Spring Fever!

This weekend was GORGEOUS!! We decided to take Clay to a playground at a nearby school to enjoy the "spring-like" weather. The last time I took pictures at this park Clay looked like this!

He was almost a year old! He was bald and chubby and absolutely adorable! He couldn't do a whole lot - not even really able to walk on his own, but he had a blast!
And look at how much he's changed!!

He loved the merry-go-round...

And now... he's all over the playground!

He's definitely not afraid of anything and insisted on climbing up everything!

But thankfully, daddy was there to help him up to where he wanted to go!

He got to cool down with a green apple slush from Sonic!

He had slide races with daddy...

He loved hanging on the monkey bars!

And he liked going up the slides the wrong way!

I'm so glad we got to get out and enjoy this beautiful weather!!

I know I've posted a video of Clay dancing to his favorite dance song, "I Like To Move It", but he's added some new dance moves to his repertoire. He does some cute little gallop-spin thing now that's hilarious! So please enjoy his official "I Like To Move It" video:

29 Months Old!

My sweet Clay... you are now 29 months old! So what are you up to nowadays?

Your obsession has now moved from Thomas the Train to Toy Story. You still like to play with your choo-choo's, but you L-O-V-E anything Toy Story! You've had your first bout with strep this week, so you've been home sick since Wednesday. You were going a little stir crazy, so we gave you your Valentine's Day presents a little early...

I think it's safe to say you like your gift!

You still have a weird obsession with hats and I love how you always put it on backwards...

You've gotten very opinionated regarding your wardrobe. It's usually a struggle to get you to pick out a shirt in the mornings because you only want to wear your Buzz t-shirt. If it's not the Buzz t-shirt, then it's got to be something with a character on it - Cookie Monster, Thomas, Mickey...

You are doing so much better with your eating. You will now eat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches (thank goodness!) - I have to cut them up in the shape of Mickey Mouse, but at least you'll eat them. You'll even eat lunchables which has made it much easier for me to pack your lunch for school. You LOVE raisins and would eat the entire box if I let you. I still make you "Elmo Cupcakes" - which are basically muffins in the Elmo cupcake wrappers.

Since you know pretty much all of your ABC's, we've been working on what words start with certain letters. You know "apple" and "Auburn" start with "A". Your words for "E" are "elephant" and "egg". You can sing the entire alphabet song and are very boisterous with the "Next time won't you sing with Meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee" part.

We've started a new bedtime routine recently... we've always read you books before bedtime, but now you like for me to tell you stories after we turn out the lights and I rock you. It usually consists of you going to Mickey's clubhouse or going on an adventure with the Toy Story characters. I'm running out of story material, though.

We've had a fun month and I'm sure the next month will be a blast!

Inspired

So, my husband called me out on the fact that I REALLY needed to give my blog layout an update. He pointed out that under the "About Me" section I had that I had been married for almost 11 years... and we're actually going on 13! That's how long it's been since I've updated my blog layout! He inspired me to completely rework my blog and bring it more up-to-date. So I did a little research and since I now have a fancy editing program (Photoshop Elements), I whipped out a new layout and header! I'm not sure if I'm giddy about it, but now that I know how to do it, there's no end to what I might come up with!

I'm also hoping my pictures will start to look better because I got me a new toy...

Oh, yes! That's my new DSLR camera!! I'm VERY excited about it! I have absolutely NO idea how to use it except to put it on auto and hit the button. I've got about 5 different CD's it came with that are supposed to make me an expert photograper. I'm sure I'll one day get around to watching them (hopefully it won't take as long as it took me to update my blog layout!). I did try to take some decent pics of Clay last weekend when it was nice outside. (Was it last weekend, or the weekend before last?? They are all running together for me.) Anyways... here's my attempt at "nice" pictures with the new toy!

At least it takes pictures REALLY fast so I can get action shots like this one... (he was jumping up and down in our fire pit - such a good mama)

Hopefully some photographer will take pity on me and give me some tips on how to use my camera... Until then, I'll just shoot on auto until I get around to watching the CD's.

To Infinity and Beyond!

And the obsessions continue. We've moved from Elmo to Thomas and now Toy Story! Clay is OBSESSED with Toy Story - and not just any Toy Story... he only wants to watch Toy Story 3.

And he LOVES Buzz...
His favorite T-Shirt has Buzz on it...

He's got a couple of Buzz toys that he likes to play with...

