New Year's & Weddings!

We had some friends come to the Point for New Years and had a great time. Kate and Jay came and waited to tell us all they were engaged, (since the night before), until we were all together. Great way to surprise us, but my dad wants to just tell people they got engaged there. He thinks it makes a good story for the Point. Anyway, we had a great time. We also had a chance to see what it would be like to have a boy--just kidding. Mrs. Dorothy got Chesley the cutest camo overalls, (that snap up the crotch for diaper changing and everything), for her to wear at the Point. So on New Years Eve we put her in them and it was right after a bath so her hair was slicked back and parted perfectly and she kinda looked like a boy! Once her hair dried and curled up in the back she looked like herself again but take a look! And yes these are the only pictures I took the entire New Year's weekend, three pictures of my child. Sad I know but true. Happy 2010!
P.S. Chesley took her first steps the day before this was taken, Dec 30th-she did so while Percy and I were both staring straight at her across the kitchen at the Point-we both froze when it looked like she might and didn't speak until after she did. How considerate of her to do it when we were both there!! Anyway- she's all over the place now, splitting her time between crawling and walking about 50/50. Heaven help me, it's over now!

Couldn't look more like her Daddy if she tried!

How freaking cute is that?!

Bye Bye Aunt Katie

Katie stopped by on her way back to Baton Rouge after Christmas to tell Chesley bye. She caught her post-dinner, pre-bottle and sleepy. This is a good combo bc she is very loving then and was all about giving Aunt Katie some love and kisses!

She was giving her a love pat here I'm sure...

I Love My Chair

True obsession is the only way to describe my child's love for her chair. In the chair, outof the chair, facing this side, facing that side, standing then sitting, over and over all day long. Best money we spent on Christmas no doubt.



Brynnen came over between Christmas and New Years to play with Chesley and when I started trying to take this picture they were both waving both hands but of course Chesley quit right when I clicked the camera! But still got a couple cute ones.

Chesley's First Christmas, 2009

Chesley's first Christmas was a blast! She isn't old enough to have a clue what's going on but she's old enough to show how excited she is by new toys and all the commotion going on around her--and all the attention she was getting from everyone! Our parents and Percy's sister and Buck came over to see Chesley get up on her first Christmas morning. It was probably a bit anticlimatic after all the preparation the night before-but still worth it. She knew something different was going on and kinda fed off of all the excited energy. She was a sweetheart and seemed to like her gifts. Santa stole the show with the Pottery Barn chair with her name on it-she is obsessed!! I have to sit right by her while she plays in it bc she likes to teeter on the edge with a look that says, "I might fall and crack my skull open, I might not!" So the chair has to be put up high every now and then when I can't attend to her teetering-she loves it that much! (Oh and the breakfast pizza that Percy drove to Madison to get stuff for at 11:00 the night before, dripped egg all over the oven which made it smoke, then wouldn't cook thru but Percy thought it was fine and before I realized what had happened he had served our entire family raw breakfast pizza! Well, the meat, cheese, egg, and hashbrowns were cooked but the crescent roll crust was still completely doughy! I was mortified! Especially since I've done this before without any trouble! Anyway, it was a bigger deal to me than anyone else but still!) After Chesley opened her presents from us and played with her Santa gifts we headed over to my moms to do presents with them. We almost lost Chesley in all the wrapping paper over there but she had fun! It was a wonderful Christmas and so much more special because Babycakes was here this year--not just in my belly giving my horrific heartburn like last Christmas!!


Only pic I am in with my child in all of Christmas...and only one from right after she got up at our house and did Santa there before heading to my mom's to do Santa with them.

Going for the one pant leg up, one down look that the playas in Memphis style. And I think beating the glass to call mom's dogs maybe?

Isn't it always the paper that's the big hit of Christmas morning? I'm buying paper for my next one year old at Christmas!

