B-Side Shots

In the music industry, most of the pictures in this post would be considered "B-sides." They're not quite radio-worthy, but they're too good - or, in the case of the subjects in these pictures of my sweet babies, too cute - to end up on the cutting room floor. 

So I'm going to share them, and under each one, I'll caption why I love it. But first, here are a few "quick hits" of things that I want to remember:

1) Unless he has to be somewhere early in the day, Jeremy gets up with the boys every morning. Usually, this happens about 7 or so, and I sleep for another 30-45 minutes, because everybody knows that if I get out of bed too much before 8, I'm not all that worth being around for the rest of the day. I know I won't be spoiled like this forever - Jeremy will change jobs and have to be in the office earlier or whatever - but I'm sure enjoying the ride while it lasts.

Anyway, Jones knows the drill. It's been this way, since he was born. "Man Time" is what Jeremy's always called it, and Freddie's just joined in the fun. Well, lately, Jeremy gets the boys up, as usual, and, midway through "Man Time," Jones comes looking for me. It's no secret where I am - though, earlier this week, I was in the kitchen making his breakfast when he started his hunt, which led him to a rather panicked rush through my bed- and bath rooms before I showed up with holding his "joooooossss" (milk) in hand.

I'll hear him padding down the hallway and wait until he shows up, arms extended, by my bedside - a traincar in each hand and a giggle in his voice. This is a much nicer way to be awakened, by the way, than my daddy's old tactic of turning off my ceiling fan to get me out of bed. Just so you know, T-Dogg. 

2) When Freddie is hungry, he lets you know by making this (equally annoying and adorable) grunting sound. He'll stick his chin out just a little bit, so all you see are blue eyes and baby teeth. Who can resist? Now that he's crawling, he'll see someone with a bowl of anything (literally. Neither of my boys are very discriminating eaters), stick that chin out, and just slither right on over to them until he gets a bit of what they've got. He also makes the annoying and adorable grunting sound if you don't feed him quickly enough. So, if you ever feed him, just keep shovelin'.

3) When Jones gets in trouble, he'll cry out the names of the people he knows, as if they're gonna come to his rescue. Even if they're nowhere around, even if he hasn't seen them in weeks, he'll call the roll just the same. Today, for instance, we were at the Pressleys. They're out of town, but Jones's bike is in their garage, so I took him over to ride it. I was correcting him for not obeying when I told him to get off of his bike, because he's NOT ALLOWED to ride it down the (long, steep) hill (that leads to the main road). As I punished him, he put his hands on his head and cried out, "MAY-me! Bop! DAAAAAA...!" 

It's kinda cute.

Kinda.

4) Freddie sucks his third and fourth fingers as rigorously as Jones sucks his thumb. When I'm giving him his bedtime bottle, he'll always get to a point where he's finished with it. When he does, he'll spit out the nipple, turn his head toward my chest, and stick his two fingers in his mouth. I kinda hope he always does this.

Of course, I say that NOW - before I get the bills for TWO boys in orthodontia ... 

5) I don't know where he picked this up, but Jones will sometimes say, "Sure" instead of, "Yes," and it's absolutely the cutest thing I've ever heard. He holds on to the "S"and never says the "h," so it just sounds, like, "Ssssssssurrrr." "Jonesie, do you want to go check on Brother?" "Ssssssssssssurrrrr." "Would you like to have some juice?" "Ssssssssssssurrrr."

Do I totally bait him with "Yes" questions just to hear him say it?

"Ssssssssssssssurrrr."

6) Jones likes to hold my hand when he's riding in the car. Greatest feeling ever? You better believe it is. He'll hold my left hand with his right and suck his left thumb at the same time. 

So in love with these little buddies of mine. Also in love with the idea that, years from now, I can read back through these very poorly-written memories of when they were young. 

Thank you for indulging me.

Again.

Always.

