Last-minute stocking stuffer ideas

For the toddler:

• Gift tags so he can re-tag all the presents as his. He’s going to open them all anyway and yell “Mine,” so capitalize on it. 
• Enough candy to bribe your way through Christmas morning tantrums.
• A hundred tiny crappy dollar store toys that the toddler will love leaving on the floor and you’ll have to pry out of the babies hands and mouth until 2020 when you give up and throw them all away.

For the baby:

• Let the toddler fill the baby’s stocking. Any trash, cast-off toys and choking hazards that come from the big sibling are the only thing that will make her happy.
• Cheerios. Just dump the box in there. Any that spill will just join the layer of them already coating the floor. 
• Saline spray because the snot never ends, not even on Christmas.

For dad:

• Anything that's also for you: chocolate, coffee, jewelry
• Anything from your grocery list: toilet paper, mac and cheese, kids vitamins
• Gas X
• No grooming products or he'll continue to age better than you.

For mom:

• Wrinkle cream
• Depuffing gel
• Dry shampoo
• A to-do list for Christmas morning so she doesn’t forget all the balls she has in the air while the rest of the house enjoys the magic she created.

Champaign trip

My mom and I visited my sister and nephew up in Illinois last week. After a rocky start (thanks, American Airlines), we had a great time. We spent one rainy day in Chicago so I could try on wedding dresses at J. Crew(!) and then stayed at Amy's house in Champaign. 

So you know what that means: Jonas pictures! Dude's huge!

Cuddling!

Mom and Amy making me dinner. Meijer's grocery store has some awesome produce (and Halloween costumes!)

Jonas hugged his new Halloween costume all the way home, even after falling asleep.

Looks like his dad here.

Amy (in the striped socks on the left) had roller derby practice while we were there. It looks hard! We had to leave early to put Jonas to bed, but I doubt she even fell unless it was on purpose!

Tiger!

Mom and son

I have lots of first birthday photos to share (mostly of the cake eating part), but I wanted to start with this one. I just love it!

A little bit more

Listen. There are going to be a lot of photos from the baby's first birthday, so I'm just preparing you for the upcoming picture overload. It's for your own good, really. So here are more Jonas photos...

Guess whose birthday is Friday!

This guy's. 

One more baby tasting a lemon

But this one's a special one! I visited the family a couple weekends ago and we fed Jonas his first citrus. And he loved it! He kept bringing my dad's hand back to his mouth so he could have more. He barely even made a face, but here it is.

And of course, some non-lemon photos because he's just too cute (and too big) to ignore.

Guilty.

Lured over by the iPhone.

Disadvantages of having a nephew

I came home for Thanksgiving today while my mom was still at work. My sister and Jonas came over (because they missed me so much, not because I begged them or anything) to hang out, and even though my mom sees Jonas all the time, she walked right past me when she came home and went to cuddle him. I guess I can't blame her; he's A LOT cuter than me.

He's so big!

Will and I went up to DFW a couple weekends ago for the State Fair and, of course, to hang out with this little guy. He's basically a grown-up now, you know, minus the whole walking and talking and making a living components. Couldn't  you just eat his little face? Don't even get me started on his chubby thighs. 

Jonas loves funny faces, and we both agree that Will's is pretty hilarious.

My dad and J matched with their green shirts and bald heads. It was adorable.

Jonas post!

My nephew Jonas is just too cute not to have another blog post dedicated to him. I went up to DFW a couple weekends ago to visit and got to spend some time with the kid.  Don't you just want to snuggle him?

Boy meets girl

Joe and Libby met at a USO event. For their first date, they met in downtown Little Rock and decided to go to a talkie. Ok, I don't know if they're old enough to call them talkies, but it's more nostalgic and whimsical if I imagine that they did.

 I think it's a little funny that they took this picture themselves. We've obviously gotten better at it over the years.

They had some ice cream, went to the movie and had a great time.

But, unknown to Daddy Joe, Mimi was supposed to meet her dad in the shoe department of a department store at 4 p.m. They got out of the movie after 5, so Mimi decided to take Daddy Joe to meet her father...on their first date....when her dad's probably already mad. He's a brave man, my grandfather.

Luckily, Mimi's dad didn't get mad but had just been very worried. And Daddy Joe must've made a good first impression. He told me, "I guess I did okay since I got a hunting dog named after me!"

Joe, Jr.

They were married in February 1946.

G.I. Joe

Today is Daddy Joe's 88th birthday! I can't imagine all he's seen. 

So in honor of his birthday (and because I love these photos), here he is in his Army days. I think most of these were taken in the Philippines somewhere around 1946.

"Muscle Man Moore" was written on the back of this photo.

No big deal, just playing with a machete.

