Happy Thursday!

Nothing exciting to report around here, I am excited that the weekend has started! We are busy this weekend - Bj's restaurant opens on Monday, so he has been a working fool and we have the usual fun stuff to get into! Just a little hello, and some pictures of the little sweet pea! I hope everyone has a wonderful Friday!

Big Kid Decisions

We have been busy making decisions around the homestead these last few days and I think we have come to some good conclusions. We have been looking for houses for the last few months and we were pretty excited about it! It has been pretty easy living with my mom since May - I mean, who can beat having a babysitter that lives downstairs?! So, we found a house and were pretty excited about it, well - this weekend we decided no way, we can't do it! Ah! Our weekend was a whirlwind of making decisions and figuring out what was best for our family at this time. After a few day long discussions, we decided we are going to continue living upstairs at Case de Granny's for the next few months, pay off our remaining debt and save a little more before venturing out into the home front again. I never thought we would be excited about staying in limbo and not having our own place yet - but I think we are both really excited about this decision. We said never again will we have the opportunity to not have a mortgage where all of our money can go towards savings or debt consolidation. It was just so crazy and so different from the decision to buy our first house. We liked the house, we could afford it and that was it! Now we are factoring in things like buying on one salary, when we plan on expanding our family, how much we want to spend on a mortgage, what school districts we like and the list goes on! I am feeling oh so grown up lately :) I was laughing that in the course of two months I have cried at work in the middle of a meeting (we had just found out that we are getting benefits!!!!!! oh, I am tearing up right now - we are talking, medical, maternity and vacation! We were going to have to spend $600 a month on Bj's plan to insure the three of us, but now, as of September 21 - Bj is free and I will be spending $34 a month to insure CFJ and I! Oh the sweet relief - and for the record a few other people cried in the meeting too!!) and made the decision to stay at my mom's house - with my husband, son and two dogs! I was joking about how it's the little things in life that get me excited these days, like benefits and paying off debt! So, that is our big news - it will be a few more months until I am hopefully posting about a new home!

Pearl Snaps & Sh** Kickers Pig Roast!

My brother and his friend Joe, has started having their annual Pearl Snaps and Shit Kickers Pig Roast! Sorry for the profanity - this is a baby blog, but that's the name of the party! We were so excited that Uncle Bubba was able to make it in for the festivities and we were so excited to go! Everyone has to wear a pearl snap shirt and cowboy boots. So, I had to be on the lookout and found a pearl snap shirt for Connor a very long time ago and I have been SO excited to dress him in it and get him all ready for the party! I was beside myself he looked so cute! The shirt fit perfectly and he was seriously the hit of the party. He has his pearl snap shirt ($4.39 at Gymboree) new jeans, and cowboy boot socks. Yet the little man has cowboy boot socks! I found them in the NC state with Aunt Steph and Reags!

The little sweet pea getting ready to go - if you look close enough you can see his bottom toofers!

The Lawton/Johnson crew - I think we are a pretty cute little cute, if I do say so myself

Eyeing Uncle Bubba's beer with Granny :)

He loves his daddy! Look at those sweet chubby cheeks with his hat on, I love it!

Everytime I look at this picture I think it is CFJ's arm on the grill!

Hi Guys, Just hanging out with my Granny!

The Chef's! They did such a great job :)

Little Mr. thinking he can drink his Uncle's beer?!

In addition to his cute party attire, I was able to put him in his little vest for the first time (It was a chilly night!!). His little vest was the first thing I ever bought him, it was $3.00 on sale at Old Navy and I remember ordering it from my hospital bed - staring in at the little man who would someday fit into it. It is darling and he looked so handsome. He even had to break out the hat and mittens for him! We all took turns with him in his Baby Bjorn - and it was so funny you could always tell who had him because there was always a huge circle of girls around the little sweet pea! What am I going to do when girls start calling my sweet pea?! We had such a nice time - the whole family was there and it was a good evening. The boys did such a great job with the pig - everything was delicious! I was laughing and said I hadn't been to a pig roast since college - you know we had some pig roasts in good old North Carolina! We already can't wait for the next year - thanks for a great night Uncle Bubba and Joe!