I think it'll be easy to see why I love these next four pictures
of Jeremy and Freddie. For some reason, Jeremy always likes
to hold Freddie, while he takes his bottle. I, on the other hand,
take advantage of the fact that he can feed himself and lay him
on the floor to do his duty. Jeremy holds Freddie, instead.
Obviously, that's not what he's doing here, but for some reason,
that's what I thought of when I saw these shots. Also, if you blow this
one up, you can probably see the string of drool. You're welcome.

Look at those sweet teeth!

I love the way Jeremy is looking at Freddie Bear here.

That's Freddie. If you get close enough to him, he'll reach out
and grab ya' and give ya' that smile that you can't help
but give right back to him.

sweet lovin' 

There are a couple of things here. First, I love the way Freddie
has his tongue out. He does this all the time, just like his
daddy does (don't believe me? Keep reading). Secondly, I love
how Jones is loving on the boy he calls "Beigh-bee."
One of his favorite things in the world is to climb in Freddie's crib
and hug on him, like so. Lately, he's been taking Freddie's blankie
and covering his (Freddie's) head with it to play "peek-a-boo."
For now, Freddie is such a good sport. "Brother love" has come
easily to these two - at least up until now, it has. 

Freddie likes to crawl under things.
The first time it happened was just after he'd started
rolling all over everywhere. He rolled under Jones's crib
at Mom and Daddy's (and cried when he couldn't
roll his way back out). Since then, he's always getting
under things - whether it's all the way, like in this picture,
or partially, like when he gets his legs and rear end
tucked under the skirt of the sofa.
Cracks.me.up. 

Jones loves hats. No, really. He LOVES them.
He'll turn ANYTHING into a hat - most recently,
a paper plate. He has a hat rack hanging in his room.
It has a row of four ball caps on it, and many times,
right after he wakes up, he'll point to it and say
his word for hat ("Sha..."), because he wants one
before he gets out of bed. He also has this adorable
way of pulling "sha"s on. He puts the bowl over his
head and them pulls down the bill - ALWAYS
using both hands. 

Freddie looks at his big brother like Jones is Santa Claus,
Mickey Mouse, and the Kentucky Wildcat all rolled into one.
And he watches every.move Jones makes. As I've said before,
"He watches his brother like he's a movie." 

Jones would rather read a book than play with a toy.
The older he gets, the less true this is, but even still,
he can occupy himself FOREVER with a book.
The one pictured here - "Dinky the Dinosaur" - is
his favorite. I'll be so sad when he outgrows it. 

Jones has gotten good at selfies. He's also started
to say, "Cheese!" sometimes when he sees the camera
aimed at him. I have no idea where he picked this up,
because I didn't teach it to him, but it's pretty adorable
that he just knows what to do.

Remember when I mentioned that Freddie sticks his tongue out
just like Jeremy does? Jeremy denied it. But now, I have proof.
So there. 

I hate giving my boys baths. It's not so bad with Jones now,
but bathing Freddie pretty nearly terrifies me.

I love this picture so much. Jones is big-time in
to rolling things behind him. Suitcases make him
euphoric, but he can drag something behind,
whether or not it has wheels on it - a step stool from my
grandmother's house is one of his favorites to pull along.
In this picture, he looks like a musician walking in to
play a(nother) show. It reminds me of my friend Stephen,
who used to have a t-shirt that said, "Have Guitar, Will Travel." 

He looks so grown up here! Sometimes, I have
to remind myself that he's not yet two, because
he looks so grown up, and I LOVE it.

GO(ing to see the) BIG BLUE!

The other day, Mom and I were talking to someone about my having two boys. "Much as she loves sports, she's really made to be a boy mom," Mom said. There's probably a lot of truth to that. I'm 37 years old and STILL can't apply eyeshadow the right way, but I can tell a zone defense from a man-to-man as soon as the starting five has taken the floor.  Given that, I've been really excited to take the boys to Lexington twice this summer to see the breeding ground of our beloved Cats. 