"Joe and his 'gal pals'" on the back of this photo, in my grandma's handwriting. I wonder if she was jealous.

Happy birthday, Daddy Joe. I bet you've got another 88 in you.

Happy Father's Day

Happy Father's Day to my favorite dad! The one who taught me to be generous, argumentative, quick-witted and strong.

The photo that comes up when he calls. Good motivation to talk to him.

Skipping work

That's a fine head of hair, right? I can't get over it.

Several summers in a row during grade school, Daddy Joe's family managed church camp at Petit Jean Mountain outside Little Rock, Arkansas. Joe, his brothers and sisters had KP duty, general cleaning and odd jobs around the camp to help out.

One time Joe decided to skip out on his work and took a shortcut through the woods to take a dip in a swimming hole. But on his merry way, he stepped on a black snake. The idea kind of gives me the shivers (or maybe it's this cold Starbucks, but either way, I'm creeped out). Luckily, the snake had its mouth full of rabbit at the time. And Daddy Joe never skipped out of that chore again. 

I'm seeing a common theme here with my grandparents: avoiding work, shortcuts through woods, snakes. Meant to be, I guess.

Daddy Joe

My grandpa, whom we call Daddy Joe, is the son of a preacher man and is one of six children in his family. I just wanted to post a couple current pictures so when I post the old ones, you have something to compare them to. Spoiler: he had lots of hair!

Probably 5 or 6 years ago

At Amy's wedding 2.5 years ago

Hunting dogs

My grandma must've had a lot of boyfriends, because her dad had a pack of hunting dogs named after them. A whole pack! I wonder how that made the boys feel.

Sweet sleeper

Jonas turned a month old a couple days ago and he's as cute as ever. Especially when he's sleeping and not crying.

Driving her dad's truck

Do our feet get bigger with each generation? Because mine are twice that size.

Mimi learned to drive her dad's truck when she was 13 or 14. He'd put her behind the wheel and let her drive loads of strawberries to the market. It was a dirt road with deep ruts so all she had to do was stay in the ruts, kind of like those cars at Six Flags.

Then when she was a little older, her dad let her drive the truck to town with a girl friend. They, being silly girls, took a shortcut through the woods and ran over a sapling tree. It got stuck between the truck and bumper so it couldn't move. Lucky for her, there just happened to be an axe in the back of the pickup so she chopped the sapling down (I would've loved to see that), got the truck loose and went on her way.

A couple months later, one of her brothers got married and took the truck. They got a flat tire and he couldn't figure out what had caused it; there was a strange angled slash in the tire. So she confessed. I probably would've just let the mystery go unsolved.

Horseback riding

Now that I've scanned a few old photos of Mimi and Daddy Joe (and several more wrong that I'll have to rescan), I thought I'd get back to some of their stories. This one is short and sweet. In fact, I'm mostly into this post for the photo. Wasn't everyone just so much cuter back then?

This is Mimi and a few friends (I guess) around 1945. She's the second from the left.

When Mimi was little, she learned how to ride a horse bareback, but she was only allowed to do it in the backyard. There was one major problem, though: the clothesline. It didn't matter what she did, she couldn't keep the horse from going under the clothesline and knocking her off. I don't know if it's just because she's my grandmother, but for some reason, imagining this kind of makes me laugh. Or maybe I'm just mean. 

Mean big brothers

In addition to not liking to do our chores, Mimi and I also had mean older brothers in common. But like a lot of other things, mean brothers just aren't what they used to be. My brother used to try out wrestling moves on me and freak me out by hooking cicada skins on my clothes. Mimi's were a lot more cruel. One of Mimi's brothers threw her in a lake or something when she was little and she was scared of water the rest of her life.

The other wrapped a dead one of these around her leg:

I guess I'll take a cicada skin over a king snake any day.

Image from donjd2 on flickr.

Mimi's stories

When I was cleaning out my room last week I found some notes from a school project that I don't really remember. For whatever this project was, I had interviewed my grandparents, Mimi and Daddy Joe, about their lives. So I thought I'd share some of their stories from when they were young in a few blog posts!

Mimi's human name was Margaret Elizabeth but she went by Libby. She passed away about 4 years ago so I'm glad I still have these stories written down about her. Slobby habits come through for me again!

Libby grew up on a strawberry and cotton farm in Arkansas. Her dad was a widower with 2 boys who married a woman named Minnie Mae and they had my grandma.

When she was young, everyone had to help out in the fields, even sweet little girls like her. But one day she didn't want to work (she was supposed to weed the cotton), so she just pulled up as many cotton plants as she did weeds and her dad sent her home. Now, I don't know how long this strategy worked before she got in trouble, but that sounds like my kind of girl.