Titus and Joshua

Best Friends

While we were in town, we took a trip to Tuscaloosa to visit the Smith Family. Audrey and Wade are doing great and anxiously awaiting Baby Girl Smith who should make an appearance within the next couple weeks. Titus, who turned 2 in October is such a big boy and fast. He was very sweet to share his toys with Joshua. It was cute to see them play together. Joshua had a great time following him both on foot and by truck. They both warmed up to eachother and chatted and hugged each other. I think they will grow up to be good friends just like their parents. Here are some pictures from the fun night. As a side note, I don't know why Joshua was so fascinated with the sunglasses. He has some at home and won't wear them, even on bright summer days. Dog Pile! Merry Christmas from Titus!

Christmas morning and the next day

Joshua had a wonderful Christmas. He was so much fun this year! He opened presents, played with wrapping paper, played with boxes, and managed to find time to play with actual toys! Santa was very good to our sweet little boy. Joshua got to visit with all his relatives on both sides of the family. During the trip home we ended up going to Birmingham, Oneonta, Huntsville, and Tuscaloosa. We took our beagles (Hardy and Ridley) with us, at least to Birmingham. They had a good time exploring Grandma and Grandpa's backyard. Enjoy the Chrsitmas pictures I've posted below.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

We wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
Love,
The Chathams

The Christmas Tree

Joshua is such a helpful boy! Our Christmas tree has a foot pedal to turn the lights on and off. Luckily he has not discovered this pedal. Instead when it is time to turn the tree on we say "One, two, three..." and then we clap three times. Magically the tree comes on. Joshua has such a look of wonder when this happens. Now when we say "Come help us turn the tree on," he runs at it clapping. The other night it was bedtime so I turned the tree off and Joshua was stalling on going to sleep. After unsuccessfully rocking him for a few minutes I set him down and he ran to the tree clapping and crying. So I turned the tree back on, scooped him up and he went to sleep looking at the tree.

Obligatory Santa Photo

We took Joshua to see Santa on Friday night. There was quite a wait, though we were at Chick-Fil-A and got to sit down until our number was called. We carried Joshua around and let him look at Santa and talked about Santa and it was all good... until we put him in Santa's lap. Then it was absolute terror! Joshua screamed his head off so Matt picked our button up and we gave Santa puffed stars (Joshua's favorite) to give to Joshua, but the closer Matt got to Santa, the tighter the death grip. Oh well. It's still a cute picture.

On another note, our photographer used Joshua's Santa photo from last year in his advertisement for this year's pictures. Joshua is a star!

Thanksgiving 2009

We had a great Thanksgiving this year full of family, food, and football. We enjoyed seeing everyone, though our little Joshua was a sicky. We had Thanksgiving lunch at Grandma Goforth's with all of Mommy's extended family and dinner at Dana's with all Daddy's extended family. Then we had an Iron Bowl party at Dana's on Friday and a family dinner at Aunts Celeste and Elaine's house on Saturday. In between be went to Huntsville to visit with Grandottie and Jerry Pop. All the while Joshua wasn't feeling well. By midnight on Thanksgiving Joshua was screaming and miserable. On Friday we took him to a clinic and he had ear infections in both ears and pink eye in both eyes. We were there about 2 1/2 hours and missed most of the first half of the Iron Bowl which turned out to be a good thing. Joshua slept for most of the game except for the last minute and a half. What an exciting finish - Roll Tide!
**Check back later for a slide show of our Thanksgiving trip. **

Science Jammies

Night, night! I love my NASA pajamas!

Happy Birthday Mommy!

We had a great weekend! Grandma and Grandpa came for a visit for Mommy's birthday. As an added bonus, Daddy took Mommy out on a date for dinner and a movie. We went to see New Moon, which Mommy has super excited to see and then we had dinner at Bonefish Grill. It was a wonderful night out. I have to give major props to Matt for getting the sold out movie tickets ahead of time and being a good sport about the movie. I think the funniest thing he said after the movie was "Wow. I haven't seen acting this fine since Hayden Christensen in Star Wars." It was a sad, but true statement.

Joshua had a great time hanging out with Grandma and Grandpa as did Mommy and Daddy. They brought him all kinds of goodies and cute clothes (see picture below). Thanks for everything!!

Finger Paint/ Link to Pictures

I'm glad this paint doesn't have lead in it!

Also we recently went to have our family Christmas pictures taken. Check out the link on the right hand side of the blog or click on this blog title to check them out.

