Family Photos

The week before Mac's birthday we met my old friend, Christie, at a local park so that she could take family photos of us and some one year pictures of Mac. Our day got off to a super rough start. Mac decided to cut a tooth the night before and was awake from about 2-5 am, still woke up at 6:30 and then only took a 30 minute morning nap. Christie's car wouldn't start so we started a little later than planned with a SUPER tired child. Needless to say it was quite a balancing act to try and keep Mac happy! We took several family photos and got a few in of Mac before the meltdown. Christie was so understanding that she let Mac and I come back to her house a couple of weeks later to take some more pictures of just Mac. The pictures below are just a small sampling of what she took, but I am so happy with how they all turned out. Christie did an amazing job!!

A fun family moment:

One of my favorites of Ron and I:

Mac's face just cracks me up in this one!

I just LOVE his blue eyes!

Christmas!

Christmas festivities rounded out our busy December! After we celebrated our anniversary, instead of picking Mac up and going home, we stayed at my parents house to celebrate Christmas. Ron's mom and her boyfriend came over and Christmas week officially began! Mac was somewhat interested in presents, but he probably spent most of his time climbing up and down the stairs with my dad while I opened all of the fabulous things that he received! One present that I think he will really enjoy in the spring and summer is his wagon from Grammy. It even has adult cup holders on the outside! He has already been enjoying his Radio Flyer tricycle from his Papa Joe and Nana.

Checking out the presents at Christmas #1:

This may have been the only present that he actually opened:

Here is where he spent most of his time:

Riding on his new tricycle:

On Wednesday night we loaded up the truck and headed down to Moultrie for Christmas. We enjoyed a relaxing day on Thursday and then drove down to Perry, FL on Friday to spend the afternoon with Ron's stepmom and her family. We really enjoyed getting to spend a afternoon visiting and ate a yummy steak lunch! On Christmas day Mac woke up early so after he finished his breakfast we woke up the rest of the house so we could open presents. Since they don't have any stairs, Mac did show a little more interest in the opening of gifts! He still didn't sit still for too long, but I think he pulled some paper here and there! We spent Christmas afternoon in Quitman, GA with some of Ron's extended family. We hadn't been down there for a holiday in a very long time. After our yummy BBQ lunch Mac and I relaxed and played while Ron and the other men went dove hunting. The rest of the weekend was spent with Mac and I playing while Ron was sick on the sofa and his dad was sick in his bed. I had hoped to be able to use family during the trip to fully recover from my sinus infection, but since I was the least sick of the group my naps were few and far between!

Christmas morning in Moultrie (our family pic wasn't that good and we didn't take very many others!):

All in all we had a great Christmas! It was very nice to come home and get back into our routine. We were so worn out from our crazy December that we have just stayed at home for the past couple of weekends. We still have some gifts to unpack and put away, but I'm sure we will get it all finished soon!

We hope you had a great Christmas also!

5 Years

The week after Mac's birthday Ron and I celebrated our 5 year anniversary. It is amazing how fast the time has gone and how much our relationship has changed and grown. With December being such a crazy month we decided to stay local to celebrate. My parents kept Mac overnight for us while Ron and I headed downtown to enjoy some of our favorite places to visit pre-baby. We started off our Atlanta weekend with a trip to Ikea to scout out shelves for our living room turned playroom. We then headed to the Hyatt Buckhead for a quick nap before enjoying a fabulous dinner at Hal's followed by dessert at Cafe Intermezzo. We had all intentions of going to Mass at the Cathedral where we got married, but I started coming down with a cold and we took advantage of sleeping past 6am. We ended our fun weekend with brunch at the Buckhead Diner. It was a great weekend and so nice to get to spend time together!

Christmas Cards

Every year I have the hardest time choosing a Christmas card to send out to everyone. There are so many decisions to be made: who you are going to order them from, what pictures should you use, and what design you want on your card. This year my friend Carrie told about a great deal to get 50 free cards from Shutterfly, so at least where I am ordering my cards from has been decided! Shutterfly has some really great designs that blend my style with Ron's and here are some that are in our top running:

Which one is your favorite?

