Thanksgiving 2009

Let me begin with telling you how much I LOVE Thanksgiving!! I love the simplicity of it as well as all the traditions and the slow pace! I LOVE family and being with family! I love the weather around Thanksgiving time. I love the food we prepare. I love most of all taking the extra time to reflect on and share what you are most thankful for each year. I love how my heart always seems fuller when Thanksgiving time rolls around. Now let me be clear that I am always sure to count my blessings daily and tell those I love how much they mean to me, but somehow I become more sentimental around this time of year. I also find it hard to believe that society rushes right past this occasion and wants to skip right on to Christmas (which I deeply love as well). I feel myself wanting to fight for Thanksgiving to have its time and place! Taking time to remember the 1st Thanksgiving and what it taught is important to me, but the most important is taking time to just BE THANKFUL for everything in your life and to SLOW DOWN!! I love Thanksgiving!!









So, to catch up on the Justiss Family.....



Our Thanksgiving 2009 was spent here at home with Maggie, Granddaddy, Holden and Hunter. I was just tickled that they were able to come down and spend quality time with us! They came down a few days early to spend time with William and Mommy while Philip was at work. There is just something about having my parents with me that makes my heart burst. I love family! Somewhere over the years a tradition started with the Thanksgiving cooking. The more I got into cooking, my mother so generously let me step in and cook along side my daddy. Daddy used to always make the cornbread dressing, but he handed it off to me a few years ago (I think without us even realizing it!) I still love the way my Moma makes the peas and butter beans taste JUST LIKE my grandmother's so I beg her to do those! Daddy makes the sweet potato casserole and I make the dressing (from scratch) and the chicken and dumplins (from scratch) and the scalloped corn and together we make the squash casserole, green-bean casserole and brown rice while Philip does his carrots as well as the turkey and gravy.

Well... this year, I was not my total "healthy" self and my brother picked up on it, so he quickly came in and wanted me to teach him how to do the dressing and the dumplins (which are my favorite). I was a bit shocked at the ease I talked him through the recipe and remember thinking to myself that this was one of the blessings of the year...the interest Hunter was showing in the family recipes! Holden even jumped in and helped with the dumplins b/c they looked like fun rolling out and cutting :)



Right before the blessing each year, our family tradition is to hold hands and form a circle and individually share what we are most thankful for that year. The waterworks always follow. It is touching to hear everyones heart.



I love more than anything that William is being raised in a home with loving parents who both value family as much as we do. Philip's family has their special traditions as well and it is always fun to share in them when we are with them on special holidays. I am so blessed to have a loving family that supports us as parents in raising William!



Back to the story :) We spent one day just hanging out at Pier Park with Maggie and Granddaddy when they first arrived in town. William had a blast! He loved Granddaddy pushing the stroller and had a blast on the merry-go-round with him! It was so sweet watching my Daddy (who's an army man and tough as nails) enjoy the merry-go-round with his grandson! I can't put into words my feelings of watching William with his grandparents (either my parents or Philip's). My heart is always so full of excitement as I watch him interact! What a blessing! I am so thankful for family!!



As a girl who LOVES to shop, another one of my favorite traditions that follows Thanksgiving is the shopping day on Friday!! For as many years as I can remember, Moma and I have got up in the wee early hours to drive to B'ham for the day to shop, shop, shop!! It's a day of shopping with my mother I love! Just us 2! This year, we got up extra early and headed over to Pier Park to shop! We have done the B'ham trip since William was born, but that's okay. We will get back to it eventually. Pier Park was perfect this year! We giggled and had the best time! It's just us girls!! We did cut our day short to get home in time so we could see the iron bowl (or rather keep William entertained so Philip could watch most of the game). I was very sad with the game this year, but there's always next year!!



After my parents left, we had a quiet night at home. It was a perfect ending to a wonderful Thanksgiving! William had a blast with Maggie and Granddaddy, but I could sense his enjoyment of just the time with the 3 of us. He's a family oriented child. He loves to be with Mommy and Daddy and is happy at home. He is great at entertaining himself when he needs alone time. I love to watch him when he does this. It is mesmerizing to watch his little imagination take off when he's independently playing. He'll talk about whatever family was here and ask for them to come back and want to call them to talk, but he'll also quietly drift off into his alone-time and unwind :)



Hope you enjoyed my recap of Thanksgiving! I am trying to catch up on our life! Just stick with me!!

