Farmington Christmas/Becky's Wedding

So my sister, Becky, decided to get married on December 17.  I was still 4 weeks from my due date, so my doctor said he was ok with me traveling to Farmington for the wedding.  Mark, Boyd and I packed up for the weekend, where we would spend Friday night at the rehearsal, Saturday at the wedding, and Sunday we had our Boyd Family Christmas.  Talk about a fun-filled and busy weekend!!

My parents had a lot going on (you know...throwing a wedding and all) so we stayed with my brother John, his wife Tracy, and their son Jackson.  Jackson is a year older than Boyd, so I was excited to see them play together.  After the rehearsal dinner, the boys needed to take a bath, so we threw them in together.  I love this picture because it looks like they are in deep conversation.

Boyd with Grandpa Boyd before the wedding.  Those are two sharp-dressed men!!

Our little family before the wedding.  Price is still "in the hopper" as Mark would put it!

Boyd looking cute in women's glasses...boy aren't we proud :)  He's so adorable, though.

This is my handsome father, my beautiful sister, and my handsome nephew walking down the aisle!

Boyd cheesing it up!

He loves sunglasses, let me tell you!  He was wearing daddy's this time.

We took a family picture in front of the Christmas tree in the reception hall.  It was such a pretty wedding!

Here is one of the two of us.  We don't get many of these lately, so I thought I should take advantage of the opportunity while I could.  I guess Price is in this picture, too, but we won't count him.

Boyd and Jackson played so well together, other than the fact that Boyd hugged him every chance he got and they both ended up on the floor most of the time.  Boyd had fun, but I'm not sure Jackson was digging it by the end of the weekend :)

The boys are hugging good-bye.  I think Jackson was kind of excited to see Boyd go.  Boyd could have stayed forever, except that we needed him to get back home to his crib because he figured out how to climb out of his pack and play over the weekend!  We were not too excited about that...

I stole this picture from my sister, Laura, but I thought it was cute.  Boyd wanted to hug Jackson all weekend, and Jackson actually tolerated it much better than I would have thought.  He loved Boyd, too.  How cute are these two cousins?!?

I didn't get many pictures of Christmas, but the wedding took up a big chunk of our weekend.  We had so much fun with the family, and we talked on the way home about how blessed we are to have our family and friends.  I planned on going home and resting until Price made his arrival, but only God knew how soon that would be!!  Instead of four weeks, we only made it two...but that story is for another blog entry!

Christmas Pictures

Our good friend Cindy Hill took our pictures for our Christmas card.  I thought I would share some of my favorite pics from the "photo shoot."  We did it on a whim, and took these pictures after work in Bill and Judy's barn.  All things considered, I thought they turned out cute :)

Boyd and Mark sticking out their tongues!

Thanks Cindy!  I loved them :)

Let's play catch-up!!

Ok I am officially a terrible blogger...I have not updated this for 6 months.  Well, a LOT has happened since then, as you can imagine with a 1 year old!!  Boyd has grown so much and is so big!  I can't possibly come close to catching up on everything, so I chose some pictures and highlight the last 6 months in the Messick household.  I think everything that is not documented by pictures is already forgotten, so hopefully I took pictures of the most important things :)  I will do separate posts for Christmas and Price's birth, so this takes up until then!

Boyd got a new cousin on the Messick side on August 4.  Yates Jonathan Cartwright was born to Jon and Lindsey, and he is so precious.  He definitely looks like a Messick, just like my boys!  I think all three boys will look like brothers.  Here is a picture of Mark and Boyd with Yates.  (Obviously Price has not arrived yet, so he's not able to be in the picture...)

We went to visit Uncle John and Aunt Nancy in Joplin over Labor Day weekend.  It is becoming an annual tradition, which I think is great!  I just loved this picture of Boyd.  There was a Mizzou football game on, so we had to dress him in his football jersey :)  M-I-Z!

Mark sent me this picture at work one day and said "Look at Boyd's first kill!"  I wasn't aware that Boyd had been hunting, but he sure got a good one!  This was actually brought in for some testing done on it, but Boyd got a kick out of it.

Mark was so excited to take Boyd to Farmfest.  There are so many tractors and he knew Boyd would love them.  Boyd LOVES John Deere by the way...he loves riding lawn mowers, push mowers, tractors, toys, clothes, or anything else that has to do with tractors (especially John Deere ones.)  He was so excited and would run from one tractor to another and he wanted to sit on ALL of them :)  It was super cute!

Mark is a huge chocolate fan, so I don't think there is any way that Boyd will not love chocolate, also.  I am not a huge fan of it, but Boyd wants to eat whatever dessert daddy is eating, and Mark shares with him.  I am pretty sure that this is Boyd after he licked the spoon from some brownie batter.  Yummy!

