Zachary's Birthday Party
Ok I know these are like a month late but I thought I lost the pictures. I found them the other day so I figured I should go ahead and post them. His birthday party was great and he really enjoyed himself except for the 1 tantrum from opening the presents. Plus he really wanted nothing to do with his cake. He used it as a dipping tool for his wagon wheel snack. We enjoyed having all of his little friends and our family there. I can not believe that he is already 13 months now!


1st Birthday shirt made by Aunt Becca. Isn't it cute?

Cakes made by Nana and of course the help of Kaiden

Singing Happy Birthday. Zachary is wondering why everyone is singing to him.

Eating his wagon wheel snack instead of his cake. Go figure.

His new animal bench from Nana and Pops

See, Kaiden helped with the cake. He had so much fun doing it.

Rodeo-Brad Paisley
So my totally awesome wonderful best friend Michele decided to get us tickets to celebrate my birthday coming up to see Brad Paisley at the rodeo. We had so much fun and our seats were AWESOME! We had front row seats right in the middle of the arena and I could literally reach my hand out and touch the dirt. When the chuck wagon races were going on we had to cover our food from the dirt flying. They don't call them action seats for nothing. These seats also came with all you could eat buffet style of free food and drinks. I had my fair share of frito pie, baked potato salad, chicken fingers, hot dog, candy, and ice cream. :) Plus it was even better when the concert came on because we got to see Brad Paisley up close and personal. I was 4 inches away from reaching out and touching him. He was handing out guitar picks and Michele got one. I would have gotten one if the idiot boy teenager behind me did not grab it first. The only downfall was that we were stuck in traffic for 2 hours and had to walk from very far away in the freezing rain. We were bundled up next to each other huddled under an umbrella all the way to the car until a bicycle taxi took us the rest of the way. It was totally worth the $20 he charged us...I think he ripped us off. :) Thanks again Michele for a great time!


Self portrait of us waiting to see Brad Paisley



I just had to get a booty shot. LOL



He is coming towards us. My camera is not zoomed in.

He is handing out guitar picks

He is literally 2 feet away from me.

Here I am holding the guitar pick. You can actually read the name if you look close enough

Me and my boys
Here are some cute pictures that a friend of mine took for me. We printed them off and gave them to daddy for Valentine's day. My favorite picture is me and the boys in the rocking chair. I can not believe how curly and crazy Kaiden hair was. :) He looks so cute!

Let's go Fly a Kite!
We started Kaiden on a responsibility/chore chart this past week and he has been doing awesome with it. At the end of the week if he gets all of his stickers then Kaiden gets to do something really fun at the end of the week. Kaiden decided that he wanted to go fly a kite. Tuesday afternoon was a perfect day to go take his new spiderman kite out to the park. Daddy taught him how to hold it and how to keep it up. He did a great job and had tons of fun flying his cool spiderman kite.

Kiaden picked out his kite all by himself.

Daddy teaching Kaiden how to control the kite.

I love this picture of him flying his kite all by himself like a big kid.

Imagine being 3 years old and this is what you see in the air...how cool is that?

Can you see Kaiden?

Zachary and Daddy having fun!

Zachary in amazement at the kite in the air. I love this picture.

Smart little boy
Kaiden has been going to town with this whole learning thing and we love it! He wants to draw or write something everyday so we decided to give him a tablet where he could go from page to page. Nick and I were looking back through it last night and were cracking up at some of the things he was drawing and doing. The funniest thing was that the other day Nick told Kaiden to write Zachary's name and of course he was like ok. So here he is starting to write his name with letter Z and then A. All of the sudden we saw him get up run in the other room several times and then come back and write down a letter. I was unaware of what he was doing and when I looked down I was shocked cause he spelled Zachary's name right. I was like how did he do that. We realized that the smart little booger was running to Zachary's room and reading his name on his nameplate on the door to figure out what letter came next. I was so proud of our little problem solver!

I can write my name!
Kaiden has been writing his name on his own for awhile now. Lately he has started to write his name backwards. He will start with K on the right hand side of the page and write his name right to left instead of left to right. (look at the bottom leg. He started doing it backwards and then stopped when I caught him) It is crazy. Well yesterday he started a new thing! He wrote his name on his leg. This boy will practice writing his name on anything. He has even tried doing it on random cars in the parking lot. GEEZ!
As you can see in the picture(look at the top leg) when I first saw his name I said "You only wrote part of your name, where is the E and N?" He flipped his leg over and said "right here silly." When he runs out of room he tries to find a place to finish his name. That is great that he is writing his name, but I dont know about using his body for practice. LOL

No more Curls :(
Yesterday we got Kaiden's haircut and all of his curls are gone! :( I know that as soon as his hair grows again they will be back, but it makes me sad because his curls were so cute...just way too long! You can look at the previous post to check out his curly hair. The hairstylist styled his hair and I have no idea how to really style it. I guess I am going to need some shaping/gel stuff for his hair to make him look cool! He looks so different.

