Child Labor

You know why Chip and I procreated, right? 

To have free manual labor.

Work

Work

Work

 Day after day

As he sings...
"No body knows, the troubles of my heart..."
Using the duster, the dust pan, and a can of fruit cocktail
while his stuffed bear keeps him company.

We make him use two broom.
It's more efficient that way.

He loves to vacuum. 
When it's not on he makes the hmmm sound to pretend it's on.

It really is a shame that as much energy as he puts into pulling out the vacuum, carrying the brooms around and putting shoes, clothes, coat hangers etc into the washing machine that the house still stays a wreck.

Mickey's Live Magic Show!

As if after all the fun things we'd done this past weekend wasn't enough, Chip and I took Hill to see Mickey's Live Magic Show at the Jackson Coliseum.  It was so much fun!
We started out our day in Jackson with lunch at Two Sisters.  If you have not eaten there do yourself a favor and check it out.  Whenever our 'vegetable-o-meter' is running low we know we can hit up Two Sisters for some homecooking.  The owner is originally from Kosciusko, if you go please let her know the Hawkins said hello!

Hill and his big boy plate full of veggies!
He ate EVERY bite!

I love Two Sisters

After he ate, his bib was still clean.
We only had one lima bean fatality on the floor, otherwise it was spick and span.

It's a parking lot.  What do we always do in the parking lot?
Dance of course!
He had to stop and dance before we entered to see Mickey!

Thanks to our buddy Pearce who has seen Mickey at Disney World for letting us borrow his Mickey shirt.

The stage

Me & My Buddy

People watching.
He gets that from his mama.

My boys

Big boy

Ta Da!
What a great show!

The show is not complete until you buy a $20 plastic light up toy.

We really did have a great time.  Hill was in a trans the whole time and lit up when Donald Duck would talk, when the music would play he'd rock back and forth and when people would clap, he'd join in the clapping.

I love making these fun memories with my cute little family!

JJ's Dinner Party

Saturday night our dearest friend JJ celebrated her 25th birthday for the 5th time (sounds better than saying the big 3 - 0.)  Chip and I had a dinner party for her with a few surprise guests!  It was so much fun to entertain!  It's the first time I've been able to use my grandmothers dining room table to it's capacity of 10.  I put in the two extra leaves and pulled out the extra long white linen table cloth.  I think I'm the first to be able to utilize the leaves and cloth since my grandmother.  I set the table with my china and pottery pieces.  It was great to put my nice things to use.
*side note:  I don't know that I've told you all the story about my china.  When I lived in Oxford I went to a garage sale in a nice neighborhood and there was a 13 piece place setting, dinner plates, salad plates, tea cups, tea cup saucers, 3 or 4 serving platters and maybe some other stuff.  It's Lenox Olympia - the solid creamy white plate with a fine silver rim around it.  So, are you envisioning all of this?  50 bucks.  yup $50 for all of that goodness.  The lady had registered for all of that china when she married the first time and they divorced and she was remarried and decided to rid of it.  I bought it and the rest is history. 
Ok so back to the dinner party.  Chip grilled fresh redfish on the shell that he caught the other weekend on the coast.  We had grilled basalmic asparagus, rice, bread and a salad with strawberries, feta and sunflower seeds.

The set up

 For dessert I made a baked alaska cake.  I don't mean to brag (yes I do) but it was awesome!

The birthday girl with the baked alaska.
I felt bad because I forgot the candles!

Opening up her gift.
I made her a book of photos from over the past year.

The photo book was really neat.  It had pictures of Harvey and Hill together at 1 month old and over the course of time the things they'd done together.  Also pictures of things we'd done together.
Here is my favorite...Jimmy Buffett (July 2010)

Love you Jennifer Warrington!

For The Veterans - Our Heros

Saturday morning we went to the Veterans home for an event they had to raise money to renovate the residents rooms.  The VA does a wonderful job and they always have such fun activities for their residents.  They raised money by selling tshirts and homemade icecream and the big event was the car show.  They had a lot of cars enter, which is great.

Here are a few pictures of our morning at the VA event.

Mrs. Juli
One our favorite friends is a social worker at the VA.
Her and her husband sang the Star Spangled Banner and did a fabulous job!

