cute conversations

a few weeks ago during a thunderstorm Jack was getting a little alarmed by all the noise. To calm him down I told him that when I was little I liked to think that all that noise were the angels bowling in heaven and making a strike! Each time we would hear a big BOOM we would say "STRIKE!" A few weeks later during another storm I said "Do you think an angel is making a strike?" and he replied, "Nope, POPS is making a strike!" Way to go Pops!
While we were at the beach the water was too cold to swim very much, but the one day that it was tolerable I took Jack out. I knew that if it was SOO cold on my legs, that it would be REALLY cold on his whole body, so I carried him into the water. He held me tight and said "Awww, Mommie, this is like cuddling in the water!" Melt. My. Heart!
That same day he and I were floating on a raft together in the water. Because I didnt want to get any colder by getting in the water I asked Daddy to be our taxi and haul us away from the people who were fishing. Jack thought it was funny to call Daddy a taxi and he later when Daddy had had enough of the cold Jack decided to enlist Uncle Daniel's help in hauling us around by saying "Uncle Daniel, Daddy is a taxi and YOU are a pick up truck!" I guess that agreed with him because he helped us float too!

a nice day for a walk

This is another picture that's been hanging out on my phone for a while and I can't remember if it's on the blog...so here it is again.

I've finally figured out a way to go on walks with the 2 boys without Wesley freaking out...to have them FACING each other. Wesley just LOVES getting to see me AND his favorite big brother! That's all the entertainment he needs...along with some cereal puffs. On this walk I happened upon a cup of Jack's crackers in the car, so I snagged them for him to snack on...but didnt grab anything for Wesley to snack on...and BOY did he let me know what he thought about THAT! Whoohoo! He did NOT appreciate brother snacking without him! Thankfully Jack (for the most part) was in a sharing mood and gave some crackers to Wesley...he even broke them into little pieces so Wesley could eat them.

With 90+ temps this week I sure wish I had taken more walks before now!

pizza picnic

I took this picture a few weeks ago and I honestly cant remember if I posted it here on the blog or not, but I cant find it on an earlier post, so here it is!

At a consignment sale I found this great "beach tent" that I've used many times for the boys to be shaded while I work in the garden....although now that Wesley's more mobile this might not work as well anymore! :)

This day Wesley was napping during lunchtime, and since the weather was so gorgeous outside Jack and I decided to take our pizza outside for a picnic. Time alone with this little guy (when I'm not running around trying to get something done around the house) is so rare, and it's special times like this that make me realize that the laundry and dishes can wait just a little longer.

mothers day out program!

I'm so glad to finally have these on the blog! As I have mentioned before, while we were at the beach our camera decided to give up the ghost...which was tragic for many reasons, one of which was Jack's upcoming end of the year mothers day out program. Our last day in FL was on a Thursday, and Jack's program was THAT NIGHT! We drove as fast as the law would allow, stopping only once for lunch and once for gas, and according to the gps we were going to be about 5 minutes late for the program! I was seriously stressing and debating whether we should even go at all if we couldnt see him perform....but we made it with about 1 minute and a half to spare!!! YAY!!

I was SO proud of how well Jack did during his program. Unfortuantely Josh's phone wont zoom while taking a video, so it's a little hard to tell what's going on in the video...but I can tell you that Jack is pretty much in the middle of the frame and he is very focused on doing all the movements just right...and I think in one of the videos he somehow ended up a step or 2 in front of the other kids, so he was pretty much front and center. I was so proud of our little performer! Knowing who his mommie and daddy are, who would have guessed that he would BLOSSOM on stage like this!!?!?!

my little tiger

Is it too early to start training for the pga tour?

sooooo big!

He's started pulling up and even doing some cruising around some furniture! I am SO impatient to get a new camera so I can post video of all these exciting new developments!

wierd

the other day Jack was busy coloring with his crayola color wonder markers when we suddenly noticed it got REALLY QUIET in his room. Josh went in to investigate and found Jack curled up sound asleep in the floor. It was wierd enough to find him sound asleep in the middle of the day (I hope the color wonder markers arent putting off some wierd odor or something that made his woozy), but then we found that most of his markers were open and each time he shifted in his sleep the markers would end up rubbing on his body....all over his body! The pictures dont do justice to all the funny random places we found markers....even the bottom his feet!

Date night with Mommie

Daddy had a dinner meeting, so the boys and I had a date night. I wanted to go eat at a place that Daddy doesn't like, so given his in general aversion to pasta...we went to FAZOLIS! I asked Jack if he wanted hamburgers (steak and shake) or noodles (fazolis) and he replied "PIZZA"...good thing Fazolis has that too!The boys were SO good! They were extremely well behaved and ate their food well....as you can see!

They got several compliments as well, with always makes me feel good!

I just love his chipmunk cheeks when he eats!

I gotta be honest, I was really excited to eat at Fazolis, and it's just NOT as tasty as it used to be...at least the meals with "meat sauce"....really quite gross! I may have an aversion there now too...except their breadsticks are still DELISH!

Seeing how well behaved these boys can be in public makes me realize that I really shouldnt be nervous about getting out with them...I mean it's not exactly EASY or SMOOTH to haul around a 22+ pound chunker, plus keeping tabs on a curious 3 year old, but I'm discovering that it can still be fun! Man, I love these boys!

outside fun!

