Wednesday, January 31, 2007

Playdate, A Getaway, and Sick (Yes, Again!)

last thursday, ben and drew's favorite girlfriends and favorite neighbors, daily and maisey, came over to play for a while. as you can see from the pictures, there was no shortage of huggin and kissin. who knew it began so young??? courtney and chad and michael and i talk often about how we'll have our hands full when they are teenagers!
drew takes a break from mowing the grass with his lawn mower to close his eyes and kiss on maisey!
ben followed dailey around the house the whole time, trying to play with whatever she was playing with. here she's giving him such a sweet, big hug!
and here she is with drew snuggling while watching sesame street. movie date already?any time i DON'T hear lots of noise, i usually just prepare myself for the worst. but the silence this time was because maisey and ben were behind the rocking chair hugging!! it was the cutest thing i've ever seen!!! all day long, i had to keep an eye on them because they kept going back there to get some lovin!the boys look like they are playing with maisey's little piggiesand here are all four of the kiddos after they had sufficiently worn themselves out taking a snack break. they all had such a great time, and their family is one of the biggest blessings we've receieved since moving to spring hill!

then, my mama and daddy came up later that night to take care of the boys so that michael and i could head to the great smokey mountains with our life group for a little getaway!!! it was WONDERFUL! the cabin was amazing, and had a great view! we woke up every morning whenever we wanted to and took our time drinking our coffee...that alone was worth the trip since that never happens at home! we had a ball, and every night at dinner, we didn't have to ask for any highchairs! ahhh, the highlife! :) us girls had our fill of outlet shopping (nevermind that the cashiers know darci and i by name at a particular store!) and the boys had fun racing go carts and playing pool. thank you mimi and pop for taking care of the boys. it was such a blessing to know that they were happy and didn't miss mommy and daddy too much.
here are all the girls before we hit ober gatlinburg. with tara and darci in front of the alpine slide that we didn't get to rideall the boys were such troopers and the grumbling was at a very minimum so that the girls could all be happy and take a cute pictureand here is me with my wonderful hubby in front of the fireplace. it was such a blessing to be able to reconnect with him, be silly, laugh with our friends and make memories that we'll never forget. yes, this lifegroup has meant so much to us over the last two years!

the only thing about the whole weekend that wasn't good was that my sweet babies are now sick again. just fever and yucky noses. that congestion is just no fun! so since we have been back home, the three of us have been constantly in our pj's and not doing much more than snuggling on the couch. which is just fine with me since that's one of my favorite things to do with these loving boys. they are just precious, and i must say that a getaway like this one really makes me appreciate them more and be a better mommy. enjoy the cute pix! we'll post more soon!!


Thursday, January 25, 2007

15 Month Update

okay, this is gonna have to be fast. we went to see Dr. Leeper yesterday for our 15 month checkup, and they are both very very fussy due to shots and a little cold. so, since no one can do anything without fussing, crying and/or being held by mama today i will type quickly!

drew now weighs 18.5 and ben weighs 18.4. i am more than a little bit disheartened since they have both been eating very well lately. they're eating everything i fix for them, including veggies. but dr. leeper said that if it hadn't been for the tummy bug, they would have both weighed closer to 20 pounds. and seriously, my lower back already feels as though they both already weigh much more than that! two steps forward, three steps back i guess. this weight thing is a constant battle in our house, and i just can't seem to make them get any bigger. so, we will be going back for another weight check in about a month. hopefully by then we'll be on the growth charts.

i haven't taken very many pictures this week, so here are a couple that i took a while back and hadn't posted. happy thursday, everyone!

Thursday, January 18, 2007

Great Friends

This past Saturday night our very very good friends Blake and Moriah agreed to come and watch the boys for us so we could go to dinner with our marriage mentor couple from church. It just so happened that our dear friends TJ and Holly were in the states and staying with Blake and Mo and wanted to come spend time witht the boys too! TJ and Holly have been so special to Michael and I, and we miss them terribly now that they are following God's calling and ministering to the street kids in the Dominican Republic. Holly organized and threw my church baby shower for the boys when I was pregnant, and our friendship with them has been such a blessing. So we were thrilled to be leaving the boys in such capable hands, and happy for them to play with 4 grown ups who love them so much. Here are some pictures that TJ and Holly took while we were gone. We had a wonderful time at dinner, but we were glad to come home and spend some good time with great friends into the wee hours of the morning. Thanks, Blake, Moriah, Holly and TJ for taking such wonderful care of our precious boys...they LOVE you (and we do too)!!!