WPJ's first Peanut Festival Fair and Parade

If you know anything about being from Southeast Alabama (Dothan to be exact), then you know how big the Peanut Festival is!! It's a tradition! I couldn't wait to share this with William! It finally worked out for us to take William to the fair and the parade this year!

As we entered the gates to the fair, William quickly discovered all the lights and the sounds and he was sooooo excited!! He kept pointing to the Ferris Wheel and saying "look, a big circle" He was amazed at all the sights and sounds! I couldn't capture enough of his little face! He even tried a peanut :) Maggie and Holden met us out there for the big night. We all had a blast enjoying William's 1st trip to the fair. His favorite was the merry-go-round, so we rode it several times. He was the sweetest little one out there! I'm so happy to have the memories of his first Peanut Festival Fair!

Better than the fair is the Peanut Parade! It's another wonderful tradition! I have memories of going as a child as well as marching in the parade. It goes right downtown Dothan. The best is the truck that comes and scatters the peanuts! That's when everyone runs out and scoops up some peanuts to enjoy during the parade! I was like a kid in a candy store waiting for the truck to come by so William could experience this! At first, he stayed on my hip and just watched, but after a little while, he was ready to pick his on peanuts! He was so cute picking up little handfuls with his chubby little hands! He was a great parade watcher! He enjoyed the bands and the floats. Poppi, Maggie and Holden were with us and helped capture the memories. William especially loved all the attention he was getting! Maggie even introduced cotton candy to him :) Poppi had a blast waving at everyone with William.

I hope this is a tradition that continues through the years! I just love the Peanut Festival! I love the memories of William's 1st experience at both!

(well, we did take him to the parade last year, but he was only 1 year and didn't quite understand everything, but nonetheless, we have pictures from that trip too!)

Enjoy the pictures!!

A few more cute moments of life with a 2 year old...

Lemon Face

Tower Man

Just some fun videos to catch up on...enjoy!!

William loves "Tigger and Pooh" on Disney! He loves to sing along...

Enjoying the birthday cake a few days after his party :)

A 2 year old's Pumpkin Patch and Halloween Adventures

A Pumpkin Patch and a 2 year old equals endless fun! This year we took William to the Seaside Stables Pumpkin Patch. Of course I had him dressed in his adorable blue jean overalls and wearing his daddy's childhood cowboy boots. He looked just so cute running around checking out all the pumpkins! As we pulled up, he noticed all the horses in the pasture and started talking about them and calling out to them. He told them we were going to the "punkin patch". He was so excited! Once we walked around the barn and he saw all the pumpkins scattered around, he squealed and took off to check them all out and pick up a few. He loved rolling them around. He loved climbing on the big ones and sitting on the tall ones. He loved collecting the small ones. He loved counting them. He loved the pumpkins! We walked around and looked at so many pumpkins and had a blast. He again noticed the horses and wanted to go over and pet them...until we got close...then he pulled back and said "no horsey get you". He clung to us with such a tight grip, but, still a smile. Philip showed him how to feed the horses and William laughed and laughed. I somehow convinced him to walk over with me to the set-up for pictures and managed to get some cute pumpkin patch pictures before he found the bouncy house. He was so cute bouncing around in there. After he finally tired of the bouncing, he was ready to pick our pumpkin and head on home. We also made a quick stop by the Butler Elementary Pumpkin Patch to check it out for later. He was in heaven with all the pumpkins here! He had the best time crawling in and out of the clusters of pumpkins. It was a task getting him to leave, but it was getting dark and cold. We reminded him we had a huge pumpkin in the car and it was going home with us...which he quickly smiled and said "it's William's punkin".



A few days later we made another quick trip to the pumpkin patch with our friends (Jillian, Jackson and Scott). We wanted to get some cute pictures of the kids together with all the pumpkins. It was a fun afternoon for the kids. William was in his own little world picking up all the pumpkins and carrying them around the patch.




Our next adventure with pumpkins was our night of carving the pumpkin. What a blast that night was! William was so excited to be out on the porch with us and his big pumpkin...until he realized daddy was cutting into the pumpkin. It took him a little while to figure out what Daddy was doing. He didn't like the pumpkin guts, but found something to do with the chunks. He quickly grabbed his dump truck and loaded the chunks up for ride. He also wanted to put the chunks back into the pumpkin like it was a puzzle. He loved the shapes on the face. He loved the pumpkin and ended up having a great time helping with the pumpkin. It was a super cute memory and a special night as a family :) We enjoy just spending time together and enjoying life with William. His innocence and excitement for life is so catching and we often find ourselves lost in time just hanging out together. Once we added the candle, William really took to the pumpkin. He had a great time blowing the candle out and then having us re-light it to do all over again.



