Joey's First 1st Birthday Party

Joey isn't 1 yet, but since we were in Pittsburgh, we decided to have a cake for him so that my parents and Joe's parents could celebrate with us. We will be in Shreveport for his real birthday on January 19. Besides my parents and Joe's parents, my brother and his fiance, our nephew from NY, my grandmother, aunts, uncles and cousins were able to join us.We had a great time and Joey had his own little cake. He loved the icing, didn't like the cake too much, but was obsessed with the plastic Elmo that was on the big cake. I am not an Elmo fan. There, I said it. I don't like Elmo. Of course, my son is obsessed with him. We don't watch Sesame Street but my mom bought Joey an Elmo doll and ever since, he was hooked. Here are the pictures of Joey's party and also some pictures from Christmas and Christmas Eve that I forgot to post. I didn't do a great job with the camera this year.

Bring On the Teeth!

Finally! On Christmas Eve morning, I put my finger in Joey's mouth and felt a tooth. I was so suprised because I have been doing this almost every morning for about 7 months. But this time was different...I felt his little bottom teeth and they are sharp! He has two coming in, the one on the right is coming in more than the one on the left, but they are both there. It's about time! I am going to try to get a picture but he doesn't like me to touch them.

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas! I am writing this post from the new laptop that Joe bought me for Christmas. It is a little mini thing that is so cute and fits right on my lap. I love it and I guess I will share it with him.

Joey had so much fun this morning opening gifts and playing in the wrapping paper. Here he is surrounded by the paper and gifts.

We are currently enjoying a slow morning before we go to visit some more family. We hope that you all have a great Christmas day!

Next up: the day after Christmas shopping at 4am with my mom!

Joey and Santa

A few weeks ago when we were at a Christmas party at Joe's school, Joey saw Santa and started crying and screaming right away. So we were a little aprehensive about taking him to see Santa again but we wanted to have a picture of him and Santa. We took him today to the mall to see Santa and atleast we got a picture of him before he started crying!


This was the only one that looked good. The rest were of Joey looking at Santa and screaming in his face.

An interesting trip

We flew to Pittsburgh on Wednesday. We decided to drive the 3 hours to Las Vegas to save some money on the ticket and with parking--we are saving about $75/ticket and about $5/day in parking. We were really nervous about the 4 1/2 hour flight from Vegas to Cleveland because not only did we have an 11 month old, but we decided to bring CeCe with us to Pittsburgh. It is actually cheaper for her to fly with us than for us to put her in a kennel! CeCe did great on the plane. Infact, the people around us didn't even know that we had a dog! Joey slept for over an hour and a half on the flight and when he woke up, he was really good, too. The flight went so smoothly that we should have known that something was going to happen with the next flight. Our flight from Cleveland was supposed to leave at 8:30pm. They were having some issues with the plane so we were delayed...and delayed and delayed and delayed...Finally at 12:30am, they decided to put all of us onto two vans and drove us to the Pittsburgh airport from Cleveland. Joey was awake the whole time at the airport. He was laughing and playing and having a great time! CeCe was laying on the floor at the airport eating her chewy and letting the other passengers pet her. Thankfully the van driver didn't fall asleep(although Joe and I both thought that we saw his eyes close a few times on the drive.) At 3:30 am, my parents picked us up from the airport. We were so happy to get home!

TPS Graduation

We had a great time at Joe's TPS graduation. It was so nice to have both sets of parents here to celebrate the event. I can't believe that the year is already over. Here is a video of Joe accepting his diploma(TPS gives Joe a Master's degree) and TPS graduation certificate:

I also took lots of pictures. You can see them if you click here: TPS Graduation.

Yesterday, we moved to a new house. It was a HUGE project. Thankfully we had both sets of parents and a friend (Chris Rudd) to help us. We have all of the big stuff at our new house and slept there last night. Wish us luck as we finish the move and clean our old house!

Joe's Patch Night

Last night Joe had his patch night. It is when all of the people that have previously graduated from TPS go to a big party to give the current graduating class their patches. It is pretty much a big party of people making fun of eachother. So, it's official! Joe has his patch and he is a TPS graduate!

Congratulations Mikey and Maggie!

My big brother Mike finally got engaged last night.



Congrats you guys!

Joe and Joey Playing

For some reason, Joey has started crawling and trying to get us to chase him. So for the past two nights, Joe has been chasing Joey around and Joey has been laughing hysterically. I just love the sound of his laugh and finally got it on video!

November Pictures

Today is December 1st. I can't even believe that this is the last month of TPS. Although back in March, I thought this year would never end, now it seems like it all went so fast. With TPS ending, I look forward to seeing Joe more on the weekends and weekdays.
Here are Joey's pictures from November. I didn't do a good job of taking pictures this month.
During the past month, Joey has started cruising around on the furniture occasionally. He still likes to drop down to the ground and crawl whereever he wants to go. Maybe he will have a tooth by his first birthday:)