Haircut not by Dad

Joseph's hair was getting a little bushy in the back so I took him to get his haircut at "Snip-Its", a children's haircut place, in the mall. The store was fun and Joseph was totally entertained and loving it until the clippers came out. He looked so cute in the little drape sitting in the big barber chair but as soon as the hairdresser turned the power on to the clippers he lost it. Definitely crocodile tears-the poor little guy! So, needless to say, I didn't get any pictures from the event but here is a picture at home (a little blurry) with his stylish new cut. What a big boy!

Not quite FB worthy

We have been laughing at pictures that friends have posted on facebook of their children with Santa during this holiday season. My one friend paid $28.00 for one 5x7 of her two girls who are both screaming-it is hilarious and definitely worth the money!

Joseph met Santa this past weekend at church. After mass they did donuts with Santa and it was a great little set-up...donuts, coffee, free photos on a cd and even a goodie bag for the kiddos. Definitely the way to go to see Santa! Joseph didn't cry but didn't smile either. The photographer suggested that Rich and I get in the picture and once we walked over to Santa he decided that he didn't want to be on his lap at all.

So, I don't think these are Facebook worthy-no crazy tantrumming or no huge smile either-but we are thankful to have the pictures to remember his first visit with Santa.

Definitely trying to escape from him!

Trying to convince him to stay

Army-Navy 2011

It is that time of year again for the big Army-Navy game. This year we watched the game at home since the West Point alumni club was hosting the game at a sports bar downtown and Joseph and sports bars don't really mix right now. Although Army ended up losing it was an exciting game (well until the end at least) and we are staying positive that 2012 will be their year!

It is our tradition to decorate our tree on the day of the Army-Navy game. This year we decided not to get a real tree since we leave for almost 2 weeks next week and since Jopseh is into everything so we decorated our mini-tree which is on our kitchen counter. It looks festive enough and we are looking forward to cutting down a real one next year.

What a difference a year makes!

Joseph's social calendar

In the five months since we have been in our home we feel very fortunate to have met a good amount of people and made good friends. Joseph is quite the social butterfly and keeps me busy during the week.

This past week, on Wednesday after our church playgroup he had a get together at a friend's house.

On Thursday he had a holiday party with his friends from the neighborhood.

And on Friday he got together with a bunch of friends at the Houston zoo.

He is lucky to have me around to keep track of all of his social events and to chauffeur him from one party to the next :)

He's 1!!!

We can't believe that Joseph's birthday is here and that we have a 1 year old! I know I have said it before but what an amazing year it has been and we feel truly blessed and so thankful for our healthy little guy. We decided not to do a big party for him for a variety of reasons and are so happy with our decision. We had a wonderful day with just our little family.

We started off the day with celebrating with his friends at our church playgroup-the cupcakes were a big hit!

Waited for Dad to get home to open the gifts-thank you to everyone!

And then got to the cake! Since flying our friend, Kristen Wong, from Hawaii to Texas for his 1st birthday celebration was not in the budget for 1st birthdays (she is an amazing cake maker/decorator) I tried to get somewhat creative on his cake. I almost bought a tractor mold with all sorts of tools for decorating but Rich convinced me otherwise since this really was my first cake. I am so thankful he did because after putting the little blue stars/dots along the outside of this cake I was done :)

I made cupcakes as well (some in the shapes of stars-no pictures though) and kept debating if we should just give him a cupcake or let him go for the big cake. In typical delaMontaigne/Ducote fashion we decided to "Go Big or Go Home" so we gave him the entire cake. Don't worry-we didn't let him eat the entire thing but we figured watching him destroy that would be much more fun than just a cupcake. He loved it, especially the blue icing-so cute how he picks them all off! Warning-the video is a bit long.

We look forward to celebrating many more birthdays with him and watching him grow.

"I'm 1 today!"

"Heaven blew every trumpet

and played every horn

on the wonderful, marvelous

night you were born."

Happy 1st Birthday Joseph. We love you

The past year

This may be a little overboard but I have over 4,000 (yes, you read that right!) pictures since December 7th, 2010. They aren't all of Joseph but I would say that about 3,800 of them are-many of them are trying to get the perfect photo-I think I have 200 from his "cowboy hat photo shoot" for our new address card. Rich keeps suggesting that I go through and delete some of them...I am sure I'll get around to that soon enough. As I was going through them recently reminiscing about Joseph's first year I realized that I had a picture of him from every week of his life (many weeks I had MANY pictures of him!) Thank goodness for photo collages so there don't have to be 52 individual photos of him. I just love looking to see how much he has changed in the past year and how far we have all come.

The pictures in chronological order begin in the upper left corner, then to the upper right, then bottom left and bottom right.

And finally, the big 1!

Texas Football

Rich's cousins, Matt and Joe, play football for Stonybrook University in New York. They made it to the NCAA division 1-AA playoffs and this past weekend came to Houston to play Sam Houston State. We were so excited to be able to see them and watch them play. Although they lost, it was a great game and they both played awesome. Joe is a senior and is hoping to try out for the NFL in the spring and Matt is a sophomore so still has a few more years of college ball.

Tailgating before the game

Quick photo before kickoff

Thankfully the stands were bleachers and not individual seats, and we sat in the visitor section so there was lots of room to play. Joseph spent basically the entire game climbing up and down the bleachers and trying to eat food off of the ground. At one point he crawled to the other end of the row for a piece of popcorn on the ground-luckily I caught him before it ended up in his mouth. Needless to say, I didn't see much of the game!

Check out my 4 teeth!

A friend of Matt and Joe's took a great picture of the 5 of us after the game but I am still waiting on it so for now here is a picture of them playing. Great game!

So close!

In less than a week Joseph will turn 1. What an amazing year this has been! Here are just a few pictures from his last week of being a month, not a year.

"I can do this momma"

"Cheese!"

Spiked hair today!

Stocked up at Costco last week for the big switch to milk. I cheated and gave him a little this week to see how he did and he sucked it right down so looks like we are off to a good start for turning 1!

Getting close

Rich teaching Joseph how to walk Army style!

Texas Thanksgiving

Our first Texas Thanksgiving (and Joseph's first Thanksgiving) was a great one and we have so much to be thankful for this year. We are thankful for new friends that we celebrated with who all recently moved to Texas as well-we had 6 adults and 6 kids, under the age of 3! (We are thankful for old friends, too!)

I just love Emerson's face in this picture, obviously she wasn't too crazy about something she put in her mouth!

We are thankful for our families, especially our little guy

We are also extremely thankful for our health (and the health of our loved ones) and that we have a healthy and active little boy

We feel truly blessed and on this Thanksgiving we give thanks for all of the blessings in our lives. Happy Thanksgiving!