Monday, January 15, 2007

An Apple A Day...

During lunch today, Ben kept going to the countertop, and doing the signs for "ball" and "please" over and over and over, all while making a whiny-grunting sound. Bless his heart, he sounded like it was so urgent, but then again, everything is urgent to a toddler, so I went about what I was doing. I just kept telling him that there wasn't a ball in the kitchen, but if he wanted his ball, he could get it out of the toybox. But the child is persistent, and he kept on. Finally, smart Aunt Britt picked him up and asked if he wanted the apple? They've never eaten an apple without it being cut up into bitesize pieces, so it never occurred to me that he might want to eat it like a big boy. Needless to say, he was all smiles for the next twenty minutes, happy to be eating his "ball" that he had asked for so politely!

Thursday, January 11, 2007

The Bug Bit Us Again

i actually have a real reason for not posting in so long this time: we have had the tummy bug at our house...AGAIN! i don't know why, but if it is out there, we're gonna catch it. so, needless to say i've been more than a little busy.

it started with me, i'm sorry to say. wouldn't you know that we wait to catch these things until michael is out of town. so there i am, sick as a dog and the boys are running around the house while their mama is green. poor boys, but they were angels that day. it was like they knew that they had no other choice but to be perfect. finally i got to the point that i could sip some sprite that my sweet sister had brought to me when she got done teaching and was beginning to feel better. michael flew in just in time to help put the boys to bed, and about an hour after they went to sleep they were BOTH very very sick. ick. i have to say that i am in complete awe of single parents. i couldn't have done it without michael!

but those poor sweet boys just can't seem to shake this thing. we're sticking to a pretty bland diet, and forcing the pedialyte down them. it hasn't been much fun around our house these days. so, i decided to post a few pictures of our recent trip to the park with our best buddies when everyone was happier and feeling great. aren't the hats too cute!? i love 'em! they were a 1st birthday present from uncle dan, who is doing his part to instill a love of the bass pro shops in his nephews!
the boys with paisley...they think she's so cool!ben climbing up the slidewith their buddy brax, who they love to play with! they've been the three amigos since they were just weeks old.

and here are a few random shots of us just being silly together at home. what cheeseballs!

thanks for checking in on us! happy thursday, everyone!!!

Tuesday, January 02, 2007

Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, and All of That Other Good Stuff

Now that the hubbub of the holidays has finally died down a bit and we're back into our day-to-day routine, I wanted to post a few pictures of our time with our families. It was just as wonderful as I expected it would be: great food (and too much of it!), good memories, and the boys got more than they knew what to do with. This year was our year to visit Michael's family in Missouri, and the boys had a great time playing with their cousin, Dresden. We tried really hard to get a picture of the three of them in front of the christmas tree together, but as you can see from the picture, Ben and Drew never stay in the same place for very long. So, this is as good as it got. You may think that this picture didn't quite turn out. But when I saw it, all I could think was "wow, that's exactly how Ben looked while opening his presents! Needless to say, he had a ball and was a whirlwind of motion. True to his personality, Drew had fun opening his presents too, but he was much slower and cautious, taking his time and studying the paper and bows very carefully. In Centralia (Michael's hometown) they have a tradition that I just love. Every christmas morning Santa Claus goes through the whole town riding on the back of the firetruck (complete with lights and sirens!) passing out goodie bags to all of the children that come out to see him. It's really such a neat thing to see all the kiddos running down the street as soon as they hear the sirens getting closer to their house, and even more special as I think about a tradition that Michael had when he was a little boy passed down to our boys. So, of course, we bundled the boys up and took them out to see Santa. Then, when we got back from Missouri we had a couple of days before my parents came up to celebrate christmas and new year's with us. Once again, there were more presents than anybody deserved and we had a great time being together. We were so wrapped up (no pun intended!) in watching the boys with their presents that we really forgot to take very many pictures. But here's one that captures it all. Ben is saying "oooooohh" -- which is one of their two favorite words right now (the other one is "uh-oh") -- at a present that Drew just opened. Everything about watching them during this time was special and really cute. And this is our family picture. We tried to get Reagan in the picture too, but she was much too busy with her own presents to stop and pose.We are so blessed! Not just because of all the stuff, but because we had such wonderful family members to share it with. We hope you all had as great a time with your family and had a fun New Year's too!!!