Ho, ho, ho, Merry Christmas!

When you ask Caden what Santa says - he responds with a "ho, ho, ho" and something that sounds a little like Merry Christmas :).

Well, some of you may have noticed that the blog looks a little different. I figured it was time for a change, a new year's resolution of some sort, out with the old, in with the new...okay, you get the point. I've also figured out a few new tricks...like making pictures bigger. No, I do not aspire to be a professional blogger, so don't think there will be too many other tricks...maybe next year's resolution.

We had a great Christmas. For the first time ever, we spent Christmas Eve night at our house. I'm not going to lie and say that it wasn't a little weird. In some aspects, it was kind of lonely, but I am glad that Caden got to wake up at his own house and maybe next year, he will start to appreciate that Santa comes to his house.

This year was definitely the first year that Caden started to get things. What a difference a year makes! He doesn't fully understand the whole Santa thing, but he FULLY understands the whole present opening thing. He kept saying "My present", "My turn", etc.

We opened all of the presents on Christmas Eve from family, mommy and daddy, etc. (except for Santa since he doesn't come until later that night).

From 2010_12_24

From Drop Box

Then, we left our homemade blueberry cookies and milk for Santa Clause on his special plate!

From 2010_12_24

Then, oh my gosh, Caden got more presents from Santa!

From 2010_12_24

From 2010_12_24

Then we packed up and headed over to Panama City to see Grammie, Pops, Mimi, Uncle Todd, Aunt Carly, Brody, and Wade! And guess what, more presents! Caden is sure one lucky boy! Now, we have to go through all of his old toys and give those away!

From 2010_12_25

From 2010_12_25

From 2010_12_25

From 2010_12_25

From 2010_12_25

Quick family photo...

From 2010_12_25

He's getting a little better at sharing....

From 2010_12_28

From 2010_12_28

Some of Caden's new things are telling us "No, I no want it"...to just about everything. Or you ask him where something is and he tells you "right there". He also got a few sports games for Christmas and when he hits the ball or gets the bean bag on the target, he throws both of his hands up in the air and yells "I did it"!

Funny boy...He also loves to sing songs now...I'll try to catch it on video. It's hilarious...he sings and throws his arms out. He says and does the darndest things these days. He got some bath finger paints from Santa, so I drew a line on the side of the tub with them and he said "nake, momma, nake"! (Snake)

He definitely knows more than we give him credit for sometimes. I picked him up from school on Monday and I told him we were going home and he said...Daddy...I said, yes, Daddy will be there...he said Mimi...I said, no, Mimi had to go home (she stayed with us the night before). Then he looked at me, cocked his said and said Mimi are you. When he can't find one of us at home, that's what he goes around saying, Daddy, are you, Mommy, are you?

And here's one last blog trick for you...

From Collages

We're headed to see Nana, Aunt Jen, Uncle Albert, Andrew, and Kaley tomorrow!

Thanksgiving...just in the nick of time before Christmas

Well, well, we have been so busy with the holidays. Christmas parties, going to see Christmas lights, shopping, etc. that I haven't had time to post Thanksgiving!

Right before Thanksgiving, we had some family visitors come to town. First up, Uncle Ryan and Aunt AJ, our newly-weds, came to town for the Clemson-FSU game. Little did we know that Aunt AJ was a closet Clemson fan...but never fear, FSU was triumphant over those Tigers! Before they got to town, Caden and I were practicing saying their names. He was so cute and so excited to see them...well after his 20 minutes of warming up that he needs with all new people :).



Then, literally, within hours of Uncle Ryan and Aunt AJ getting on the road, Nana came to visit. This was quite a feat! This was Nana's first time driving herself up here. She did great and now she can come see us whenever she wants! Nana played and played with Caden. They built roads out of blocks, they lined up his trucks, and of course, read books!



Aunt Kathy sent some very cool sunglasses with Nana for Caden...



We went down to Palm Harbor (near Clearwater (near Tampa)) with Grammie to spend Thanksgiving with Mi-mi, Caden's great-grandmother. Little did we know but Mi-mi said this was her first time cooking a thanksgiving meal in all of her 83 years. She did a great job! And I contributed with some of my family favorites - squash casserole and corn pie. Thanksgiving is not the same to me without squash casserole...

It was so nice outside that we decided to have thanksgiving in the driveway :).




Caden loved playing in Mi-mi's driveway/yard. It was so nice outside that we spent most of our time there!



Caden drove Mi-mi around...



Just kidding...he still just loves to hang out in the car.

And Mi-mi gave him all of the ice cream he could handle





He loved to go visit Mi-mi's ducks behind her house...




Thanks for having us, Mi-mi! We'll come back soon!

When we got back, we had to start getting ready for Christmas...he's very helpful these days.






In other news, we are making little to no progress on the potty training front. M and m's evidently don't have the appeal they once did. Caden loves Christmas lights. We go drive around to look at them and I would say they're on "Caden's side" or on "Mommy's side", and now he tells us where they are. He started saying Daddy's side the other night when Scott was driving home from dinner. He has started to want to pick out his own clothes...I didn't think this was coming so soon...He tells me that he doesn't like the pants that I pull out of his drawer and then pulls the pair he wants out. And those are just a few of the new things he is doing now. He seems to have something new everyday and we are loving every minute of it!

Family news...we put our house on the market right before Thanksgiving! We are hoping to finally build on our lot that we have had for five years, so everyone keep your fingers crossed that we get a great offer on our house. We have had two showings so far, which is apparently good. 2011 will be a great year for the Harrell family!

Happy Halloween

I was always knew that my knight in shining armor would show up one day...oh wait, he did about 6 years ago, and we got married, and had the cutest kid in the world! But here's my new one...