The first trip was in July. On Daddy's birthday, we met him and Mom in Lexington and even got to tour the UK basketball practice facility. While we were there, the strength and conditioning coach (Rock Oliver) came over, pinched Freddie's thighs, and said, "This one can leg press 500 pounds." During the visit, we also saw Coach Cal across a room. He waved and, later that day, called Daddy to see how the boys had liked their visit (I'm writing this down, so I can always tell them these anecdotes about their Wildcat heritage). For as excited as I was to hear of this call, you'd think I'd shaken hands with a Beatle or something.

Our second visit was for UK's football game against the Ohio Bobcats. It was a long day after a long (for them, anyway) trip. We headed to the Stadium about 12:45, waited in line for the CatWalk, and then sat in the JMI Sports hospitality suite before hitting the field and, ultimately, the JMI suite. Freddie, who spent the whole time in the stroller, was pretty nearly perfect. Jones was ... not. He wasn't terrible. He actually handled it better than I thought he would, but he definitely had those moments that made me think, "I am NEVER LEAVING THE HOUSE WITH HIM AGAIN." Of course, I will - we've got tickets for Midnite Madness next month, in fact - but I won't do it without wondering why in the world I am so hellbent on passing on not only my love for the Wildcats but also my love for roadtrips.

Family Photos

My name is Kristin, and I'm a terrible blogger.

There have been a gabillion things this summer that have made me think, "I need to blog this." Freddie's crawling now; he (finally) got his third tooth; we spent this past Saturday nite in Andy Griffith's childhood home.

So much going on.

But then comes the boys' bedtime, and after that, I am as useless as a matchbook in a swimming pool. In other words, those "gabillion things" are gone with wind, the same way Jones's love for swings was replaced with an obsession for slides - something ELSE I should've blogged about.

Near the top of the list of things I need to blog about is our family photo shoot with my good buddy Brooke. Jeremy had a men's conference in Nashville in early August. As soon as I heard that this was on his agenda, a visit - and photo shoot - with Brooke was added to mine. Jeremy rode up with our pastor and some other guys from the church on Friday, and the boys and I met him there on Saturday.

Sunday morning, the day of our shoot, dawned hot and humid, as days do in the South in the summertime. We got ready and got on the elevator. I was feeling pretty miraculously organized to have us all fed, dressed, packed up, and ready to roll by 9 a.m.

Then, we boarded the elevator.

Jones was showing us how he can push the buttons (because: BUTTONS!).  When we got to the lobby, Jones let his hand slide on the door as it opened. The problem was that, when the door got to the point that it recessed into the wall, it kept recessing, his sweet little hand still resting on it. Stuck. The child's hand was stuck in an elevator door at the Franklin, TN, Embassy Suites, and all I could think was, "Can she PhotoShop the 'swell' out of his hand?"

That's not true - what I was REALLY thinking is, "Oh, my gosh! Oh, my GOSH! OH, MY GOSH!" Jeremy and I took turns tugging, my having laid Freddie on the floor of the elevator to free up both of my arms in the service of freeing Big Brother.

The hand would not budge.

Would.not.

Praying and panicking, panicking as I prayed.

Jeremy finally pulled one of the door panels toward him at just the same time that I tugged Jones's hand, which - FINALLY - slid out, to everyone's elated relief. The whole ordeal probably lasted seventeen seconds, but it might as well have been a week and a half for the way it felt  to me.

Initially, we weren't sure whether or not to take Jones to have his hand checked out or not. Then, he was consoled by a bag of Cheetos given to him by the front desk clerk - herself the mother of a two year old. At that point, we figured it was safe to go on with the shoot.

Though we probably shouldn't have.

Jones was a BEAST (I now think it's because his shoes were too tight ... good job, Mama), and Freddie was all drool and eczema, and nothing, not even Brooke's adorable niece and nephews or their precious dog Pepper, could console either one of them.

I left, though, knowing that Brooke would come up with SOMETHING frameworthy, and she DID. Here are a few of my favorites, though, as she always does, she got a million that I just love. The problem is always narrowing them down to hang in the hallway.

Thanks, Brooke, for, once again, getting some super shots of my baby boys!