We went to Bass Pro to see Santa.  I went pretty early in the season so I didn't think there would be a big crowd.  I also went at 2:30 on a Tuesday after one of my doctor's appointments because I thought there wouldn't be a line.  Well, we didn't have to wait too long, so I thought that might help Boyd when he got up to see Santa.  As you can see, waiting in line was not the part I should have been worried about!  Boyd was so good with Santa last year and tried to play with his beard, but this year I'm pretty sure he was scared of him!  I think all kids have a phase like this, and I'm sure most parents have a picture of their son/daughter like this with Santa.  It's still very cute, though I wish I could have gotten a smile out of him :)

I found this costume at a garage sale this summer in Farmington, and it was pretty inexpensive, so I thought I would grab it while I could.  I wasn't sure if it was going to fit Boyd or not, but I thought I could always sell it at a garage sale myself, so I bought it.  I wasn't sure if Mark would like it, either, but for the price I couldn't pass it up.  I think Mark was a little hesitant at first because he didn't know what it would look like, but when we put it on Boyd we both thought it was adorable!  He wore his yellow crocs with it and it was perfect! 

We stayed home and handed out candy at our house for Halloween, and Jon and Lindsey came over with Yates.  Judy and KK also came over to help hand out candy and hang out.  Yates was the cow that Boyd wore last year (even though we realized it was a girl costume...oops!!)  They were very cute together.

Grandpa Messick got a new tractor, and let me tell you...Boyd is excited!  His old tractor wasn't bad, but with three new grandsons, he decided he needed to get one with a buddy seat.  It's pretty funny!  Boyd is sitting in the buddy seat in this picture, and I think Grandpa is really excited to have Boyd work on the farm with him.  I think Boyd is equally as excited!

Boyd used to let us read to him a little, but he would get very bored by the end of the book.  Lately, though, he has been wanting to read book after book after book.  We LOVE that he loves books, and sometimes he will want us to read 10 books in a row.  He studies them and definitely has his favorites.  I think this picture is so sweet...daddy is reading a Mizzou book to him.  We are teaching him early!

Mark has a football helmet from Texas Tech that he keeps in our room.  Boyd has found it a few times, and wants to try it on.  He walks around the house with it on, but it makes him VERY top-heavy.  He stumbles a little while walking, and sometimes we have to hold him up while he walks :) It is hilarious to see him, but he is so determined and won't let anyone stop him from trying!  I love that about him (and sometimes I'm frustrated by that about him too...haha)

I can't believe how big Boyd has gotten.  Other than updating about Boyd, Mark and I have just been awaiting the arrival of our next little man, Price Thomas. We are soaking up as much time as we can while Boyd is our only child.

Boyd's Party!

We had Boyd's party about a week after his birthday because of scheduling conflicts, but we got it done!  I was stressed the week before because I wanted my house to be spotless and everything to be perfect, which it never will be!  Oh well!  I also stressed about making the cake because I planned a 3-tier sports cake for my little man.  If you have seen Boyd's 1st birthday pictures that Younique Photography took, he is eating his top layer of cake, which was a baseball.  I thought it would be a good idea to practice before the party.

I didn't want to go "all-out" for his birthday, but I wanted it to be cute and sports-themed.  I decided that I would just get balloons, a banner, and use sports plates and napkins and things (and of course have a sports cake!)  My parents came in town the night before to help me get ready and they were a huge help!  KK was also a huge help cleaning that week!!  Mark was also a huge help the day of the party, but he had to work all week so he didn't get to do much of the before-hand stuff.  He is awesome, though, and cleaned up the entire kitchen after our meal and helped keep me sane :)

(I thought they all deserved a shout out...)

Ok so the party started...we had 26 people in our house, so I was glad that we had screened in our back porch.  It was obviously very hot that day, but we had 3 fans outside and I guess they didn't get too miserable.  Halfway through the party it started raining so that gave us some relief!

So here is a picture of the cake that I stressed about!!  I think it turned out ok, but I was afraid it was going to fall over!  My mom put a dowel rod in the middle to hold it up (thanks mom!)

His birthday cake and banner...

The gifts.  Thank you EVERYONE!

Singing Happy Birthday!  Daddy had to help him blow out his candle :)

He was pretty proper eating his cake...I wish he would just dig in!

I am in love with that cheesy smile, even if his mouth is full of cake :)

He finally got a little messy...I think he was intimidated by everyone watching him!

We got him a John Deere sit and scoot toy and a John Deere push mower, which he tries to get on and ride, also.  We need to teach him how to mow so he can take over for his dad one day!

I think he already knew how to use the T-ball set because Cousin Jackson got TWO at his birthday party a few weeks ago.  Boyd was really excited that he has one now, too :)

I have a TON of pictures from his party, but I didn't want to fill up the entire page, so if you would like to see more I have them on Facebook.  Boyd had a great birthday party and we are SO BLESSED to have such great family and friends that shared his day with him!  We had 26 people in my house (do you see why I was stressed?!?!) but it was wonderful!  Boyd appreciates everyone, even if he doesn't know how to show it yet :)

One month to One year...

It is hard for me to imagine Boyd as a baby, because he seems like such a big boy!  I love looking back on his old pictures and seeing how tiny he was (and seeing his chubby stage, which was about 2-5 months.)  I thought I would do something creative with his one year pictures, like put them in a frame somehow, but for now I thought I would put them on my blog so we can take a trip down memory lane :) 

It is amazing to see the stages he went through and how much he has changed over the year!

This is the first picture of him EVER!  Dr. Lehnert is great and I can't wait for him to deliver Baby #2!!

I still can't believe my baby boy is ONE!  We love you so much!!