Family Lake Trip!

We went to Lake Martin last week with my mom's side of the family and had a blast! It was gorgeous everyday and we enjoyed everyone being together. We also rented a boat and tube, so we got to go out on the water everyday, which was a lot of fun!

View from our condo

Jack helping Daddy drive

Jack's not so sure about his lifejacket

Bath time!

Daddy pulling Mommy behind the boat

Jack pushing around the cooler

Close-up of Jack!

Mommy tubing and trying to be a daredevil!

Daddy tubing

Look at those P90X arms!

All of us after eating at Niffer's

Jake and Jack

Enjoying a boat ride

Swimming in the pool at the condo. Jack and I were in a "Mommy and me" float and he loved it! He stayed in it for over an hour!

All in our orange and blue!

Mama Becky, Daddy Mer, and all 4 grandkids

Our little family

Family picture on the boat

Just chilling on the boat

Heading to Chuck's Marina for lunch

Eating pizza at Chuck's

Sweet Jack was exhausted and fell asleep on the boat!

Thanks so much to Mama Becky and Daddy Mer for such a fun and memorable trip! We had a great time and we appreciate all you did to make it such a great vacation! We love y'all very much!

Daddy's so funny...

4th of July!

Jack had a great 4th of July celebration! It was actually his second 4th celebration, but he was only a week old last year, so I'm sure he doesn't remember much.

We started the day off at church, then that night went to Trussville to their 4th of July celebration. They had a bunch of games for kids, vendors with food and snacks, and live music playing. They even had a great fireworks display at 9! Jack had a blast the whole time, and even loved the fireworks!

Eating some mac n cheese

Playing with the hand sanitizer

Pitching a fit for us :-)

Walking around with Mommy

Family photo

Having some of our smoothie and drinking through a straw!

Climbing on Daddy

Watching the fireworks

First Beach Trip!

Last week we went down to Destin with my family, and this was Jack's first trip to the beach! When we walked out on the water for the first time he was almost giddy at the sight and sounds of it! He loved being right up on it and even sometimes in it. :-)

First steps on the beach

He's so happy about being out on the beach!

Jack and Blakely

Sweet brown eyes

All 4 kids ready to go eat at The Back Porch!

The Branches are ready too!

Jack, Daddy, and Jake. We all went out on the beach for pictures after dinner.

Mama and Jack

Daddy and Jack

Our first family picture on the beach

The cutest 4 kids ever! Blakely's face is cracking me up!

Papa and Sherbo with the grandkids

Playing with bubbles on the beach

He loved when the water came up to his feet!

Beach buddies

Playing in the water with Daddy

Building a sand castle

He's very excited about it!

Napping on the beach after Sherbo walked around with him by the ocean! A real live sound machine! Sweet boy!

Jack and Daddy playing and splashing in the pool

Jack's first carousel ride with Papa and Sherbo at the Baytowne Wharf

We had such a blast being down at the beach with our family. Jack loved playing with his cousins and his Papa and Sherbo. We loved introducing Jack to so many new and fun things and are thankful for these first memories! Thanks to Papa and Sherbo for allowing us to go!

First Haircut

Jack got his first haircut last week! He has been needing a haircut for months now, but we wanted to wait until he was a year old. We went to this cute kids salon in Patton Creek called Sweet and Sassy, and Miss Paige did a great job! He looked so big in his cape and he was so good and sweet the whole time! I did give him some licks of a sucker, too, to distract him, so that helped. His hair looked so cute afterwards and he now has a big boy haircut! :-)

Before shot! His hair was so long!

He looked so big sitting there with that cape on him!

This was before the end of the sucker came off in his mouth! That was a little scary, but we got it out before he swallowed it!

Sweet Miss Paige

After shot! Much better!

Here is a cute video of his haircut to show proof of how good he was! He even started singing to the music playing in the background! :-)

Jack Likes to Move it, Move it...

Speaking of Jack dancing a lot lately, here is proof!

If the video is too small on your screen, click the "arrows" button on the bottom right and it will make it full screen. Enjoy! :-)

12 Month Check-Up

Jack had his 12 month check-up last week and everything turned out great! He weighed 24 lbs 3 oz, was 31" long, and his head circumference was 19 1/4". Just to show how much he has grown, when he was first born, he weighed 7 lbs 12 oz, was 19 3/4" long, and his head circumference was 14"! Such a big boy! He had to get 3 shots, but only cried for a few seconds, and actually a little more than mama this time, so I guess I'm improving too! :-) The doctor was very impressed by how well he was doing, especially since he was pointing around to everything and "talking" the whole time we were there!

More updates on what Jack is doing now... He is crawling around and pulling up on everything still, and getting a little more fearless each day! He has started to pull himself up to a standing position without holding on to anything, but falls down after about 5 seconds. He has taken a couple of steps (towards his froggy he was trying to get!), but is still very careful about letting go, so he's not ready to walk just yet. He loves walking behind his push walker and could do that all day! There is a cute video of him doing that on our Qik page at http://qik.com/megbranch/videos.

He's also saying a bunch of words like "ball", "bottle", "more", "pup pup", and "mama". We know he's trying to say more, but it comes out babbling! :-) He's also pointing well, as mentioned before, and he's started doing the motions to "Itsy Bitsy Spider" with us while we do it! It's so cute! He's also dancing (while holding on to something), and doing "Touchdown Auburn" by holding his hands up over his head! :-)

He just keeps growing and developing so well, and we are so proud of him! We still can't believe he's a year old! We are so blessed to have such a wonderful growing boy!