For weeks after Halloween he talked about his pumpkin with the "wight" and the shapes on the face. He really took to Mr. Pumpkin this year!

As Halloween crept up on us, we decided William would be a "black eyed P" from the book Chicka chicka, Boom boom. He loves this story and has gotten good at "reading" it with us. He loves to call out the letters and at the time the "black eyed P" was apparently his favorite. I sewed the letter "P" on a solid white shirt and dressed him in his boots, blue jeans and new shirt. Next I painted his left eye with black face paint and we had our little "black eyed P"! He was just the cutest little trick-or-treater ever (in my opinion!)

Our friends, Heather and Eddie Cowen, were hosting a big block Halloween party so we went over to their neighborhood to trick-or-treat before heading down to their house. Their neighborhood was wrapped up with trick-or-treaters and all the houses were decorated and waiting with candy. It took William only one house to figure out what was going on, and he had a blast! He would walk up and knock on the door and say "Twick-Tweat" and then a big "Tank-you" after he received his candy. He was just too cute!! Philip and I took turns walking up to the doors with him, enjoying the moment. After we'd visited all the houses, we walked on over to the party. Heather had her house and backyard decorated just perfect! The kids played all over the back yard and snacked on kid friendly snacks. She had arranged a Chili cook-off for the adults. Philip entered his famous chili, of course!! We had such a great night! As the night wrapped up, all the votes were in and the winner was announced...Philip won!! I was tickled! I love his cooking and was so happy for him!! We did stop by my dear friend Tamara's house on our way home to visit. She had some yummy Halloween cookies for William, which he loved! It was a great ending to a fun-filled Halloween! And, of course we had to burn the candle in our pumpkin for several more nights for our little boy! Like I said, his excitement for life is so catching!! Life is great!

William in Videos

Some fun videos of William from October 2009.

Lots of fun memories...just wanted to share!

WPJ's 2nd Birthday Party! (Oct. 17, 2009)

How time flies! I still find myself watching my baby boy and getting lost in him and asking myself how 2 years went by so fast...how did William change so much from that sweet little bundle so tiny and perfect into my sweet "all boy" and perfect 2 year old!

Boy! The past 2 years have been so wonderful! So full of adventure and so full of life! I love celebrating. I love throwing parties and having friends and family over to celebrate with us, so it's only natural that I wanted to throw William a birthday party!!! I began planning this party around July...his birthday was in October :) I love planning things and wanted it to be perfect! William has fallen in love with farm animals so I felt it only fitting that his 2nd birthday be all about the farm! I found myself lost in the possibilities of his 2nd birthday! I insisted on creating the invitations by hand and making all the cute little extras for his party myself. The invitations were my favorite (until the day of the party and I saw the cake). I printed off the wording and created little barns as the invites. Each barn was trimmed in the straw raffia while the hayloft and barn doors (that opened) were traced in white chalk. The little saying behind the barn doors read...

Oink, oink, baa, baa

Neigh, neigh, Moooo

WPJ is turning 2!

After the invitations were made and mailed, my next project was the cake! I love birthday cakes!! They make me smile! I had in my mind and sketched on paper what I wanted the cake to look like and off to Publix I went. They totally outdid my expectations!! The cake was a quarter sheet cake decorated vertically instead of horizontally. They created a barn, complete with a hayloft and doors and included a pasture so I could add little farm animals! They also added the wooden fence along the sides and gave me pieces of a fence to stand up around the pasture and animals.

The words were...

Happy Birthday

WPJ is 2!

***Can you tell I love to call him by his initials?? There is just something so perfect and fitting to me to call him his initials. But his nickname that we call him is by far my favorite :) ***

The day of the party arrived and I had planned all the food to be themed around

farm food for animals...