He really LOVES Buzz...

When we were in Atlanta a couple of weekends ago, Nana and G bought him a Buzz Spaceship that came with the Buzz wings (see first picture). He loves it! He plays in it, watches TV in it, and would probably sleep in it if we'd let him.

This isn't going to end well...

CRASH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Hmmm... wonder if it will be a Toy Story birthday party for #3??? Guess I need to brush up on my Buzz cupcake making skills!

I Like to Move It, Move It!

Clay LOVES to dance... and he's not afraid to bust out and show his moves... any time, any place! At first I just thought his affinity for dance was just in the comfort of his own home, but he is not afraid to break it down out in public! We've been going to the children's Sunday night activities at the church the last few weeks and they've always got music going on. The first week they taught them a song with hand motions and Clay was all into it. Then this last week, they played a song to get everyone ready to break out into their age groups... and he was just a dancing... out in the middle of the floor in front of everyone! I guess it's safe to say my child is not an introvert.

Here are some of his latest moves. This video is actually from Christmas. We had recorded Madagascar... he could care less about the movie, but the part where they land on Madagascar and meet the natives and they do the "I Like to Move It" dance... well, he just goes crazy for it! Enjoy!

I Like To Move It from Leslie Marshall on Vimeo.

My camera ran out of memory or you would have gotten to see HoHo join in on the dancing fun. I really need to get me a real video camera!

28 Months

Oh, child! Where do I even begin?!? This last month we've gotten to spend A LOT of time with you! Between the week and a half off of daycare you had during Christmas and now going on 4 days of being snowed in... let's just say I need to get out of the house!

You are turning out to be such a funny child! You make me laugh all the time! I think probably the funniest thing you've ever done happened the other day...

You were sitting in your high chair eating lunch when all of a sudden you said "Mama, I've gotta poot". We've begun the "beginning" stages of potty training - bascially we're trying to get you to notice when you are wet and when you've pooped and to come tell us. Whenever you poop, I always tell you to say "Mama, I pooped". You do it occasionally, but not always. I've never told you to tell me when you need to "poot" so when you said it, I asked you if you said "poop"... you said "No, poot". Well, I told you that you did not need to tell me when you needed to poot and to just poot... AND poot you did... really loudly, too! IT. WAS. HYSTERICAL! We all laughed and you said "Excuse me" (at least you were polite about it).

You are still obsessed with your Thomas the trains that Santa got you. The first thing that comes out of your mouth when you wake up is "Play choo-choos". You love for us to play with you. I will ask you which train I get to be and I'm always James. Dada always gets to be Mavis and you are Thomas. You very rarely change it up.

You've all of a sudden really gotten into movies. We've typically recorded shows on TV for you to watch, but lately all you want to watch are movies. You LOVE your Toy Story 3 movie that Nana and G got you for Christmas. I think we've watched it at least 35 times since Christmas. Dada had to get you Toy Story 2 just to change it up a bit.

Your vocabulary has gotten so good! We can now somewhat carry on a conversation with you. I love when you try to say hard words like octopus... you call it an "ollypus". For some reason "M's" are tripping you up. You say "Mama", "mouse" and "monster" just fine, but some of the other "m" words you change the "m" to a "p" - like "Picky" (for Mickey Mouse), "Ponte (for Monte) and "punky" (for monkey). I don't know where you get this from! You are doing so good at your ABC's. We've got a couple of ABC books and you consistently get 23 of them correct. G, M, and Q trip you up a bit, but the others you know when you see them!

You are still picky, picky, PICKY when it comes to food. You refuse to try anything new... even Snow Cream! What kid refuses to try snow cream?!? Your diet consists of chicken nuggets, fries, nutri-grain bars, Elmo cupcakes (aka muffins in Elmo cupcake wrappers), yogurt, fruit and sometimes pizza. I know I need to implement the "you eat what we eat" rule, but I just can't bring myself to do this. It's a struggle I'm not ready to deal with yet!

You have become obsessed with hats. You always want to wear a hat... whether it be your hat, dada's hat... anyone's hat! I noticed the obsession when you were watching Frosty over Christmas. You would get very distraught when Frosty didn't have his hat. When we made a snowman when it snowed over Christmas, we didn't put a hat on him and it upset you tremendously! We ended up getting you your very own hat a couple of weeks ago and you LOVE to wear it. We went originally to get an Elmo hat, but you insisted on the cookie hat.

