I'm ashamed...

...to say that I didn't take ONE picture of little Isaac's very FIRST Christmas. I know, I know what your thinking. "You are the worst mother ever...not capturing your first born on his very first Christmas. You ought to be ashamed of yourself." And (to satisfy your pleading) I am upset with myself.

I didn't know that packing a car for two people and one child (only 11 months old mind you) could be such a busy task during the holidays. We were focusing on packing ourselves that I just forgot to pack the camera. Thankfully our families had a camera on hand so when I get the pictures from them I will be sure to post right way.

We had a wonderful Christmas!! My mom drove to Birmingham the Saturday before Christmas and picked up little Isaac for a trip to CoCo's house in Auburn. By the way, my mom decided to title her grandmother name, Coco, which is a Masai (African) word for "mother of the mother." My parent have been to Africa more times than I can count, and I've been twice, the most recent being the summer after my senior year of high school with all of my sisters and brother. We were living amongst the Masai tribe in Kenya so needless to say, they have a very special place in our hearts. Well, long story short, that is how my mother decided to be called Coco.

So back to the week before Christmas. My mom came to get Isaac on Saturday and Steven and I had around four days all to ourselves in Birmingham. We finished up shopping of course and ran errands. The biggest perk was going to see two movies while free. ...yes TWO movies. We were in heaven. We saw Invictus and Avatar. Both were very good and entertaining. Anyone else think Avatar was incredible technology??

We went to Sylacauga on Tuesday because CC (Steven's mother) picked up Isaac from my mom the day before. We were both chomping at the bit to see our precious little boy!! It was the longest we have been away from him and it was HARD!! Wonderful, but hard. He had the sweetest smile on his face when we walked through the door.

On Christmas day we of course helped Isaac open his presents and left around lunch to see my family in Auburn. It was a strange Christmas for our family this year because the only sibling home was me and my little sister Camille. Carla and her husband J.B. were with his parents in Mississippi and my brother was spending Christmas in the middle east with my sister, Katie. We were able to skype Katie and Cameron and watch Katie open her Christmas presents from mom. Technology is a wonderful thing.

Since I didn't take any pictures I'll post some of Cameron's trip to Jordan and Israel. What an amazing trip that would have been!

My sister, Katie, lives in Jordan and she took Cameron and Katie's friend from childhood around to see the sights.:)

They visited Petra, Jordan the first part of the week. Petra is the sight of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. And if you haven't seen that movie....shame, shame on you. Its one of my faves.

My sister, Jesse, and my brother Cameron

Check out that view!!!A stop at the Dead Sea. No need for a raft here. You float due to the high amount of salt. My brother overlooking Bethlehem on Christmas Eve

Katie and Bethlehem (they slept in Bham that night and sang Christmas carols around a fire outside. Cameron and Katie in Jerusalem Look Papa Spray, you would have survived over there too!!! :)
The Jordan River (a possible sight for Jesus' baptism)
Katie touching the sea of Galilee



They saw and experienced so many amazing things!! We missed you guys at Christmas Cambo and Katie bug!

Back to my Christmas traveling..... this past Sunday I traveled with my mom to visit my grandmother in Jackson, MS. Steven had to go back to work so Isaac and I opted to go with mom. We had such a fun, relaxing time with Meme and my mom's two sisters. Did I take any pictures? Well, of course not. yes, yes, I am ashamed. no need to remind me.

Well, I best be going to be bed. It is late.

Oh, be ready for many many picture post coming in the near future.

Because this is what I'm getting tomorrow....

I'm giddy with excitement!!

Splish Splash

This kid LOVES his bath time....can you tell??

I usually sit on the top of the toilet while he makes a wet splashing mess all over the floor.

"Mom, who cares if you get wet! Its fun!" he says

"Just don't take pictures with my wee wee showing please."

"Do I have a big mouth?"

"Have you seen my new teeth? Mom said I was up four times last night thanks to these bad boys."

