Cousins

A few weeks ago we had a mini visit from Uncle Mike, Aunt Beverly, and "Baby" Graham. We all met up for breakfast at Fidos and it was so cute to see the cousins together. Graham is at a super cute age (9 months) and was being a darling. He is full of smiles and growing so fast. I last saw him over Christmas and it's amazing how much he's grown since then.

Can you see the family resemblance?

I also got a cute family shot. Hope we see everyone again soon!

Little bites of pear

Matt: Do you want me to cut that?

Lucas: No

Emma's Birthday Party

Lucas' best daycare buddy Emma just turned 2! She celebrated with a party at Bounce U. The kids had a blast! They got to roam the entire place with just their group. They jumped, flipped, slid, ran, and absolutely exhausted themselves (and their parents).

Waiting on the party to start. Lucas and Emma are as always never far apart.

In the Bouncy Castle with Emma and another daycare buddy Ellie. I love Ellie's adorable red hair!

The kids had a blast on the big slide:

Sliding all alone!

The daddies with the kiddos

Cupcake Time:

Can you tell they're all daycare buddies? They sat so well behaved waiting on their treats.

Lucas had a blast and we took home an exhausted little boy that night. We got our energy out to following him through the bouncy mazes and climbing up the slide again and again. Thanks Emma for a great party!

Snow Days

The winter months have been full of snow here in Nashville. It's been crazy with no snow tires, a city full of inexperienced snow drivers, and hour long lines to get out of the parking garage when snow starts to fall again. We're so glad it's finally warming up (hope I didn't just jinx anything).

With our steep driveway we get to use different parking spaces when it starts snowing. We didn't get our car out in time one of the snow surprise days and Matt had to spent over 30 minutes shoveling and scraping ice of our drive way along with a bag of street salt from our neighbor. Then when we finally get our car out we get to slip down our icy street and try not to turn into another of the poor fools that have their cars stuck in ditches all around the neighborhood. So far so good.

Our back yard turned into a Winter Wonderland:

Lucas says "Turtle - hiding" (see the sandbox hump?)

Lucas enjoying window sticker time:

Trecking to work in the snow at 6 am is mild misery but on days home, I love the snow! The world outside is so peaceful... everything is so white and Lucas loves it! "Stomp, stomp!"

January Fun

We spent our first few days of the New Year in Birmingham. We also amazingly both got a holiday on for the first Monday that we were supposed to be back and extended our vacation by a day. That one extra day felt amazing! Then we went straight back to full time craziness. I had my Infectious Disease rotation in January -- really interesting but long days! Matt spent some time (in theory) doing different clinics -- really just cardiology, go figure. He's been getting to practice doing echos (echocardiography or ultrasounds of the heart for you non-medical people:) and has been loving it! Great sign for his future career choice. Here are a few random pictures from the month.

Lucas and Jenny in matching green monkey jammies.

Taking the new Trike for a spin

Checking out Daddy's headphones... or playing pilot?

Jenny & Luca on the playground. Who's heavier?

Lego Time

My beautiful sister on her way to her Sadie Hawkin's dance

The Whitley Takes Over

So, this weekend I followed my beloved Cats down to Nashville only to see them lose to the Dores. Thankfully, I was able to ignore this humiliating loss and spend some time with my favorite Baby Lucas. Oh, and I saw Matt and Steph, too.

This weekend has been spent reading dino books (Aunt Whitley brought him a new one and so it was only fair she read it to him 20 times in a row), eating, making tunnels out of legos, sleeping until 6 AM, putting dinos in our pockets, watching the "Elmo ABC" video, finding dinos in Costco and avoiding nap time. I have also discovered that Matt and Steph have been buying Lucas all the presents I ask them if I can get for him. If they steal anymore of my ideas, I have threatened to send Lucas his very own drum set.

I think the highlight of the weekend was this morning when I got to eat with all Israels (minus Dan. Sorry, Dan!) including Lucas, who insisted on sitting next to me, and the new baby Graham! Jealous?

Below are just a few of the exploits we got into this weekend. There are not more pictures because every time I got out my phone to take it, Lucas would insist on watching "Me-Me" or Elmo. As I am clearly a pushover, less pictures were taken.

This is the very large cupcake I bought Lucas at Bread & Co. The man in front of us in line let us go first. He thought Lucas was going to make himself sick because he was freaking out and yelling "CUPCAKE!!!!"

Where's Lucas?

There he is!!

Lucas tried to convince Matt to lift him up so he could play on the playground.

Lucas helps us shop for dangerous chemicals.

Pa-Pa and Lucas reading the Hippo book.

It was such a fun weekend!!! Thank you for all of the Israels who were so kind in putting up with me and buying me food and letting me play with their children. I can't wait for my next visit!!!

Zoolight Safari

Birmingham's Zoo has a yearly Christmas light tradition. At night the whole zoo is lit up beautifully. Lucas was just old enough to really enjoy it this year. He was fascinated by the all the lights especially the ones in the shapes of animals. He also loved the dancing and moving lights. What a sight to see his face light up! Made me see the wonder and beauty of the lights in a whole new way.

Waiting to get in

Three Silly Snowmen

A Dragon in the Lake

On the "Up-Down"

This was Lucas first time on a "big" animal on the Merry-Go-Round. He has wanted to theoretically ride the carousels at the mall and zoo for quite some time now but has gotten scared whenever it was actually time to get on. Jenny convinced him this time and he loved it! See the video:

Visiting the Llama

Jenny really is an animal friend. Kisses for the llama (see below).

Me and my favorite Sis