And I think it looks pretty darn cute on you!

This month has been such a fun month with Christmas and getting to spend so much time with you! Can't wait to see what you do next month!

My little thug throwing up his gang signs.

Winter Storm 2011

So I've aleady broken one of my New Year's resolutions: to update my blog on time! I was planning on doing Clay's montly post the other day, but Winter Storm 2011 has put me behind. So to get Winter Storm out of the way, I'm going to go ahead and post about it. Clay's monthly post (hopefully) will not be far behind!

Sunday night Mark and I were convinced that the weathermen were idiots and we were not going to get anything. Then 9:00 PM hit and it was SNOWING!!! I ran and put my bowls out for Snow Cream and they were almost full after about 45 minutes! After about an hour we measured how much had fallen and we were already up to 2 inches!

The next morning we woke up to this...
(Yay! I have my Christmas Card picture for next Christmas!! Just Kidding!)

And remember the bowls I set out for snow cream... well, there's one hidden under the snow. I've got 2 more I need to dig out!

I just knew Clay would love the snow! He's been talking about building a Frosty and is obsessed with Frosty having a hat (we didn't put a hat on our last Frosty during Christmas and that really upset him). We got all bundled up and got all the supplies for Frosty (including the hat) and once we got out there, Clay was having NO PART of the snow (which was good since the snow wasn't sticking and it was looking like Frosty was not going to happen)!

Later on that day we did a little tubing around the neighborhood...

This was what was pulling the tube around the neighborhood! We don't have any hills to sled down, so tubing with the golf cart was the next best thing!

Clay actually like riding in the golf cart better than tubing.

For most of the day, we had a visitor on our back patio. She (He?) must have been hungry because she didn't move when we took pictures. She just kept on eating!

Later on that night we had some friends that lived down the street over to the house to watch the National Championship. Clay and Mark had to wear their lucky Auburn shirts... which I'm convinced is the whole reason why we won. Clay made it until 4th quarter and then it was time for him to go to bed! He was fading fast (and so was I)!

Today we woke up to the same amount of snow... and school being closed! I'm thinking Clay may not have school for the rest of the week! It's going to be a LONG week! Hopefully by tomorrow, we can at least get out of this house before we go crazy!

Christmas Festivities Part III: Merry Christmas!!!

So, Christmas morning I woke up around 4:00 AM because I couldn't breathe from the nasty walking pneummonia I had contracted a couple days earlier. I decided that instead of tossing and turning and keeping Mark up, I'd go watch my DVR'd shows. When I got up, I heard rain, so I knew there was not going to be any snow. Boo!! I fell asleep about 6:30 on the couch and it was STILL raining. Then Mark came and got me up around 7:45 and I awoke to this...
A WHITE CHRISTMAS!!!

Then we went to get Clay up so that he could see all the loot Santa brought him!

He's not a morning person, so he kind of lacked the enthusiasm you'd expect a little boy to have when waking up on Christmas morning...

He did, however, get slightly excited once he realized Santa brought him a Mickey Mouse movie. He's just all of a sudden really gotten into Mickey Mouse, so the Mickey movie was a last minute request to Santa. Good thing Santa pulled it off!

He LOVED his Thomas the Train sets his Nan and Santa got him. He was so excited about them that he wouldn't stop playing with them to eat breakfast. I had to follow him around shoving pieces of Nutri-grain bar in his mouth to get him to eat anything.

While waiting for Nana and G (my parents) to come over from ATL, we decided to bundle up and go outside to enjoy the snow. Clay hated it...

Although, it may have something to do with the scary alien/monster/frosty thing that we made. Poor child... he may never look at Frosty the same way!

Thankfully, Nana and G were able to make it safely from ATL. Clay helped G look through the "Clay Book" as he called it.

Then later that afternoon, my sister and her family came over. They brought Clay a Mickey Mouse Firehouse that he absolutely loved!

Then Cady and Hailey got to open up all their presents.

Cady was VERY excited about her Tinkerbell movie!

And both her and Hailey got the cutest coats from Nana and G.

We had a hard time getting Cady to model hers, so Mark decided to try it on for her.

After she saw how silly he looked, she decided to put it on and model it for me!

Then Clay decided that he needed to wear the hat.

We had a fabulous Christmas and had a great time spending it with our family! It was so much fun watching Clay get excited about every little thing! Christmas has always been one of my favorite holidays, but after this Christmas... it is my FAVORITE holiday!