The American Legion motorcyclers

The color guard

The car show.
I felt this explained a lot. 
There were some pretty neat old cars there

Hill is very excited to be sporting his patriotic gear.
Look for this outfit again during 4th of July.

Walking everywhere!

Snacking on goldfish in the grass

 These are my favorite.  He just wanted to sit on the curb and hold that flag.  Sweet boy.

Hanging out in the bouncy house.
Fun stuff!

The boy was exhausted after his morning at the Veterans home.  I didn't get pictures of him dancing in the parking lot to the entertainment.

Thank you to everyone that helped put this together.  You guys are wonderful and I love your spirit and all you do for our heros!  We had a wonderful time.

iPad and Busted Lip Birthday

I forgot to show you all what my dad got me for my birthday. 

I asked for an iPad and this is what I get??

Also, on my birthday I get a call from daycare that Hill has hit his lip on the metal bar at the bottom of the crib playing with a ball.  Typical boy.  The daycare is so preciously sweet and know my anxiety about his lip so I rushed across the street to find a smiling little booger faced little boy with a red swollen lip.  The sweet ladies gave him a popsicle to make it all better.  No need to rush to Memphis to see Dr. Shell, thank goodness!

If you don't mind adding us to your prayer list.  Hill has his follow up appointment with Dr. Shell in Memphis on April 7th to get the experts opinion on his potential surgery.  I discussed this with you guys back in October that he wanted to give it about 6 months more to heal before we proceeded with the final touch up surgery.  The time would give us a better idea of how things are coming together, lip, skin & muscle wise.  There was also the option of not having another surgery and letting time 'hopefully' heal everything together.

Not that Chip and I want to subject our son to any pain or other surgery we feel it in the best interest of Hill that we opt in for the surgery.  It's one last surgery to touch things up and it will be the 'cure all' for lack of better words.  We want to do this at an early age so that Hill won't remember anything.  If we were to wait 16-18 months or so to see if it healed itself then he'd be nearly 3, more active and recollective should he need the surgery.

What would they be doing?  The left side of the inside of his lip droops further down than the right side.  This is something that most people don't notice.  Also where they brought the left side and the right side of the lip together...where it makes the peak or point (my medical terminology) will be recessed down a bit more to align the pink parts his lip.  He has done fantastic.  He has healed fantastic.  Everything about his surgery was an extrememe success.  He just needs one more touch up round.

This go round for surgery I am not nearly as spastic.  I know what to expect, I know the procedure, I know Dr. Shell's abilities, I know the waiting game, I know the anxiety of most every aspect.  This settles my heart.  I also know that my little boy is resilient beyond comprehension and that I have the most awesome supportive husband, doctors, family and friends.  God is beyond good.  So, if you could just remind me of what I've written here once we schedule the surgery and it becomes more of a reality and I start to panic, I'd appreciate it. Thanks.

So, April 7th - Hill's doctors appointment with the plastic surgeon.  Please add it to your prayer list, if you don't mind.

Thanks!

First Sno Cone Ever

Now that Hill is a bit older and can appreciate something good when he sees it we've decided to introduce him to the finer things in life, like a triple cream extra juice bubble gum sno cone.  I'm pretty sure he gets his mama's addictive personality because once he had the first tate of the sugary goodness it was like baby crack.  I couldn't get it away from him.  See for yourselves.

Hmmm.  Pretty good.

Yes, yes.  I like it a lot.

I need to hold it closer. It's so tasty.

If I stir it then it gets juicier.

Ahhh, Heaven.

I need to feel it's goodness with my hands.

Birds Eye View

Who cares if I have boogers in my nose,
I have a sno cone and life is good.

Wonder what color sno cone he ate?

I tried to get a picture of all four of my babies but Katie wouldn't cooperate.
Foster, Foxy Mama, Hill & Katie Lou

Hill telling Foster how good this stuff is.
Foster is trying to get in on the action.

If you take the straw and put the blue sno cone on the patio it looks like paint and you can color!

Hey.  Did I tell you I love sno cones?

Even though the sno cone is so good it could potentially be bad news.  Makes you look like a little crack head when you go into detox!  Poor fella, we will have to wean him off the sugar next time.

NEVER. EVER. Take a sno cone away from a homeless looking little boy.
That is food in his hair, sno cone everywhere, dirty outfit and untied shoes.