Our Living Room Remodel

We have been slowly remodeling this house we bought in Jax. Now we are onto the Living room and Joey has started to really get excited to help and see it come together. As you can see, the house was built with spaces for bookshelves BUT they were never built it...so here is our before pic...YUK!!!!!!!!!!!

Wait is that Joey with a paint roller....DANGEROUS!!!

Framed, sheet rocked and ready for mud.... just Joey sized : )

Yay, one side is all done!!!! Da and Joey are miracle workers...doesn't that look much better than before! Now onto the other side : ) and painting 20 ft ceilings...ugh

Up next more Disney with some videos, yay

Kyle's Zoo and Nic's Fireman Birthday Parties

Joey's neighborhood buddy Kyle had the coolest bday party at the Jax Zoo. They had lots of animals and brought out an Owl for the kids to see. Here is the bday boy Kyle and his Mom and my Buddy, Beth. Happy Bday Kyle!!!!!!!!!!

Joey mimicking the baby alligators in the bday room, he was enamoured by all the animals in there : ) He kept asking the zookeeper all kinds of questions about them, what do they eat? why does it like the water? how old is it?....she told me she thought he might be a Zoologist when he grows up and it actually made me think of my Cousin Andy (she used to milk rattlesnakes at the Maggie Valley Zoo. Lord help me if he does that!! : )

Our Motley Crew, the beautiful brunette is Evie, Kyle's sister and also Joey's pal

Joey REALLY loved the Newts in this tank, he learned all about them and then tried to "educate" the other kids and Mom & Da

Kyle and Joey browsing the zoo together, aren't they cute!!!

Feeding the Giraffes

Best buddies

Of course Joey has to have some time with the prettiest girl Evie!!

Joey's other good neighborhood pal Nic!!! He had an awesome Fireman Party!!! Nic's bday party was right after Kyle's (back across a big city) so unfortunately we were a little late and I didn't take as many pics....but it was just as much fun!!!!! Aren't the boys all so cute in their Firemen hats!!!!

Joey of course planted next to the pretty girls, such a flirt!!!

Happy Birthday Kyle and Nic!!!!! (now we are off to Lauren's party, whew!!)

Sam's 4th Bday Party

Happy 4th Bday Sam!!! Joey and his pal Sam at Pump it Up for Sam's 4th bday (you'll never guess where Joey wants his bday AGAIN!!!)

Trying to get all the boys to line up, not an easy feat : )

Trying t get them all to sit still for a picture...I am not sure this ever happened...but at least they had fun

Ben (Sam's brother and Joey's Pal), Joey and Joey's gal-pal Lauren

Joey having fun on his fave slide

WARNING: Way more bday posts coming...Joey had 2 more parties this weekend : )

Easter Day

His first look at the goods, a great pic! You can see he was so EXCITED!!!

The Easter Bunny has trouble sticking to just a basket, oooppppsss!!!

Kicking his soccer ball (excuse the house we are mid-remodel)

Fixin to eat the bunny!!!

Ears first!!!

Yummmy chocolate face, as if he wasn't already sweet enuf!

Finally, Bolt and Mittens reunited

The much wanted Batman Crocs

This as Joey called it "Donald Duck" whistle had us all cracking up : )

Easter Egg hunt out back

Eggs, eggs, and more eggs, he told me more were coming!!

Happy Easter 2009!!!!

Crazy Saturday before Easter

The Saturday before Easter was CRAZY!!!! Our schedule was as follows:
Easter Egg Hunt 10:00 AM, Bday Party at the Zoo (across town) 11:30, another Bday Party (back across town) at 2:30, meet friends for Sushi and Sake 6:00, color eggs, make Easter cookies...we had a jam packed fun day!!!!!

Joey at our Subdivision Egg Hunt... this is the best pic I could get, what can I say he had friends running around : ) Notice Bill won the outfit battle : ( Poor Mama

We literally had to force the kid to pickup eggs....why????

Cause they had a bounce house : ) Joey and his pal Nic (waiting to get in) were not interested in eggs when they could jump!!!! Joey got irritated at me when I wanted him to keep getting eggs and said "The Easter Bunny will bring me more tomorrow!" He had a point

Joey and his Da following their holiday tradition of making and decorating cookies

Coloring eggs, we had a blast

Joey and I dipping some

Joey and Da trying to eat them whole : )

Joey and most of his eggs, two he wanted to leave soaking to get "really dark"

Next up...Easter Day!!!

Happy Easter 2009!!!

Happy Easter!!

Joey was so excited to see the Easter Bunny, he told him he wanted candy and toys in his Easter Basket : ) Bill doesn't like the outfit Joey and I picked out, he thinks it too baby-ish....but I know darn well this will be the least year for cute little outfits : ) Next year after he starts school he will start nixing me : )

He was also super excited to help decorate for Easter... he loves finding just the right spot for stuff. His Peeps he is holding went to decorate his room : )

Decorating the bushes outside

With the big bunny this year 2009

and...with the big bunny last year. I didn't realize how much my baby had grown up until I saw this photo...not only is he much bigger he has lost that baby look

Hope everybody has an Eggs-cellent Easter!!!!!

Joey playing his first song on the piano

This is a video of Joey playing his first song on the piano, after only 3 lessons!!! He is doing excellent and really has taken to playing with little to no help. He is a perfectionist however and HATES to mess up! He will do it again and again until it is right. If he keeps this up, we may have to upgrade to a real piano : ) You notice his audience....he likes to play to Bolt :)

You will have to pause the jukebox at the very bottom of the blog page to hear the video : )

New Friends for Spring

We have discovered a few new friends for Springtime. On a trip to the Disney Store, Joey wanted a stuffed Bolt Dog and now they travel together a lot of the time. You will see Bolt in a lot of coming pics...for a few weeks Joey wouldn't do ANYTHING without Bolt : )

Last Sunday we were driving out of our subdivision when I told Bill "OMG, There was a big gator." Of course Bill turned around just to prove me wrong...but guess what...I was RIGHT!!! He has, so far, alluded Animal Control (dragging their measly trap to the bottom of the pond : ) and now Joey calls him "our Gator" of course we do not (unlike other neighbors) get close to him or let Joey get close to him, he is big 6-7'. In fact I scared Joey so bad when telling him NEVER to get near a Gator, he started to cry...but a little fear can sometimes prevent an accident!

He suns right out next to the walking trail that circles the pond, you would not believe the people we have seen walking up to him with their children....brave or stupid, I am not sure : )

With that, all the ducks have been chased away from the pond, so they are walking around our yard for a while : ) Joey loved that!!! They come by almost every day now

Another good pic of our ducks

We tried to feed them, but the Seagulls got extremely aggressive. You can actually see one wing diving for the camera..... all of a sudden there were a ton of the diving and swooping us and the poor ducks : (

Lots more coming.....