Some other fun Christmas pictures

All those presents and really all he wanted was a crate. . .

and stairs. . .

Socks?! We don't need no stinkin' socks!
Lovin' the curls!
Hint to Shutterfly shoppers: When you order 3 books of your child for Christmas presents, make sure you check all 3 before you give them out. Because books 1 and 2 might be perfect . . . but book 3 might actually be about Tyler (regardless of the cover) and include pictures of his naked butt. Very fun when your mother-in-law gets this instead of the intended book of sweet Joseph.
Mr. & Mrs. Swearingen's first Christmas.
Hyper Joseph - sleepy daddy.

If you give a Joe a present

If you give Little Joe some presents . .

He might just be hoping for a barn . . . And once he has the barn, he'll need keys to a new tractor.Now that his farm is all taken care of he's going to need a schoolbus . . .

So he can learn how to read all his new books!After he reads his books he can get his toes tickled by Chloe . .
and bounce up and down on Aunt Alissa's lap . . . and have Great-Aunt Mary help him jump up and down.

Then he just might needGreat-Granddaddy to give him a lot of milk. . . so next we may need to get a cow. . . but at least we already have the barn.

Go Titans

There's just something about being in Tennessee, wearing your team colors and watching your team on a huge new TV.

The ones that didn't make it on the card . . .

Apparently . .

I have been negligent in posting new pictures for the grandparents. So here are a few . . . .

Check out . .

Our friend Brian's new Ad . . .

To the trained eye . . .

To the observer, this cute boy looks like a sweetly singing angel. But if you look closely you can see the still-intact lamp beside the bed. Then you see Joseph looking at the lamp. I'm pretty sure that the destruction of that lamp later in the day was pre-meditated. I think this would hold up in court. Travis???

When Joseph wakes up . .

Yes - he almost always wakes up happy . . . usually talking to himself or his puppy.

Chasing Shady

One of the many reasons we love living in Charleston . .

The high here today is 81 degrees. I just took Joseph to the grocery store barefooted. He loves his toes.

You interpret

When I left the living room PBS was on TV and Joseph was playing with his toys. When I came back - CNN was on the TV and Joseph was sitting in chair watching it. ????

Philadelphia - Part 3 - Pictures of the kids

It started snowing a little bit so we bundled up the kids and took them outside to run around a little. They had fun even if it was cold!

Up and down the stairs . . . .
And all sorts of other fun games . . . . . dancing,

rocking and playing with the music table, moving on to the percusion section,
and seriously - clothes are so much more fun out of the laundry basket. Clothes out! Kids in!
Pearl moving in for a Joseph hug.
Joseph enjoying his first carousel ride.

Rose & "Joe" watching Pearl on the carousel.
Pearl & Rachel on the carousel.
Some other cute tidbits from the visit:

Rose decided to call Joseph "Joe" . . . all on her own. It was very cute.

Pearl took Joseph by storm and tackled him to the ground on at least one occasion. He wasn't too happy about it at the time but was holding his own by the end.

Pearl was a good influence on Joseph's word count and Rachel (being the experienced mommy) was a good interpreter. She caught a lot of things he's saying that I hadn't picked up on. Although I did hear him say "no touch" plain as day after I said it one time (one of many times).

Joseph sings. I've heard him humming before but we heard him sing couple of bars of "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" at lunch one day.

That's it for now I think. Mike, Rachel, Rose & Pearl - thank you so much for entertaining us this week. We had a great visit. Joseph was looking around for the girls this morning when he woke up! :-)

Philadelphia - Part 2 (also titled "Up & Down)

Joseph has become very familiar with "up" and "down" . . . . especially after this week.

Example 1 - stairs
Joseph has been able to go upstairs with relative ease for quite some time. It's a good thing we don't have any stairs in our house for him to climb. He loves them - at Gramma & Grampa's, at Nana & Papa's, at church . . . he'll take off up the stairs and then, when he realizes that someone is right behind him, he giggles and goes even faster. However, coming down the stairs is something completely different. He had to always be supervised because he would just step out into the air. Over Thanksgiving at Gramma & Grampa's house he learned how to go down the 2 steps into the family room. The steps are pretty far apart - so he would get on his tummy and scoot down the first step . . . then scoot backwards across the landing and down the second step. Yay - no more baby gate on the family room! In Philadelphia this week he learned how to come down real stairs. The Lendas live in a split-level house and there are about 6 carpeted steps upstairs. Joseph got down on his tummy at the top and scooted all the way down like a pro. Well, until yesterday when he apparently got bored with that and decided that it would be more fun to grab the railing and try to step down. Fortunately he has a momma who still doesn't trust his "advanced" abilities and she was right there to catch him.

Example 2 - airplanes

Between Thanksgiving and the Philly trip - Joseph has found a second home on airplanes recently. He thinks that bouncing back between momma & daddy's seats is soooo much fun. Fortunately, he snuggles up as we're taking off and sleeps the whole trip. The most interesting thing to Joseph about planes? The fact that the windows have shades that go "up" and "down" . . . . and up and down . . . and up and down . . . and up and down. And then the sweet boy falls asleep. yay!

Philadelphia - Part One

Early Sunday morning we got up and headed for the airport. When I say early, I mean we hopped out of bed at 4:30 am. Joseph wasn't so thrilled about the early morning disturbance . . . but in typical good flier fashion . . . . slept all the way to Atlanta and from Atlanta to Philadelphia. The reason for our trip? Christopher had a conference in Atlantic City. Since we were going to be daddy-less anyway, we decided to fly along up and back but stay in Philadelphia with the Lendas.So - Joseph has been enjoying a few days playing with Rose & Pearl. And I've had fun catching up with Rachel. This morning it started to snow and so we bundled everyone up and took them outside. Kids & snow. . . so much fun. Pictures to follow soon.

Oh Christmas Tree. . .

We went and picked up our family Christmas tree on Tuesday evening. Last year we decided we didn't need a tree at our house since we don't actually spend Christmas here. . . and it just didn't feel like the Christmas season. So - now we have our tree. Joseph enjoyed helping pick it out.