My grandfather, Chesley Pruet, had a car similar to this when we were little. But his was light blue and white and didn't have a top. Maybe it had a top originally, but if so Papa would have done away with it bc it would have gotten in the way of what he thought was the car's true purpose. He tied a really thick rope around the steering column and stuck us in there, (not tied in), and on the driveway of his house, (which at the top was actually a huge patio type open area which made the following possible), he would swing us around at 100 mph by the rope. He would reel you in then send you flying and jerk the rope back towards him right before you hit something, like a car, and on and on and on until you either had whiplash or another grandkid was crying for their turn. The cries of Papa's daughters to not hurt their children fell on deaf ears-part of what made him such a great grandaddy! So I told Mom they had something similar at Babies R Us and she said, "Get one for me, and I'll get the rope!" Well Chesley didn't get a rope Christmas but she got the car, and my mother is enough like her father to make me believe the rope isn't far behind!

Christmas Lunch 2009

Every year we eat lunch with my mom's sister's family, the James', (aka Pruet and William's people), and so this year mom invited Hillary's family to join us too so we could all be together. With this addition to the line up mom had to find a way to fit 17 people and three babies in high chairs into her dining room, so she got creative. She made a seperate table for the three grandmothers and the babies-worked great especially since the grandmothers could care less who's in the room if their babies are!! Lunch was, as always, delicious and a little more exciting than usual. With three babies-2 crawlers and 1 walker-it was interesting. I guess it was probably pretty tame compared with what's in store in years to come, so someone remind me of that next year! Pruet only ended up under the Christmas tree once with lights wrapped around him, and I think William was even trying to check things out under there as well but all in all-very tame. Hope we can do it again next year!!

My child has great taste in silver patterns.

"Annie is so funny!"

Pruet did have his feet propped up on the table in his grandaddy's lap, just kicked back taking a bottle! But I missed it-someone needs to email me that picture!!

This was an unsuccessful attempt to get Pruet out of her car! He didn't knock her over, she just fell-but was back up in no time!

We are all screaming at them to look at us to try and get a picture.

"YOU! Outta my car!"
(I secretly wish Pruet had chomped down on that bossy little finger in his face! But when one of them does that to the other at some point in the future I probably won't think it's funny!)

William was pooped and probably recovering from one of his double ear infections, but just days after this pic he got tubes and is now right as rain! So glad that sweet boy is feeling so much better! Wish my baby would still fall asleep on me! Too sweet, with his arm around his daddy's tummy.

I literally want to eat him. Is that not the most angelic face ever!?

Ben, (the elusive third James boy), and Hillary

Aunt Katie striking a pose.

Perry and Timbo, Hillary's brothers.

Of all the things in my mother's house to get into, my child finds MY purse and tries to devour my make up bag.

Chesley and Pruet

The Calhoons

Christmas Eve 2009

On Christmas Eve we went to our church's Christmas Eve service then to Percy's moms for dinner and to exchange presents. There were about 20 people there but I managed to only take pictures of three of them, Aunt Clara, DJ, and Kristin. Thanks to everyone else as well for all of Chesley's great gifts and ours too! We didn't leave till late then got home and spent the rest of the night straightening up the house and trying to put together some breakfast pizzas, (which I've made before without complication), for everyone who was coming over in the morning to see Chesley on her first Christmas. Well, Percy forgot to buy the hashbrowns and of course everything is closed at 11:00pm Christmas Eve. But his mom has some so he heads all the way out there and makes it back by midnight. Then we go to put the gifts together which shouldn't be that big a deal right? Well, the Pottery Barn chair cover says to fluff in dryer with a damp towel to get all the wrinkles out. I know good and well I won't ever take it off to do this so I might as well do it now. But I get the towel too wet and then it takes forever to get the cover dry. We put the other big gift together without much trouble and finally got in bed around two. You would have thought we were up assembling bikes for out 3 ten year olds with the amount of work we created for ourselves! But Christmas morning was worth it when baby girl saw her gifts!

Chesley and her Aunt Clara and her new horse with a bell around his neck.

'Loving' the horsey.

This is the Carhart jacket Casey and Dottie gave her for a year or so from now, I think Chesley was a little confused about how it would fit too!