Caden had a party at his school for halloween. All of the kiddies paraded out in their costumes and then they had activities like making caramel apples, painting pumpkin plates, etc. They were all so cute.







We also headed over to celebrate Cole Garber's 3rd birthday and the biggest task...trying to line up all of the kids to take a group picture. Note that Caden is standing away from everyone...I told him not to move, and he didn't...good boy!




Also, Caden had never really had candy before Halloween and now he will mow you down to get to some M&Ms. I guess I need to keep a bag around the house for bribery. He loved skittles, too...

What's been happening...

Sorry for the delay in posts, but we have had internet problems at the house and I just finally fixed them (knock on some wood)...because if they aren't fixed, I will be throwing the wireless router out the window soon. Anyways...

Since the last post, Caden got a haircut in the big boy airplane chair! (I feel like I have to call everything "big boy" lately as to distinguish Caden from the babies that he sees.) He usually just sits in my lap to get a haircut, but we decided to see if he would brave it in the airplane chair alone! This is also about his 10th haircut!



Another day, Caden and I were at home and I was vaccumming. I turned it off to go do something and this is what I found...



His daddy cleans out the vaccum all of the time (he says that Riley and I shed too much and stop the brushes from spinning), so Caden flipped the vaccum over and started pulling hair from the vaccum, ran to the trashcan to throw it away and kept going back for more...too cute. I just love him!

We went to Mule Day, a craft show/festival in South Georgia. Caden LOVED the ponies. Actually loved is an understatement, he did not want to get off of the ponies and did not want to leave them at mule day. It took a bribe with a funnel cake to get him off of the pony...and that was a powdered sugar mess!




And of course before we left, we held a furry chicken and pet a pig!




Then Caden had the best seat in the house to look at the parade...on top of daddy's shoulders. He just smiled and layed his head on daddy's. It just melted my heart..



Also, since the last post, Caden had tubes put in his ears. He was so brave! I think mommy and daddy were more nervous than Caden! He waved good bye to us and went back with the nurses to the OR. Daddy barely had time to go get us coffee before the Doctor was coming back to tell us the surgery was done and everything went well! It was just sad to see our little boy drunk off of the anesthesia. He was very grumpy when he woke up and only wanted to be held like a baby.

He and daddy watched some YouTube videos on our iPad before surgery...



Mommy felt so bad that he couldn't eat after midnight before his surgery, that I took him to TCBY. He loved it. He did not let his TCBY out of his eyesight!



The tubes have really made an improvement in Caden's speech and he talks so much more lately! Poor baby was retaining fluid in his ears even when he wasn't sick.

In other big news, Caden started escaping his crib...we would see this little shadow in the doorway to our room a few times a night just standing there...So, we had to convert his crib to a toddler bed (or big boy bed as we call it). It took a few weeks, but he now knows that he has to stay in his bed when he goes to sleep. I guess I could also blame my lack of blogposting on my lack of sleep there for a few weeks...

He's getting too big, too fast :(.

Shirlene Jones

In the words of my mother...Shirlene came into our lives 37 years ago when Jennifer was just 1 and she worked for our family for 17 years. She was a sweet, kind, and gentle person. She became one of our family in no time at all. She played Monopoly, Go Fish, built towers out of blocks, cars out of lego, pitched baseballs, dressed baby dolls, had tea parties and most importantly taught many lessons about life everyday that she was with us.

She called us her second family. There are not too many of my childhood memories that do not have Shirlene in them. She is part of the person that I am today.

Shirlene passed away last Friday from lung cancer. She will be dearly missed by all of us. Thank you Shirlene for all of the love you gave us and I hope that we meant as much to you as you meant to us.

I'm so glad that you got to meet your "grandchild", Caden before you left this world...I only wish we could have visited more often.

Ryan and Angela (AJ) 's wedding!

Here's the post for Ryan and AJ's wedding!!!

Unfortunately, I was pretty busy chasing Caden, getting ready for the wedding, etc., that I didn't get many pictures of the actual wedding. But here are a few...

AJ patiently waiting for the wedding to start and not looking too nervous either!

Nicholas, the ring bearer in his cute little grey suit...



AJ and Suzanne, the maid of honor (and my roommate in Savannah :))



I'll post a link for everyone to the photographer's blog when she gets the pictures up...since I didn't get very many

Here are a few that my Aunt Kathy took...

The guys heading to the church!



And here is my big shout out to Grace Murphy...our savior before and during the wedding! Grace is one of the groomsman's (Brian) girlfriends and offered to let Caden nap while Scott and I went to the church with the rest of the wedding party. She got him dressed, even put his carseat in her car and brought him to the wedding and then stayed outside with him during the ceremony so he didn't disrupt anything...Thank you, Grace!

Here are some pictures of Grace and Caden loading up to head to the church!





Mom and Ryan...



AJ and her Dad...



Then some pictures from after the wedding!

The Johnson kids...I swear we're all related...

Candy and Cheryl...
AJ and Ryan with Delaine and Pudge Guettler. They came all the way from Fort Pierce to see their "other" son get married. Ryan was at their house during a lot of his high school years...
Mr. and Mrs. Ryan Andrew Johnson...
Aunt Jane and my cousin, Mary Jane...
Ryan with his old teammates from C of C...
Ryan and me...
Scott and Allie :).
Robert, Scott, and Albert...
The Johnson girls minus AJ...

Page (MJ's husband), Mary Jane, and Scott...
The Johnson girls minus Candy...
Fun times were had by all. Congratulations to Ryan and AJ! We are so glad to have AJ as a part of our family and wish them nothing but the best! It was great to see all of our family at the wedding (some we have not seen in years!)and we've had conversations that we cannot let this much time go by again without seeing each other.