Jumpin Jaks
Monday we went to Jumpin Jaks for playgroup. Nick was off so he was able to come with me to help keep up with the boys. Jumpin Jaks is on the other side of 45 and 1960 by TC Jester and is a cool place for kids. It is basically a huge indoor maze in the walls with slides and secret passages. Nick and I both got up there a climb around. That place is not meant for adults at all. I had to literally crawl on my tummy in certain spots...talk about claustrophobia. The boys had a blast!

Zachary swinging on the tire swing


Kaiden checking out his map to figure out which way to go



Cute brother picture!

Big Boy Carseat

Zachary has officially moved up into a forward facing big boy carseat! This makes mommy sad because I know that my little boy is growing up, but makes Zachary happy. He gets so excited and laughs so hard now that he can see me. Ahhh things are good in his world!

Potty Training!
Yes we are potty training little Zachary early!! Just kidding. We actually got a new toilet the other day because we were having some plumbing issues and they had to take the toilet off in the boys bathroom so we decided to just replace it. Zachary thought it would be fun to just climb on up in there and play in it. Good thing it was not hooked up yet with all that water. Yes he climb up in there himself!



Kaiden though he would be cute. Heaven forbid that Zachary get all the attention!

We thought we would even try to potty train Kie too! Why not right? Kie really is obsessed with the real toilets so it does not surprise me that he wanted in on the fun too.

Zachary turns 1!
February 6 was Zachary's birthday...can you believe he is already 1!!! He is on the move too, walking everywhere. He has the walking thing down because he can get up from a sitting position and take off. I have had a hard time keeping with him as he moves from room to room all the time. His birthday was not exactly what we had planned for him, but he doesn't know any better. We had some major plumbing issues happen that day and had to work on them all weekend. It was not a very exciting day, but Zachary seemed to have fun. His birthday party was Saturday and I will have to post pictures later because they are on my moms camera. The shirt that he is wearing is from his "Aunt" Michele (mommy's best friend).
HAPPY BIRTHDAY ZACHARY!

Mommy's little man!
These were just some pictures of me and my Zachary the night I went to a "Girls Night Out" put on by our local Christian radio station. There was music and guest speakers. One of the guest speakers was Kate Gosslin from Jon and Kate plus 8. I love that show! I bought her book and stood in line for an hour to get her autograph. Totally worth it! She is really pretty in person and very sweet even though we were rushing to get through since it was after 11pm. If you have not read the book Multiple Blessings you must go get it.

Welcome Baby Braden

On February 6 my nephew Braden "Brady" Jones was born at 1:57pm weighing in at 7lbs. 6oz. We are so excited to have him join our family. This is my brother (Erik) and his wife (Cindy's) first baby and he is so cute with all of that blonde hair. They live in Boston but will hopefully be moving to Friendswood(1 hour south of us) very soon. i can not wait to hold Brady. Congrats erik and Cindy!

Brady and Zachary share the same birthday...how neat is that. they will be exactly 1 year apart. February 6th is also my Grandfather's birthday. WOW 3 birthdays on 1 day. February 6th is one amazing day. Here are some cute pictures of our sweet little nephew. You can also visit their blog at http://cindyanderik.blogspot.com/

Kaiden can read!!
We are so proud of our little man. The other day we were eating lunch at Olive Garden and Kaiden had a kids cup. He sat there and sounded out the letters to the word "friends" and then all of the sudden said "friends." He did this all by himself with no help from mom or dad cause we were busy talking. :) I thought maybe it was a fluke but the next day and a couple of days later I wrote the word "friends" on a piece of paper and asked him what it said. He looked at me and said "friends" in a very sarcastic sounding voice, like duh mom I know that already. He now knows all of the sounds to all the letters and has been working really hard to sound out words so he can read. Kaiden is growing so fast and soaking everything up like a sponge. He can also write his name all by himself and it looks really good. Plus if I give him a letter to write he can pretty much write them all. At school he rushes through his work (if it is coloring) so that he can flip his page over and write his name. :) We are so excited for him and all this learning, he will be ready for Kindergarten in no time.