Lastly, Joshua recently had his 15 month appointment. He is still a light weight so we are going to work on eating more. This is a challenge because he is a picky eater. He generally eats yogurt, bananas, cheese, and Gerber snacks fairly consistently, but all else is hit and miss. The biggest surprise has that he had ear infections in both ears, though he hasn't been puny or pulling on his ears. Hopefully the medicine will knock it out and he'll feel better.

Roll Tide

My aunts bought me this awesome Alabama outfit. It has an elephant and everything! Thanks Aunts Celeste and Elaine! And for all those keeping score I would like to say that with Alabama's win over LSU yesterday, "I ain't never been nothin' but a winner... in regular season." Roll Tide! Joshua has mastered a new trick. He is a pro at climbing over the ottoman (one of the barriers we used to separate the play area from the rest of the house. I left Joshua in the den and went into the kitchen to feed the dogs. I turned around for one second and then he was right by my side looking so proud of himself.

Dance, dance

The daycare director stopped me the other day to show me a video she had taken of Joshua. He was in class and the kids were singing a song. Joshua was so excited! He was moving his mouth to the other kids singing and he knew the hand signals so he'd twist when the other kids were twisting and cover his mouth, clap his hands, the whole routine. It was so cool to see him participating. Even better than that, a few times in the song he got so excited he stood up and squealed and then sat back down. He was so giddy he couldn't contain himself and had to do something. I was so impressed that I tried something at home. I said "Joshua let's dance." Then I started seeing the Oscar Mayer Bologna song because it's so upbeat. Anyway he started bending his knees and clapping and twisting. We absolutely must get this on video. It's too good to miss!

Happy Halloween

I have finally gotten around to posting some Halloween pictures. Joshua had a great time as a pumpkin. First we went to Publix where they had trick or treating while you shopped. Then we went home to give out candy. Joshua was so cute. He watched us give out candy to about ten groups then he started giving out candy. I think he enjoyed all the kids coming to our door. At one point a church friend I hadn't seen in years stopped by. We chatted a few minutes and asked "Is that your little boy?" I turned around to proudly introduce him when I saw that while I wasn't looking he actually ate through the Kit Kat wrapper and was eating some candy. With chocolate on his hands and face I just grinned and said "Yes, that's my Joshua."An extra Halloween treat we get to celebrate every year is Daddy's birthday! Of course this always kicks off the best 20 days of the year - the time when Matt is 2 years older than me. Happy Birthday Matt!

Cookie Monster

I had just baked some cookies after dinner the other night and decided to grab one. I had Joshua on one hip with his sippy cup in my right hand a glass of milk in the other hand. I didn't want to make two trips so I lightly bit the cookie to hold it with my mouth as I walked into the den (hurdled is more like it because the walkways are blocked with the ottoman, large toys, etc. to control J's play area). Anyway Joshua was sizing up the situation and decided to make a go for my cookie. He leaned in and took a huge bite of cookie and started giggling as he was eating. I was so shocked. It never occurred to me that we would do that. Needless to say once he tasted the cookie he ended up eating half of it. He was a cute cookie monster!

Ode to Hay

I ran out of room in the Pumpkin Patch post so here are a few pics of Joshua mesmerized by the hay. Enjoy! Oh, and check out the post below for more traditional pictures.

Pumpkin Patch

We took Joshua to the pumpkin patch on Saturday. We got some great pictures and it was cool to see him walking around. He was most excited about ... the hay. Seriously, with all those orange pumpkins, he was all about grabbing fistfuls of hay. I think it's because we took him before the Alabama - Tennessee game and he was avoiding the orange! He did actually pick up and drop a lot of pumpkins. And of course we couldn't resist dressing our pumpkin up to match all the other pumpkins.These days Joshua has so much personality. He mimics everything. If I'm using antibacterial hand soap, he moves his hands to look like he's washing his as well. He points and grunts at the things he wants, particularly when he's eating. If he's in the mood he'll repeat words if you start with "Say book... ball... dog... drink...." We are excited that we can say "Say Roll Tide" and he'll signal a touchdown and say "Ro Ti." He's not 100% on this one but he's getting better and it's awfully sweet. He really enjoys reading and being read to. We read lots of books every night. Lastly, he recently got a soft toddler chair to sit in (Thanks Aunts Celeste and Elaine!) which he enjoys sitting in like a big boy!"Here Daddy, let me help."

