The Next Chapter

I  sit here tonight, taking a few minutes to contemplate all that has gone on since May 2012, and I have come to the conclusion that this is not an end, but rather a new beginning.

Here's to progress, to forgiveness, to laughter, to healing. 

But most importantly, to happiness and love.

Christ has told us one of the most profound statements I have ever heard.

It's one that I keep close to my heart and think about often.

I never said it would be easy, I only said it would be worth it.

How true those words are.

My New Favorite Day

As most of you know, I LOVE my birthday. Sometimes I celebrate Jamie "month" instead of just one day. :)

Well, I now have another favorite day rather than my birthday. It would be today. One of THE best days of my life so far. I can't believe it's been a year since I had my little Baby J. He's now gone from Baby J, to J nug, to little mister, pumpkin, buddy (but not bubba because Grandma has outlawed that name), monkey, monster, to Jas.He went from spending 4 1/2 days in the NICU to being 90th+ percentile in height, weight, blah blah, and WALKING with 5 teeth. Did I mention walking? He is my big guy. And I love him to death. I never knew I could love someone so much. And this is why:

Because this was the face I woke up today. A happy, jumping up and down, smiling, laughing face. How could you not love him??

This is the first of several different posts to come. You have been warned. :)

First Part of The Day: Kiddie Kandids

We took Jas to get his 1 year birthday pictures. I wasn't completely impressed. My amazing aunt takes better pictures than they did. Next time I'll just call her. Haha. Watch out Carol. :) I have decided he looks JUST like his dad and there are VERY little of my physical features in there. Here are a few of the pictures I did like:

The Birthday Lunch

After pictures we decided to go to Wingers for lunch (daddy's choice, with no complaints on my end). Jas got to order his first "big boy" lunch. He got a quesadila. I think he liked it pretty well, although he DID enjoy the baby food sweet potatoes more than the beans they gave him.

Sorry for the blurriness. The kid moves before the shutter has time to go off on my phone! :)

The Family Party

Then we moved on to what was SUPPOSED to be an afternoon nap (that never happened), and on to cake and ice cream with the family. THANK YOU to everyone who came out and supported Jas on his big day (and Derek and I as well). Your love and support means the world to us. Here are a BUNCH of pictures to show how it went. Oh and a shout out to cousins Kiki & BG for helping Jas open his presents!

 The pre-party tired thumb sucking..

And then there was cake...

The Massacre of the Cake

And LET THEM EAT CAKE

 Jas's cake.. the before picture

 Everyone else's cake. :) See I can be smart at times...

 He was more interested in the monsters than the cake at first...

 Until I took them away....

 and daddy conveniently put the cake up to his face to eat. :)

 And then I tried shoving his hands in it.

 And then he finally understood & started eating...

 and eating..

 yep, still eating...

 I think we let him eat it for a good 20 minutes...

 And then we took a little break...

 And then decided to eat more.

 Why? Because cake is FANTASTIC!

 And when he started looking like this, we took the cake away.

And this is how it looked AFTER he got his hands on it.

HAPPY 1st BIRTHDAY to the worlds BEST little boy! We love you Jason!

The Swings

For the past little while I've been thinking about taking the Little Man out to play on the swings. I took Kiki and Jr when they were about his age, and I have pictures of them in my office, but I hadn't ever done it with Jas yet, so this was a goal of mine. So last Saturday after going out to a yummy dinner, Derek and I spent a few minutes outside with Jas on the swings. At first he didn't like it much...

And he was not afraid to tell me otherwise..

 But then daddy got on the swing with him...

 And then he started thinking he liked it..

 He loves hanging his head back and letting go.

 Still trying to figure out exactly what he thought of it...

 Whee!!

 Loving it!

 And after swinging, we tried the grass. Let's just say it was a "no go"

 But he did love the tree's. All in all, we had a GREAT time!

Easter Pictures

This year for Easter, I talked my WONDERFUL Aunt Carol into taking some pictures of the Little Man since I hadn't had any done other than my great attempt at taking pictures over the months. Here are a few that she got. Can I just tell you that she is AMAZING?! Love that Aunt Carol of mine!