St. Nick

Isaac met good ole' Santa Claus today. He was quite beside himself with the meeting and thoroughly enjoyed studying Santa's long white beard. Daddy can't grow a beard so this was something new to him.:) Isaac met his buddy, Ryder at the mall and they experienced their first Santa sighting together. I think St. Nick thought Ryder's mom (Ashley) and I were a little over the top with our cameras flashing and repeated high pitched sounds of "Isaac look over here...Ryder, come on buddy look over here...oh my goodness look how cute...awww, LOOK! really how cute!!..oh adorable, look at him looking at Santa while he talks to him...oh shoot, i didn't get it...hey santa can you talk to my child one more time so I can get a picture...okay, good. Aww...cute!!!" We did manage to get a picture of both of them on Santa's lap. Although they were both staring off into the distance like a deer caught in headlights. ...that is after we got Isaac to stop checking out the beard.

"Isaac..."

"ISAAC..."
"There you go buddy, good job.."
Getting more comfortable...

"STOP. IT. I can't take the cuteness." I told him to whisper in Santa's ear that he wanted a big screen T.V. and new car...

The finished product. Sorry kinda fuzzy...we don't have a scanner

Speaking of Santa Claus, I can't believe December is already here and its only 10 more days until Christmas. Would you be surprised if I told you I haven't done ANY shopping whatsoever? You would? Oh. Okay, just joking. Of course I've done shopping...

To be honest, its a little hard to shop with a toddler wanting nothing to do with quietly sitting in a stroller. But, I need to get started. Procrastination has always been my down fall.

Isaac is great and his is everywhere. Crawling at lightning speed and pulling up on anything that's in his path. He is such a JOY! We are so thankful for our precious son and what delight he brings to our little household. He loves to race across the floor with his cousin, Hudson, and chase after a plastic cup. He loves to hide his paci in a cup and smile when you say "where did it go???" and then he quickly pulls it out and laughs when he hears, "there it is!" He loves splashing around in the bathtub. His right arm literally never stops splashing. I usually just sit on the top of the toilet seat now, far away from him and just watch him splash and play away. He has four teeth and a few more quickly on their way.

Well, that enough for now...I won't have anything left to update you on his 11 month post! Wow, almost one year. my baby boy is growing up....

I LOVE to scream!!!

As the title of the post says, our child loves to scream. I even have video to prove it. I realize that some people don't love watching videos of other people's children (I mainly put this up for the grandparents to be honest) but if you are bored and want a little entertainment feel free to watch my child scream scream away.

Here is a video for your viewing pleasure

Here is a cute video of Isaac laughing. He gets so tickled when you surprise him. Oh, and excuse us eating dinner in the living room that night.:)

On a different note, we FINALLY put up a Christmas tree. This is the first Christmas tree we have had since three years ago in our first year in Bradenton, Florida. Honestly it never really felt that "Christmasy" down in Florida due to the fact that it was usually 70 degrees in December, I was still wearing shorts, and you could smell fruit on the trees in our neighborhood. I guess you could call us Scrooges, but we always left to visit family in Alabama about a week or two before Christmas so we didn't feel the need.

Heres a picture of our sweet little tree.

Merry Christmas!!

A fun week

Not only was this week Thanksgiving, but it also was Steven's vacation. The ER residents get four weeks off per year so this was his first week off. Technically he wanted the time off for the Iron Bowl...but was happy it fell on thanksgiving as it usually does.:)
We spent the first half of the week in Sylacauga with the Sprayberry clan and spent our time there in plenty of relaxation. Little buddy is getting much better from his sickness and even slept through the night most of the time...although there are some times when i have to pick him up and pat his back due to his aggressive coughing during the night.

We left Sylacauga on Wednesday and headed to Auburn where we spent thanksgiving with my family. Thursday was a busy day but so fun as well--the entire Crosby family (minus an aunt and uncle) came to my parents house to celebrate. It's always fun to be with our big Crosby family during the holidays. On this side there are 14 cousins in all so needless to say, we have a blast when all together. There was plenty of food, desserts, laughter, and of course the board game RISK. If Steven and my brother in law J.B. are together you can guarantee RISK will be played. Carla and J.B. were able to come down from New York City and spend some time with the family. Carla had not seen Isaac since he was one month old and J.B. had never seen him so they had fun playing with him. We will not see them over Christmas so I hope it will not be too long until they can see little man again...I'm trying to convince Steven to take a trip to Brooklyn in the next year.... We'll see.

