Our Life in Good Old Rocky Top!: Happy 2010!

It's official--it's been way too long since my last post. Part of my lack of blogging has been that we have been extremely busy, but the other part has been just plain laziness. I knew re-capping Christmas, Jesse's b-day, January, etc would take quite some time, so I have just put it off instead. :) However, my dad has been on me for some time for some new updates...so, here ya go, Daddy-O!!

First update: Christmas. Oh, we had such a wonderful Christmas this year. I never knew how much fun Christmas would be once you have a child, but it was! Joshua and I could hardly contain our excitment trying to get things ready on Christmas Eve...we loved every minute of it. Here's an extremely quick recap of our day!! We spent Christmas Eve @ Joshua's grandmother's house (aka: Mama Dee). We always enjoy being with the family, but she lives in an itty bitty house so with all of those people (including 8 kids) crammed into her house, we are usually ready to leave when it's time. ;) Christmas Day, we woke up and did our own Christmas, which was a BLAST, and then headed to Joshua's mom & dad's house (Pappy & Mammy) for a wonderful breakfast & then more presents. It was sooooo funny watching Jesse open his presents. He honestly had no clue what to play with first...he would go from one present to another. It made my heart smile to see him having so much fun and all I could think about is how blessed we are to have him here with us. After Christmas with Mammy, Pappy, Phillip, Mandy & the kids, we headed home for afternoon naps (for Jesse anyways). Joshua and I spent the afternoon setting up our Christmas gifts & then we attempted to clean up the mess....and "attempted" is the perfect word. There was stuff EVERYWHERE! We spent Christmas night @ Joshua's other grandmother's house (Memaw)--we had an INCREDIBLE meal, as we always do over there, and finished opening our gifts about 9:00 PM that night. Yep, with a family of 30, it takes quite some time to open presents! We always have the best time and although I missed being with my side of the family, it was a wonderful 1st Christmas celebrating as a family of three! :)

The kids with Mama Dee

Opening our Christmas jammies on Christmas Eve!

Jesse got his very own letter from Santa!

Christmas Morning @ Home

Christmas Morning & Mammy & Pappy's House

Christmas Night @ Memaw's House

Memaw got Jesse his very own chair!!

January was a great & busy month! And I mean BUSY. The first part of January was really special for us because that's when we celebrated Jesse boy's 1st b-day. I HATED that we had to wait that long to celebrate, but things are always so crazy for people right before Christmas and I wanted to be sure everyone was able to relax & enjoy themselves @ his party and not be worried about what they should be doing instead. Jesse didn't miss a thing--actually instead of having one b-day party--he actually had THREE! The first was on his actual b-day and we celebrated with Mammy & Pappy with a cookie cake and a gift or two, the second was when G-pa & G-Pam came in from Ohio and we celebrated with them with cupcakes & more presents and the the third one was his big party--cowboy style! I still can't believe my baby boy is one. He has truly brought more joy into our lives than we could have ever imagined. He is just amazing and I thank God everyday that I am privileged enough to be his mommy.