've ever seen and have an iron grip on my heart. I can't get enough of you and feel so blessed to be your mother. I'm excited to watch you grow and learn and I count my blessings that I get to be at your side while you do. Thanks for being ours, Jude. We love you!

Happy New Year!

We got to the Simmons in enough time to put both sleeping boys down for the night and find a seat in front of the TV about 5 minutes before the ball dropped. Good timing!

Awaiting the new year!

The Simmons and Allreds were all there waiting...

...Happy New Year!

We stayed up until around 2:30 a.m. just talking and eating all kinds of goodies. It was great...

...until 6:30 rolled around and both boys woke up. Yay.

The boys watching the dogs outside.

I got productive to pass the time before everyone else woke up, so the boys and I went grocery shopping, made breakfast for everyone (baked french toast, homemade buttermilk syrup, and whipped cream), and made Jude's Birthday cake.

This was around 11 a.m. when everyone else was mostly awake and eating breakfast.

Conspiring minds...

Aunt Linda and Aunt Amy keeping a busy little boy occupied.

DaddyG giving his expert advice.

Jude getting tons of attention, as usual. (My cousin Bethany is the one in the middle, the two girls are friends that spent the night)

Jason, Kailey, and Stephen

We headed back to the Glass's house early that afternoon to prepare for Jude's Birthday Party!

New Year's Eve at the Glass's!

On the way home from visiting my dad's grave, we picked up Lance from his dad's and my family dropped us both off at the Glass's house to celebrate New Year's Eve!

Mom and Jen were busy making tons of eggrolls while the rest of us enjoyed HOT POT!

Hot pot is like the asian version of fondue. Instead of oil, you boil various kinds of meats and veggies in the community pot and then you eat it with this "BBQ sauce" (that's not at all like American BBQ sauce). I mix the sauce with peanut butter and I'm in heaven!

Lance was super excited to see his cousins Callie and Bryce after being gone for a week in California. Those three are really good friends and it's always fun for Lance to get together with them.

Most of the night was spent with the men working on building George a gaming table for his steering wheel he bought for his game Grand Tourismo. You have to clamp the wheel to some kind of table and since we don't have one that would work, they built one!

Even Lance wanted to help. I'll have to post a picture of the end product when it's finally finished. It turned out well and just needs to be painted.

Around 11 p.m. we collected the sleepy boys and headed over to the Simmon's house to do the official count-down and spend the night.

Temple Trip and my Dad

The week after Christmas, my family got to do a couple really special things together. The first was visiting the Temple together. Jason still isn't old enough, so he and my cousins Kailey and Bethany stayed at the Simmons with Jude and Mason (Lance was still in California).

The lights were still up from Christmas and it added such beauty to that amazing building.

Glenn, Mom, Amy, Stephen, Chad, me, and Laura

Me and George. It was so nice to be there together.

The siblings (minus Jason).

The whole group. Aunt Linda and Uncle Rob came, too.

I love visiting the Temple and being reminded that our family is forever!

The following day, the whole family made the hour trip out to visit my dad's grave. On the way there, Mom brought out a little book where the kids had written down memories we had of dad or things we remembered about him and we spent the hour reminiscing, laughing, crying, and feeling close to Dad.

We read a few more memories standing next to him, sang a couple songs and said a prayer. It was nice to be there as a family and remember what an amazing man Dad was and is. This sounds strange, but it was nice and relieving to feel the loneliness and longing to be with him. We were not standing there alone--we were together, all feeling the same, all knowing that we were there for one another and always will be. The pain never really goes away, or even weakens. Life and time have a way of enabling us to put the pain on the back burner and go on with life. It's nice, though, to bring it forward every once in a while and just remember. Remember what we lost, remember the good times, remember the love, and know that one day we will have him back again.

We love you, Dad. Thanks for being the best father anyone could ask for.

Post-Christmas Festivities

My family decided to have Christmas dinner the day after Christmas so everyone could make it. As per a long-standing tradition, we had fondue! Actually, the tradition was that after the kids went to bed on Christmas Eve, the adults would then have fondue and once you were 12 (I think), you were considered adult enough to join. Well, we all passed the test this year!

After dinner, everyone posed with their gifts and took a picture. Of special note that you cannot see in the picture is the great phone George's parents bought for me because my old one was on it's last legs. Yay!

Jude thought everything was pretty great. Lance was in California at the time, so we missed taking his picture.

The next day, we all set out to spend our Christmas cash! For the past few years, my mom has been giving everyone cash for their big gift and the rule is you have to spend it all the day after Christmas. Anything you don't spend is to be given back and we all meet that evening together to show everyone what we purchased. It's a lot of fun and a great new tradition!

Everyone gathered to show off their purchases.

Jude hanging with his adoring Grandpa Glenn, Uncle Tyler, and cousin Mason.

Mason and Jude are good buddies. :)

It was nice to see a lot of Chad. He's been in New York City attending Columbia's Dental school, so we don't see too much of him. My boys both think he is just awesome and seem to gravitate toward him.

Jude liked to help Uncle Chad play the piano.