So, as you can probably guess we did go to the Iron Bowl on Friday and had fun tailgating with family and friends before the game. Isaac was decked out in his bama gear and refused to be held at the tailgate for more then a minute or so which meant that he crawled around on the grass everywhere enjoying the festivities. We did have a lot of fun at the game, even though it was stressful:) and enjoyed our time in Auburn.

Here are some pictures of our time. Unfortunately I didn't get any in Sylacauga...I promise to take that camera out more for Christmas!!

Steven, Major, and Isaac before leaving Birmingham for the week. I thought this picture was tooooooo cute.

I want to gobble up those cheeks!!!


Look who we found standing in the crib before we left!!! It seems like he has grown up over night. Papaw waiting to eat thanksgiving lunch... The "grown-up" table I think I put on a few pounds this week....mmm deliciousness Talking to my sister Katie a world away. We missed you this Thanksgiving!!! Siblings....minus Katie of course.

And on to tailgating on Friday....

The cutest little bama fan!

My mom with her girls....minus Katie...and including a grandson.:)

Cousins and aunts...Trying to get a decent family photo...

Happy Thanksgiving everyone and now on to decorating the house for Christmas.... Yikes, I have lots to do...

What a father!

I saw this video of the father/son duo at a younglife camp i went to a few years back. I recently stumbled upon it again and I thought I had to share! Some of you have probably already heard of this story but if you haven't you should watch...such a wonderful example of how much our Father in Heaven loves us! There are multiple videos on youtube regarding this but I thought this one told the story the best.

Watch as this incredible father carries, pulls, and pushes his disables son through an ironman tournament. For those of you who don't know what the ironman is let me just tell you....2.4 mile swim, 112 mile bike ride, 26.2 mile run. say WHAT! I think Tebow would even have a hard time with this one.:)

Enjoy.

sniff, sniff, cough, cough

Sickness has finally hit our little one. I am extremely thankful that it took 9 months until it hit him but its not fun nevertheless. In fact, I now have the sickness and a baby and momma sick at the same time is MISERABLE!

Isaac began to get a bad cough a week or two ago and on Thurday night the cough turned into congestion and the congestion turned into a bad cold. A very bad cold. Needless to say we didn't get any sleep on Friday night...I stayed up rocking him until 3 in the morning and then Steven took over after that. We finally broke down (or should I say my husband finally broke down) and let me take little buddy to the doctor on Monday morning, only to find out it has turned into a bacterial infection (kinda like a sinus infection) and he needed to be on antibiotics. The old baptist hymn "Amen" began playing in my head. So...he's been on medicine for a day and half and feels so much better. Thank goodness too....I don't know if I could have taken anymore of the blue suction ball grabbing snot from his nose. yucky. and now the snot has moved on to my nose and i find myself blowing it every 5 minutes or so. Joyous.

Well, here's to the cold season! Hopefully this will be the first and LAST one we get this year. Okay, okay...and girl can dream can't she!

WHAT A GAME!!

Steven and I were finally able to go to an Alabama game this year together, and boy did we pick a good one! We have never, I mean never, heard the stadium that loud and felt the tension higher than last night. It was so fun....of course after Julio ran for his 73 yard touchdown.:) The stadium was packed and our seats were right above the student section and it was about time the student section showed up and cheered their hearts out. Right after Saban shook Les' hand, he ran over to the student section and pointed to them and started clapping.

Not only was the game great, but the majority of the greatness was the fact that I was on a date with my hubby, who I haven't spent one on one time with in a long time due to a little someone I know.... Thank you to Papa Spray and CC for keeping Isaac friday night and Beverly and Brian for keeping him on Saturday!

We rode with some of our old college friends up to the game, girls in one car and boys in another. I enjoyed our conversations about Jon and Kate and the Duggars, girls! ha! :)

Steven and Andy (old roomies)

Me with the McMakin girls We sat with Kasie and Shelton and had a blast. I'm surprised we are not more hoarse because of the screaming...

Singing rammer jammer after the game....
And of course, one last picture to finish off the night. SEC Championship here we come.....