Birmingham Visit

We took a trip to Birmingham over the weekend. Joshua had a great time visiting with family. Joshua got to do some early trick-or-treating in his pumpkin outfit. It's the same one he wore last year which was made by his talented Grandottie. Jerry Pop even had success getting our pumpkin to keep his top on! Thanks to Aunts Celeste and Elaine for letting everyone hang at our house. Unfortunately Daddy had pinkeye and Mommy got called in to work Sunday so we had to leave sooner than planned. We didn't get to see everyone, but with Thanksgiving just around the corner, we'll be back soon.

New Classroom

Joshua has moved into the 1 year old room at his daycare. Well he won't officially be in there until Nov 1st, but he still spends most of his days in there. He is learning to drink from a cup at daycare. We aren't that adventurous so we are sticking to the sippy cups at home. He loves eating fruit. That's usually his daily lunch report. While he'll eat any fruit, he seems to enjoy bananas the most. He'll even say "nana" when you prompt him to say banana.

Oh, and for all the football fans, with today's victory over Ole Miss today Joshua would like to say "I ain't never been nothin' but a winner in regular season...."

Big Boy Seat!

Joshua has a lot to see these days. We just installed a forward facing carseat. Even though he spent his first trip in this seat asleep the entire time, I'm sure he enjoyed it. (Check back later and I'll have a picture posted.)

In other Joshua news, he has started playing peekaboo in a new way. He has always enjoyed peekaboo, especially by pulling a blanket over his head or pulling his shirt over his head (too cute). However now you can say "Where's Joshua?" and he'll cover his eyes with his hands and giggle. Then I'll either say "There he is!" or "Peekaboo!" and he'll pull his hands down and clap. He is such a good boy.

Toddler feeding tip #1: If a charming little boy is throwing his food on the floor, try feeding him the food with chopsticks. It makes it magically delicious!

LASIK

Here's some news, recently I (Emily) had LASIK done. It was something I've really wanted to do for awhile. Most of you who know me know that I am or *was*, terribly blind without glasses/contacts. By that I mean, I always knew the top letter on the eyechart was supposed to be an "E", but I could never see it. (My prescription for R/L eyes was 8/8.5 diopters) Anyway, on the 24th I had LASIK done and it was great! My vision has been getting clearer as my eyes heal. The only hiccups have been that my corneal flaps (incision made for the laser) have had some wrinkling that had to be straightened out. Overall I am really pleased. It is amazing to wake up and be able to see! Of course, that doesn't keep me from waking up and reaching for my glasses, wondering what I did with them before realizing I don't need them. Yea!

Play Time

Joshua's personality continues to shine through. He is such a sweet, lovable boy. He especially loves playtime. Lately you can tell him "Joshua, bring me that ball... book... bucket..." and he knows what to bring. Without prompting, he'll often come up to me with a book in hand and signal he wants to be held so we can read the book. By looking at them, you can tell he's pretty rough with his books, but we're just pleased he enjoys storytime. Some nights, that's the only time he's not on the go! Another new trick of his is you can say "Joshua, give me some kisses." and he'll lean in with a slobbery mouth for a kiss. It is so cute! Also he has a toy TV remote which apparently doubles as a phone as Joshua likes to hold it up to his ear and listen/talk and then hand it to mommy and daddy for us to talk. In general, he isn't just chatty, he's loud and chatty these days. It's hard for Matt and I to carry on a conversation or watch some TV with all the talking going on. Our button is the best source of entertainment these days. Let explain what's going on in this capture. As I was getting ready for bed, I had Joshua corralled in the bathroom. He picked up his blue bath towel and proceeded to walk back and forth carrying it like Linus from Snoopy. Needless to say I had the Snoopy theme in my head all night!

Football Season

TOUCHDOWN!!
Gameday
Happy boy
Where has the time gone? Little man is already 13 months old and it's football season. As an update, Joshua is getting the last of his teeth for a while - that brings the total up to 16. He's mostly wearing 9mo clothes, but we've started working 12 mo clothes into the rotation. He doesn't just walk, he runs. He enjoys playing with the dogs and Hardy at least enjoys playing with him. Ridley appreciates Joshua the most when Joshua's sleeping. We have really been working with Joshua to teach him to signal "Touchdown!" He's gotten much better at this, though to be fair, he usually signals a touchdown after he eats something - rather than during a game. As good Southern parents, we are trying to install a love of football, specifically Alabama and the SEC, into our son. Here are some pics we've taken of Joshua on gameday. He's all suited up, waiting for Coach to call him into the game!