What a beautiful day! The forecast for the whole week calls for "scattered/isolated showers" so I determined that we would get outside today while we had the chance! Jack has been begging me for weeks to get out his "fun bucket" which is a container with fun crafty activities. I keep putting him off because there was always something to do and planning for our beach trip, etc. But today I was ready to do something fun too, so we settled on constructing and decorating some foamy airplanes. They dont really fly very well, but I convinced him that it would be even more fun to fly them from the top of the playset! At least they might stay airborne a few miliseconds longer!

asking me how to hold it and throw it

the crash, uh I mean landing sites

see Mommie, this is how you do it!

Wesley doing his impression of an airplane!

and playing on his hand-me-down playset
I hope he forgives me for putting him in that girly looking hat and then taking his picture, but it's BLUE and it has a velcro strap that Mr Grabby cant take off and toss....I'd imagine that he'd be more upset about a sunburned noggin!

we capped off the fun by eating a lunch up in the playset!

Wesley is 11 months old!

 Happy 11 months Wesley! I had to take these pictures with my cell phone because our digital camera is DEAD! Which also means no videos either, and there is a lot I want to video like that he is CRAWLING!! Army crawling actually, but he has definitely learned that he has the ability to move himself around, and he likes it! Josh was awesome this weekend and helped clean the 2 busiest rooms of the house, picking up clutter and running the vacuum so that our little human vacuum doesnt find harmful tidbits to put into his mouth! So far he is slow enough that we havent had to declare our bedroom or Jack's bedroom off limits, but that may soon have to happen. Keeping the house babyproof is going to be SOOO much harder this time around! He's also gotten SO cute about giving kisses...I'm kicking myself that I haven't gotten a video of that yet...it makes my heart so happy! Today he also started playing WITH me...not just with the toys that I put in front of him, but actually WITH me...it was really cute. Now if only big brother and baby brother can figure out how to play TOGETHER, we will be in good shape!
He is eating like a champ...I'm beginning to wonder if one of the few ways he is like his brother is that he doesnt seem to have a gag reflex. Both boys are experts at shoving as much food into their mouths as they can, and miraculously they dont choke to death. I'm trying to figure out how to get them to slow down! Wesley is getting much better at signing at mealtime...he's really good at "more" (as long as its HIS idea to do it) and I think he's learning "all done" and he definitely knows "hi/bye-bye"...I'm trying to decide which one to teach next.
His sleeping has gotten better during the day...he will take at least one long nap during the day, most of the time. He goes to sleep around the same time as Jack, around 8 or 830pm and will usually awaken between 8 and 9.....EXCEPT while on vacation when it was around 630!!!! grrr!Sleeping during the night at home seems ok, he still wakes up and cries during the night a few times a week, but will put himself back to sleep fairly quickly.
He's such a blessing! There isnt a day that goes by when I am not overcome with thankfulness for him and his life! I can't believe that in 4 short weeks he will be a year old! I know of another little boy who was born a day or 2 later than Wesley and his mom was commenting about being in "full on party mode" and I feel terrible because I have barely thought about it...mainly because June is a CRAZY BUSY month for our family...just look at all we have in JUNE: 2nd-10th anniversary, 10th-my birthday AND Auntie Rachel's due date, 18th-Papa John's Birthday, 19th-Amy's Birthday, 21st Rachel's birthday, 22nd Wesley's birthday, with Father's day falling in there someday too and potentially a MOPS planning retreat too....it's just craziness!! I'm hoping to plan a small family party either the weekend before or after his birthday...my poor boys....both born in our busiest months of the year....December and JUNE!

Seagrove Beach 2011

Last week we got to go to our favorite beach, Seagrove with Granny Ruthie, Mzee and Uncle Daniel. The weather was a bit cold for most of the days, but the last day the weather was GLORIOUS! Unfortunately I dont have any pictures from that last day because my camera apparently doesnt appreciate having sand dumped on it...so it stopped working. We tried taking pictures with Josh's phone, which takes pretty good pictures and videos...but for some reason we cant get the pictures off that either! GRRRR! I know a new camera isnt a NEED, bit it's an extremely strong WANT....EXTREMELY STRONG...so hopefully that will happen soon and we will have more pictures up here soon! In the meantime, enjoy! Granny Ruthie is supposed to be sending me pictures of our beachside photo session soon too. 

first time playing in the sand



Big brother loved the sand too!

building sand castles was his favorite part!

love that face!

more sand fun!

crazy har from the sand, water and sunscreen

eating sand....yummy!

and more sand...

buried up to his knees

Jack took a picture

pseudo-naptime on the beach...in the wind...

snuggle beach baby

burying my feet

my boys

dipping in their toes

snuggling in the chilly wind

the wind was quite chilly on several days

more sand castles with daddy

snuggle baby

snuggling with Granny Ruthie

is that SAND in your camera?

another deep hole

buried up to his waist

he thought it was fun

on a family walk

oh these boys, I love them so...

beautiful boy, beautiful water

sweet boys

no, dont toss me in!

yet another deep hole!

We are so thankful to have gotten to go to the beach this year. It was very different to go with TWO kids than with one kid or no kids...and BOY will I be happy when my sweet Wesley sleeps better...when he slept bad, so did we! AUGH! Above all the food was good, the beach was beautiful and the family time was super fun! I'm so glad we got to go!