Pig Slop (Banana Pudding)

Hay bales (Rice Crispy Squares)

Oats (Coco Puffs and Cheerios)

Chicken Feed (Pretzels, popcorn, raisins, Chex squares)

and just for the farmer...Tractor Wheels (Ritz Crackers)

I made little signs and stuck them to large craft sticks that labeled each food item. I stood the little signs up in mason jars filled with sand (which I thought was too cute). I found some burlap fabric and some red checkerboard hand towels that I used to decorate the main food table. All the drinks were in large metal washtubs. I had streamers of red, white, blue, yellow and green all over the fence, staircase banisters, chairs and tables and added balloons to the birthday chair. Uncle Hunter blew up several balloons and hung them from the table edges, tree limbs, fence posts, the swing and the hammock. To get everything decorated, I relied on the help from Mimi, Maggie, Uncle Hunter, Uncle Holden, Granddaddy and Papa! My daddy brought down tables and chairs for the party and set them up just so for me...I had him rearrange them I don't know how many times, but he did it! Mimi, Whitney and Holden taped down the tablecloths for me while Maggie and Poppi played with William inside. Philip made a barn from some plywood for me. He cut out the windows and barn doors to create a beanbag tossing area. I had our rocking horse and borrowed a friend's so the kids could "ride horses" in the pasture. I wanted to focus on William's favorite things, so I printed off some farm animal pictures so the kids could paint. We had sheep, pigs, horses, cows, roosters, ducks and barns to paint. I also had the wagon out back for the kids to ride in across the "pasture" like a hayride.

I can remember thinking to myself how I couldn't take it all in...how I wanted to remember this special day and how everyone came to celebrate my little boy! I was so happy and full of love that I was on cloud nine! Again, I LOVE PARTIES AND LOVE TO CELEBRATE!! I had all my cameras handed off to friends who were dubbed picture duty for me. I am so thankful to those friends who captured the day for me on video and in pictures!! Yes, sometimes I can get carried away, but that's me and I wanted William to have a perfect little afternoon party that he can look back on and say was his special day. I realize he was only turning 2 and some may say he won't remember it, but I will! I also know that he was so happy to have his little friends over and our family over and somehow I knew he knew it was for him! That makes me happy!!

As we sang Happy Birthday to him he just stood there in the chair holding his hands and smiling at everyone and leaning into me...for a moment, I forget everyone was there except for our little family of 3...I could not quit smiling and kept looking from William to Philip and thanking God for this moment! I also want to take a minute to thank Philip for understanding my heart and helping me throw such a perfect party!! William loved his cake and was so fascinated that it had his farm animals on it! He didn't want to put them down! He actually wanted them on his piece he was eating! How cute... Maggie helped him with his cake and snacks, which was wonderful!! She makes things so fun!

Next, we gathered all the kids to open presents. I loved how my Poppi (who's 83) sat up there with me to help! He was having such a great time helping! He would shake the bags and wiggle the tissue to get the kids excited and we let all the kids help out. William would open one and go over and sit to play with it while the kids opened others. They all seemed excited and happy to show William what each gift was. I loved this! I loved seeing all the excitement on everyone's face and watching William discover all the gifts. I especially loved it when I opened some books from Maggie and Granddaddy and he stopped what he was doing, climbed in my lap and insisted on reading them! He loves books and I love books so we spend a lot of time reading together!! When we "opened" the gift from Papa and Mimi he was mesmerized!! They gave him a beautiful art easel!! It is chalkboard on one side and dry erase on the other. It also has a paper roll that can be rolled down for the little artist! William quickly discovered what he could do and wanted to paint, paint, paint!! I know he will enjoy this gift for a while yet to come! The last big gift was from Maggie and Granddaddy. They gave him the Cozy Coupe car!! His eyes lit up when he saw the bright red car on the side of the box!! He wanted to put it together right then!! All the kids pitched in to help build the car and had a blast with all the pieces! William kept saying "Car, Moma! Car"!! I couldn't wait for it to be put together!!

As the party ended, I handed out the little party favor bags, appropriately colored either barn red or denim blue, which I filled with William's favorites...crayons, bubbles, M&M's and sidewalk chalk. It was fun watching the kids as they carried their little bags and farm pictures and listening to William tell everyone bye as they left.

So to wrap up the afternoon, it was perfect in my eyes. I loved celebrating William's 2nd birthday! Thanks for everyone who came and made the afternoon so special and so memorable! We wrapped up the night just hanging out at the house watching football and eating pizza. The guys (Poppi, Granddaddy, Hunter, Holden, Papa and Philip) all enjoyed oysters on the front porch. I loved having that moment captured in pictures! William thought he was a big boy and wanted to be right in the middle of it all! How perfect!