Sink Bath!

For those who don't know, my wonderful NeNe watches Connor Francis on Monday's and he loves it! I think she loves it too - it's her job as she says! She called last week and asked if she could take a vacation day this Monday to visit with some friends, we agreed :) She is amazing though and we are so thankful that she spends the day taking such great care of our baby.

The other day they decided it was a good day for a bath and not just any bath, a bath in the sink! He looks so cute in there and he loves it! He likes to play with the faucet and loves it when we sprinkle him with the water. It is the perfect little size for him, and he loves to play with his new boats and rubber duckies in the sink!

Rubber duckies are for chewing, right?

Do you love my mohawk? My momma says I look pretty handsome :)

There he is, clean as a whistle and snug as a bug! He looks so cute getting out of the bath tub and I love getting him all cozy in his jammies - especially putting his lotion on. Is there anything more intoxicating but the smell of a clean baby head, tootsies and fingers?

A Baby in a Box?

We buy all of our diapers from diapers.com (I love it!) and what is more exciting when you are little than to play with the box they come in? Their slogan is "we deliver everything but the baby" but I think they slipped a super cute little man into this shipment!

Scout and Sedona kept running over to check on him and Connor just thought it was a good idea to chew on the side of the box, anything helps when you are teething, right?

Once he was free of the box, he was off! He is all over the place the days and we love it! I need to post a little video of his real crawling, the army crawl days are long gone! It really is amazing how fast this little bugster is changing! After looking at all of the box pictures it made me so excited to eventually build forts with Connor and play pretend when he is bigger!

Boo Boo Bunny

So, this afternoon I was just sitting down to give Connor his bottle before naptime when the phone rings. It's Bj and he goes "babe, I knocked my teeth out, I need you to find me a dentist" I was like what happened?! He said, I fell at work and knocked my teeth out, I am on my way home now. I was beside myself, I handed Connor to my mom and called the dentist, who was gone until Monday. We called the emergency number they gave us and they said to have him go straight to the office! I had no idea at this point what had happened, so I left C with Granny and met Bj at the dentist. Bless his heart, he tripped over a cart and smashed his face on the back of a chair and sheered off the bottom of his two from teeth, scraped up his arm and his knee is the size of a baseball! The dentist was so nice and put on some bonds for the time being and he will go in next week for a permanent fix. I was so sad for my sweets, we went home and he has been resting on the couch. Connor was so sad for his daddy, he wanted to cuddle with him and his ice packs. He was fixing his own "boo-boo's" too!

Sweet boy helping his da da!

Look at my sweet boys with their ice packs! They looked so cute I had to snap a picture! I am just so thankful Bj was okay and all that he needed was a trip to the dentist and some cooping on the couch. It is always scary when something happens to someone you love, you know? I was glad I was able to meet him at the dentist, I needed to see for myself that he was okay.

Parents as Teachers

We had our first Parents as Teachers meeting on Thursday and I mean, this momma was so excited! I couldn't wait - I have been wanting to sign up since we moved home, but we thought we had to wait until we moved into a home of our own - thanks to Annie we got squared away with the lovely Ms. Angela and we couldn't be happier! She was such a pleasure from the minute she walked in the door, and Connor got the biggest kick out of her! She told me she wouldn't waste her time being less than completely honest with me about everything. If she saw something she liked, she would tell and vice versa. She was so impressed with Connor and his little busy body personality. She said he is so ahead of where he should be and not one thing she saw would make her think he was a teeny tiny preemie. I mean you could literally see the pride oozing out of my eyeballs. I couldn't stop smiling, I told EVERYONE what praises she sang of my son. I was so unbelievably proud of him and how hard he has worked to develop right along with all the babies that had a few more weeks of cooking time. She said he was perfect and I couldn't help but agree!
He was and is all over the place and it's just wonderful. With her help he climbed half way up the stairs - that was crazy! She mentioned how she thinks he will be walking in a few weeks and I was like what?! What do you mean he is going to be walking?? I think we are really in for it when that happens, but we can't wait! Ms. Angela is just wonderful and we are so thankful to have the opportunity to spend 90 minutes a month with her. We already can't wait to see her again in November!