• You are very attached to Momma. You prefer to be in the same room with me, but if you are not, you yell, "Momma? Momma?" until I answer -- just so you know where I am.
• You love to play with Daddy, especially when he lets you climb all over him, wrestle, or play with cars or blocks.
• When you hear the garage door go up, you know Daddy is home. You race to the door calling out his name.
• You call Mamaw everyday. She has a unique gift of patience and will sit and "talk" to you on the phone for 20 minutes at a time, even though she can only understand about half of what you say. You do a lot of pointing and motioning to explain things to her, which she of course cannot see! She loves it though, and so do you. If you have not talked to her by the end of the day, you start crying for her.
• You have a book of pictures of both Mommy and Daddy's sides of the family and can say the names of all of your grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins.
• You love attention and will react as needed to get it. If Daddy and I are talking for too long without including you, you will start screaming, "Mama! Dada! MaDa! MaDa!" If I am on the phone for too long (happens often when talking to your Mamaw), you will start saying, "Bye, bye! Bye, bye!" and try to take the phone from me. If you are trying to tell me something, I must acknowledge you right away. For example, if you say, "Pretty trees, pretty trees" while riding in the car and I do not acknowledge and say something back, you will say it over and over until I do.
• You love to give kisses -- even to strangers.
• You have a strong personality, but also a very sweet disposition. You spend most of your day laughing, smiling, playing, pretending, and wanting to give hugs and kisses.
• When it is time to go to sleep at night, you try every trick in the book to get out of it. You will ask for another book, another song, more rocking, food, drink, or something incredibly creative and hilarious. For example, a few days ago I was trying to get you to eat corn at dinner and you kept refusing. At bed time you started yelling, "Corn, Momma! Please! Corn, Momma!" Last night I was about to put you down and you said, "No, Momma! Be nice!" I burst out laughing and totally ruined the solemn bedtime routine.
• You love to learn. You learned your letters and their sounds around 15 months and have never stopped practicing them. All day long, everywhere we go, you point out any letters you see and tell me their sounds. It sometimes draws a crowd at the grocery store or playground! You completely light up when you know you are showing me something I have taught you and you clap for yourself each time. It is adorable.
• You learned your numbers around 18 months and now you love to count anything and everything around you. Sometimes you go in the right order, and sometimes you don't. Your favorite numbers are 4 and 9 and often you will count an entire pile of things by saying, "4, 9, 4, 9, 4, 9" and I love it.
• You know the following shapes and point them out to us whenever you see them: circle, oval, square, triangle, octagon, heart, diamond.
• We recently started having a "word of the day" that we use as much as we can. We give each other a "high 5" each time it is used. You catch on quickly and love to play this game. Yesterday's word was "balance" and today's was "tumble". Usually the word is picked randomly within the first hour you are awake based on something we are playing or a book we are reading. I am constantly amazing at what your little brain picks up. I wish I learned as much as quickly as you do.
• You started talking at 12 months and have not slowed down one bit. By 15 months you were saying most common daily words like plate, cup, bowl, spoon, fork, your favorite foods, blanket, soap, milk, water, bed, bath, etc. By 18 months you were putting two words together, and just over the past couple of weeks you have started saying phrases and even a few simple sentences. If you don't have anyting to say, you still talk... you will babble on and on in an nonsensical stream of random words.
• You love fruit and will barely eat vegetables. Some of your favorite foods are: mac-n-cheese, yogurt, ice cream, any kind of berry, bananas, mandarin oranges, tomatoes, chicken, applesauce, waffles, and sausage links. I can usually get you to eat green beans but I have to sneak most other vegetables into your mac-n-cheese.
• Your favorite toys are your animals. You love pretending with them -- they fight, kiss, make their appropriate sounds (aka "moo"), talk to each other, play on the farm, and go most places we go. You also like to play with your Sesame Street puppets, cars, and blocks every single day.
• Each day we do a craft activity after breakfast. You know it is coming, and you get so excited! We usually rotate between painting (your favorite), play dough, drawing, coloring, using pipe cleaners to make shapes and animals, using sidewalk chalk, and making pictures with foam stickers (which are zoo animals, of course). Sometimes I hear of a simple activity from a friend or an article/book and we get to try something new. Our refrigerator has some great artwork!
• You seem to understand that you are going to be a big brother soon. You rub and kiss my belly, point to yourself when I ask who is the big brother, and say "baby" when you look at my belly. However, I have no idea how much you comprehend that another person will soon be living with us.
• When we arrive at church on Sundays, you say, "Church, Jesus, class, toys". Just this week you pointed to a picture of the sacrament in one of your books and said, "Reverent". I nearly fell out of my seat. I had never specifically taught you that word, but it is a book we read every week. You are so smart!
• You have a lively, inquisitive nature that is a joy to watch.

We love being your parents! We cherish every moment and look forward to the many exciting days ahead.

• With much time to practice, I can now build an incredible tower, garage, house, and robot out of blocks - and I am soooo proud when I finish!
• Finger painting is therapeudic.
• Bath time is partially for getting clean, but mostly for having fun.
• Pretending makes any day more exciting, intriguing, magical, and happy.
• Learning is something we should never stop doing. Kids do it constantly; what happens to us as adults?
• Giggling is one of God's greatest gifts, especially the kind that brings tears to both people's eyes.
• It never feels right to put my own needs or wants before those of my child.
• A mother is blessed with knowing what her child needs just by seeing his expression or hearing his "type" of cry, and can sooth even the most traumatic situations.
• When the laundry is piled up, you're behind on work, you've had very little sleep, and your toddler decides "help" change his diaper by putting his hand right in the mess, you simply sit down and start laughing at the unique challenges the Lord has sent you today.
• Nothing feels better than seeing your child smile, reach for you, or give you a hug and kiss.

I could go on and on... Thank you, Brendan! I am so blessed to be your mom!

Dan was the bookie. Brendan was the cutest Derby kid ever.

The main table, minus the Mock Mint Julep and most of the sausage balls.

Jeff and Jennie

Griffin and Caitlin

Lisa and Noelle

Katrina managed to pull off a classy dress while pregnant. I will have to shop with her next time. She won our hat contest and has promised to hold a hat-making party before the 2010 Derby party.

Ta-Da! Don't I look regal?

I totally belong on Millionaires' Row!