There are so many cute cards to choose from that I know the final decision will be really tough! I tend to like cards that are "different" and Ron likes traditional, so we try to find a card that blends both styles! Shutterfly also has a great selection of gifts! Who doesn't love a personalized calendar, photo album or mug? I love giving personalized gifts and I have always been so happy with the quality of the items I ordered from Shutterfly.

Now is such a great time to purchase your favorite items from Shutterfly! They are offering free shipping on orders $50 or more. Calendars and photo albums are buy 1 get 1 50% off and holiday cards are 20% off! Check out these links for cards, gifts or photo albums:

Christmas photo cards to http://www.shutterfly.com/cards-stationery/christmas-photo-cards

photo gifts to http://www.shutterfly.com/photo-gifts

photobook to http://www.shutterfly.com/photo-books

Mac's Birthday Party

We had so much fun at Mac's 1st birthday party yesterday! It was great to spend time with family and friends that we don't see often enough! He wasn't too sure what to think about his cake and started off trying to "clean" it by attempting to take the polka dots and the monkey off.

Mac is dressed and ready to PARTY!!

Playing with the big kids

He wasn't quite sure what to think about the cake,

but once he had a taste he kept on eating!

Opening his first present:

All of the kids were a big help!

Wiped out from a fun, long day!!

Apparently I never posted this! I actually wrote this post a day after his birthday, oops! December was a CRAZY busy month, so I will try to get you caught up on our lives soon!

Happy Birthday Mac!!!

I cannot believe how fast the time has gone by since we were in the hospital (for 20 hours) waiting for Mac to arrive. We were so excited to have a baby and so excited to find out if we were having a boy or girl! Mac has blessed our lives in so many ways. His smile, laugh and curiosity make us laugh daily. Mac is constantly on the move and gets into everything! He loves opening cabinets and pulling things out of drawers and off of shelves. His favorite toy right now is a house that a friend of mine gave us. There are so many different activities on this house. He loves to put things inside the door and mailbox, turn on the radio and dance and pushing me out of the doorway! This week he has begun a new fascination with putting lids on different containers and stacking them inside each other. He crawls all over the place and does not stay in one location for very long. The only time I can get him to sit still is if we are out shopping or on a run. When we run he quietly looks around at everything, but when he shop he will talk to anyone who will look at him and if someone won't look at him he stares them down and talks louder until they at least give him a smile. At Publix last week he literally had a store manager, the cashiers, bag boys, and customers from two lanes paying him their full attention! We definitely have a VERY social boy! He isn't walking on his own yet, but he is so close. He holds on to everything to walk and will even push chairs around the house to help him move from place to place. He will stand unsupported for short periods of time and thinks about moving his feet, but ends up dropping to a crawl instead. As exciting as walking is, I'm nervous about the possibility of him being even more active!

Here we are waiting patiently at the hospital:

Welcome baby Mac!

A Thanksgiving Family Photo:

Last week we took some 1yr photos that I will post when I get them. Tomorrow we are having a party for him at the house so look out for a party post! It will be Mac's first experience with cake!!

Happy Birthday sweet boy, we love you!!!!

Halloween

We were in Moultrie for Halloween this year. Ron and his dad were at the Georgia/Florida game, so Kim (Ron's stepmom) and I took Mac on Saturday night to one of the larger neighborhoods in town. We met up with my friend Katie and her family at her in-laws house. I frequently refer to Mac as my little monkey because he is so active, so it was only appropriate that he was a monkey for Halloween:

He had fun on his first wagon trip with Katie's daughter Elizabeth. Here they are enjoying the tootsie pops they received at the first house.

We started pretty close to Mac's bedtime, so we only made it to 3 houses before he started getting grumpy. The neighborhood we were in gets very crowded, so we also wanted to get back to the house before the streets got too full! Needless to say, people definitely looked at us funny since our two trick or treaters were obviously not old enough to actually eat candy. Since the Georgia/Florida game is always the last weekend in October, I'm sure this was the first of many Halloweens in Moultrie!