Photo shoot

During Tommy's first year, we got pictures taken of him at 4, 8 and 12 months. For those of you loyal followers, you have seen the studio "posed" pictures that we took. But I decided to have a photographer take some candids of Tommy in the park a few weeks ago and they turned out beautifully. Here are a few of my favorites (well, probably more than a few...just too many too narrow them down). You can see he is officially a BIG BOY! I just can't believe how big he has gotten. He amazes us every day with his growth and development, and we have officially entered the "watch your mouth at every moment" stage because he will literally repeat everything you say and is able to readily produce words again in the future! Enjoy....

A visit to Jacksonville

With Tommy's second birthday fast approaching, we realized that we'd better get in our traveling while we don't have to pay for Tommy to fly! So we made one more trip down to Jax the first weekend of November. It was the first time we were able to meet "Aunt Juju and Uncle Ricky Ricky's" little guy Trace who was born in August. We connected with lots of old friends and had a great visit. We got to stay with our friends Jim and Julie who have been stationed in Japan and Rhode Island for the last 3 years. They used to be our next door neighbors in Orange Park and really became family for us immediately. Their daughter Reagan (our goddaughter) and Tommy are only 5 days apart and you can see they really love each other when they aren't fighting over toys, which happened a lot. Tommy loved playing with all of his buddies and we had some great time with amazing friends.

Halloween festivities

OK, I am way behind! It is December 13 and I am finally getting up pictures of Halloween! Anyway, the Sunday before Halloween we got to take all the kiddos to the Governor's Club for pumpkin decorating, hayrides and games and we had a blast. Tommy was having a pretty good time, and then he discovered the golf cart and it was all over. All he wanted for the rest of the day was to ride around the course and the parking lots. For Halloween, we went over to Dan and Jessie's and played and then went out trick-or-treating. Tommy went back and forth between chasing after the older cousins going up to doorways and just wanting to hang out in the push car that we used for him. He really got the hang of getting candy and putting it into his Mickey Mouse pumpkin. All in all I'd say it was a successful Halloween! The Bud Light picture is a classic, of course that was for daddy as we were trick or treating but Tommy wanted to hold it before it was open so we had to get a shot of it!

Off to Chi-town!

What a weekend Tommy had! Last weekend for my fall break, we flew up to Chicago on Saturday morning and met up with our friends PJ, Kristen and their son Gilbert (you may remember pics of them from their Nashville visit in April). Gilbert and Tommy are only 6 weeks apart and have always been fine with each other but this time they were real buddies! Tommy got to ride in his first train, bus and taxi cab! And as you can see below, he also thoroughly enjoyed his first smoothie. We went to the Children's Museum and the Shedd and even entertained ourselves by watching the boys run up and down the hallway in the condo building when it was raining. We had a blast and LOVED seeing the boys together. On Sunday we headed to Ryan's cousins' house where Tommy was the hit of the household with Riley, Morgan, Jan and Terry. He loved all the attention and didn't want to leave. They gave him a book called "Good night Chicago" which is currently the ONLY book in rotation: literally, we read it through 3 times a night before bed. We can't wait to get back! Sorry for the amount of pictures but I just couldn't cut it down...too many cute ones.

Yeah Uncle Jerry!

A couple weeks ago Uncle Rob and Aunt Lara were in town so we all traveled out to Lebanon to have lunch with them at Lara's parents house, now lovingly known as Margot and "Uncle Jerry". Jerry has a hangar (where the wedding and reception were held) with 3 of his own airplanes. With Tommy's fascination of airplanes, the trip was a hit and of course "Uncle Jerry" is now the coolest guy Tommy has ever met. Tommy didn't get to actually fly in one but Drew, Carter and Catherine did along with most of the adults. Tommy was pretty content to sit in them and spent the majority of the day either saying "yeah Uncle Jerry!!" when he would fly a plane, or rotating from plane to plane. And I worried that we hadn't brought toys out there for the kids to play with???? I included a couple pics of Tommy in the planes and then had to have Jerry pictured in at least one so you can see him. 2 weeks later and Tommy STILL talks about how Uncle Jerry flies the yellow airplane!