Dumbo Pictures by Jared

Joseph's Halloween Costume Preview & Please Help

We tried to have Joseph's picture taken in his Halloween costume a few weeks ago for a local photographer. She took the pictures for free in exchange for letting her use them in her portfolio. Great idea except I'm pretty sure Joseph hates his costume as he was grumpy the whole time. It never fails he is usually so happy and laughing but we try and get his pictures taken and Mr. Grumpy Pants shows up instead.

We are trying to decide if any of them are good enough to order or if we should try to have them retaken. What do you think?
Here's the link to the photos
http://www.vivikasphotography.com/ click on login and enter leigh for the event code.

Also I need costume ideas for me. I wanted to be the magic feather to coordinate with Joseph's Dumbo costume, but I can't figure out how to make the thing. Any ideas? Please help!!!

My Birthday

I finally had a birthday today. I'm still not sure what the big deal is but Mommy kept telling me all day that being one is a huge. I had a great day. I was sleeping nice and warm in my crib until 9:27 AM when Mommy surprised me and and woke me up to sing to me. Turns out she told work she wasn't coming in today so she could spend the whole day with me.

After breakfast mommy let me have another cupcake and run around outside in my birthday suit. I took full advantage and waved to all the neighbors that drove by and decided to poop in the yard before mommy could put a diaper back on me.

Then I helped mommy make a snack

Mommy made me take a nap which was probably good. I was sneaky though and didn't go to sleep for a while. Instead I sat in my crib and read some books. My favorite is 10 Little Ladybugs.

After lunch mommy let me drive to the park in my awesome wheels. I love the park by my house cause it has a slide I can go down all by myself. Today I was really interested in making sure all the wood chips still had some flavor to them.

When we got home I decided to help mommy plant her flower bulbs so we can have flowers in the spring.

Finally Daddy came home from work and we got to go out for my birthday dinner. I chose Red Robin because they sent me a coupon for a free meal plus I LOVE their fries. Who needs a hamburger when you can have fries. Plus they gave me a free birthday sundae which I ate almost all of by myself.

Mommy and Daddy made me wear these stupid ears. I didn't really like them and took them off almost as soon and they put them on.

After Dinner I drove us all home.

I was so tired after dinner I went right to sleep. I had a great day!!! This birthday thing is pretty awesome.

Happy Birthday Joseph!!!

Joseph turned one today at 9:27AM (I still think the clock in the hospital was wrong and Joseph was really born at 9:29 AM. I can't believe it's been a year already.

“Don’t Let go Rose…Don’t ever let go of that promise”

Well so it finally happened- we had our housewarming party. And, if you’ve been paying attention it was a Titanic theme- Let me say AMAZING!!! We had a glorious turnout of wonderful guests, and my eyes watered with joy at the Costumes! Oh the beautiful costumes!

This was serious how people got into it! Even little Joseph got into his Tuxedo costume.

Overall we had almost 50 people in our house enjoying the atmosphere. Secretly though I feel I under delivered- there was little decorations to set the Titanic apart from just our house and I still feel a little disappointed in my self- especially after the great, awesome turnout! Let me just say that I’ll more than make up for it at Halloween! For real! I have already started decorating. But for those of you that came, a sincere Thank you and for those that dressed up, you rock and you are my hero! For real!

We just got a new camera and were not using it correctly so sorry the pictures are not the best.

I especially like “Top Hat Guy” (Chris) I pray that Top Hat guy will grace us with his (their) presence on Halloween.

and “Purple Dress Lady.” (Diane)

We also had a waiter which was impressive because he came up with the costume all by himself! Sweet!

We even had the one person who came as a lower class person win the kid portion of the contest.

There were so many great awesome costumes I can’t imagine…Halloween will be extra awesome I promise!

By the way, I haven’t forgotten about the Thriller video. I am still trying to get a firewire cable from my bro who now works graveyards so he’s hard to track down…speaking of which, James Cameron himself was at our party! So stay tuned- I promise someday to have the Thrill the Wedding Video posted, hopefully before the next wedding in November, which by the way, will not be thrilled, at least by me because I am not going. But Halloween might be thrilled…

Perhaps when I get home I’ll upload some teaser images for Halloween. It turns out I’m a dork and draw out plans for Halloween. I have my whole costume ready to go and various sketches drawn out of what you can expect. Be wary…

Joseph takes a shower

Joseph has started to have selective separation anxiety. Most times he is fine being left to play by himself and could care less if anyone he knows is around. But for some reason every time anyone gets in the shower he freaks out. He has a sixth sense about it too. He can be in another room and as soon as he hears the shower turn on he stops whatever he is doing and gets as close as he can to the offending person. It started with my dad, if Joseph saw him going upstairs to shower Joseph would zip up the stairs after him and stand at the bathroom door screaming until he was done. He does it even if someone else is around. Whenever Jared or I get in the shower Joseph will be at the shower door. If the other person tries to distract him he usually wants nothing to do with you. The part that make me really laugh is if you bring him into the shower with you he screams as well because he doesn't like the water splashing him.
Anyway Saturday I got in the shower and Joseph ran over crying that I was leaving him. He stood at the shower door hitting it and screaming he usual bloody murder. After a few minutes I opened the shower door to stick my head out and say hi. Well Joseph seized the opportunity and climbed right in, fully clothed. He sat on the floor of the shower splashing and laughing at how cleaver he was for about 30 seconds before he wanted to be picked up. I scooped him up, stripped his clothes and diaper and scrubbed him down. He didn't really appreciate this but hey it saved me from having to give him a bath. Then I took him out wrapped him in a towel and laid him on the floor and jumped back in to finish my own shower. He was so mad and screamed the whole time but didn't move an inch from where I put him. He never will just lay there in a towel.

Housewarming Party Planning

Now that we have finally almost finished unpacking it's time to have our housewarming party. Before we even signed on the house Jared decided the theme should be Titanic because of our staircase. We keep coming up with great decorating ideas and fun things to do. The problem was we never got around to setting a date and getting invitations out. We kept moving the date mainly because we hadn't gotten around to inviting people. Which needless to say if kind of important. We wanted to make tickets to have everyone join us for "Our Maiden Voyage into Homeownership". Of course we got busy and never made the invitations. Our next great idea was to take our picture on our deck with our arms spread wide like in the movie. Three weeks later we still haven't taken the picture. I finally decided enough was enough we had to get an invitation out and get busy planning the party before Joseph was in College. Yesterday I sent out some invitations that were lame and most people will probably miss the Titanic theme we are shooting for. But the party must go on. So here's to hoping our party is successful.

If you are reading this then you are totally invited. Saturday September 13th 6:30 PM at our house. Come dressed as a passenger in the class of your choice.

Here's to hoping I lost enough weigh to fit into my red carpet dress.....now if I could only find a huge diamond necklace to wear...