8 month-aversary

This may never happen again. I'm getting this posted within 24 hours of the baby's 8 month-aversary passing by. Yesterday marked the big 8 months for baby girl, and my oh my she's growing by leaps and bounds. Let's get to it.

Baby girl - you are nothing short of amazing. Your smile lights up a room, your laugh is infectious, and you have this whole family wrapped around your little fingers.

You've had a big month! We celebrated your first Thanksgiving, decorated for your first Christmas, and a handful of other things. You're an official "crawler" now. Last month you were mobile but it was mostly the "army" crawl, now you're up on your hands and knees and on the move. As predicted you're into everything and unstoppable.

Operation "baby-poof" is in full swing. You're also eating mostly solid foods now. You decided it was much more fun to feed yourself than to be fed by mama and daddy. You're an independent little thing...go figure. You're also drinking out of a sippy cup now.

You can get yourself up sitting all own your own. This is one of your favorite ways to sit. To me it doesn't look to comfortable, but hey, you seem happy.

Oh and that thing you're doing with your toes here...you get that from Mama...Daddy can't do it.

You have 7 teeth now. 4 up top and three on bottom.

Excuse the sweet potatoes and cheerios in the mouth, this is apparently the only picture we have that show all your pearly whites. And speaking of teeth, there is nothing you won't chew on. Neither of your brothers were big on finding things and sticking in their mouths...but not you. Socks I think are your favorite. You love to "help" mommy do laundry, and by help I mean grab all the socks and slobber all over them. However, anything you find is fair game - including random berries attached to flowers in the craft store that you grab while in the cart and quickly maneuver into your mouth forcing yours truly to fish it out with the little "hook swipe" method I learned years ago in lifeguard training. You are truly something else - I couldn't love you any more.

You wave to everyone and I swear you are trying to say "bye bye". You've graduated out of your little bathtub now that you're sitting so well and sit in the regular tub. You love to just sit and splash. Wow...you really have been busy this month.

As always we just couldn't love you more and I am cherishing every second I get with you. You're growing up so fast, and before I know it you're going to be a year old. Seems hard to believe. So happy 8 months baby girl...can't wait to see what you come up with next!

7.5 month-aversary

I'm not even going to pretend I got this in even somewhat "on-time". I know I'm usually late with these postings, but this one is just REALLY late. The pictures were taken just a few days after she turned 7 months, it's just been getting them up on the computer - and talking about them. Okay, enough with my sob-story, here we go.

Baby girl, you are now 7 months old and boy oh boy have you been busy. Your biggest news - you are officially on the move!! While your not text-book crawling, you're definitely on the move, and have to be watched at all times.



You also had 2 more teeth come in, giving you a grand total of 5 pearly whites! #6 is about to break through any day now.

You talk ALL the time. Ba ba, da da, ta ta, na na...you get the idea. You just babble all day and can't get enough of being talked to. You LOVE to play peek-a-boo. It's precious. You are still a great eater and have yet to turn anything down.

Now the list includes squash, peas, bananas, avocados, black beans, peaches, pears, crackers, cheerios, even some graham crackers - oh and pumpkin bread!! Yes it appears that mama has loosed up a bit when it comes to the "what babies should eat" timeline. There is no doubt about it - you are a third baby!! Soon we're going to start on some of the meats. You've got the chewing down and are very interested in everything that we are eating. You also figured out how to feed yourself which is cute, but also very messy!

You are hovering right in-between 6-12 and 12-18 month clothes. The 6-12 size is just too short - seems you are getting longer baby girl. You're still in size three diapers. You're a champ at sleeping through the night, and have a (somewhat) regular nap-time schedule.

You love to be out and about - although you don't love being put into your car-seat. Once you are in it you're fine, it's just the buckling part you are not a fan of. You are also not a fan of wearing socks, or you just really love pulling them off...then sticking them in your mouth - silly girl. You still love bouncing in your bouncer, but now that you can move where you want to go, you prefer to be on the floor. You are fascinated with Bella (the family pup) and follow her around constantly. You really like to listen to us read to you. We can't get enough of your laugh. It's the sweetest sound in the world and just melts our hearts.


You are such a precious little girl and a joy to our family. I'm quite certain you know how loved you are because your little face just lights up when you see us. We are all quite smitten with you. We love you a hundred times over baby girl and are so blessed God chose us as your family here on earth!

power hour

I must have set up my auto posts wrong...or didn't get them set up at all. Whatever happened they didn't post. But oh well...I'll get there.

Can I just say that I LOVE this time of year. That one wonderful night when we are given the gift of extra time!! That wonderful extra hour that is given to us. Of course I'll be cursing it in the spring when we have to give it away, but boy oh boy did I enjoy it this AM! For the first time in I don't know how long I got 9 hours of (mostly) uninterrupted sleep. It.was.glorious. Of course I went to bed at an almost embarrassingly early time - but it was worth it.

Last weekend we had the joy of witnessing God's amazing grace as we had our beautiful daughter baptized. Of course she has no idea what this all means yet, but to the hubs and I it was amazing. Words can't really describe what we were feeling, or how much it means to us, and if I tried to do so I would fail miserably. So I'll show a few pictures from the big day and let those do the talking.

"For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone be found boasting. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them." Ephesians 2:8-10

God's grace is a gift that is so overwhelming, so big, so AMAZING. We are so blessed.

Happy Halloween

It will be a miracle if my kids actually fall asleep tonight. Well - I guess they will eventually...when all the sugar wears off and they crash. Just don't know how long that is going to take. I figured I'd blog while waiting for that to happen. Here are my two oldest ready to go get their trick-or-treating on.

Happy Halloween folks!

We have had such a busy weekend, but it's been wonderful - and very "post worthy" so I'll have lots of posts coming at you.

But because I mentioned it in my last post, I'll go ahead and show off my latest project. This is our family command center. I'm pretty happy with the way it turned out.

The calendar portion, is actually a print out that I made and then framed in a big picture frame and I use dry erase markers on it to update it as needed. Then on the bottom left those are little file boxes, but I covered up the kids names for posting reasons. Thats where I put all their school stuff that needs to go back to school, or homework assignments, book orders, etc. Above that is our meal center - I put our meals for the week and shopping list there. Then below the calendar are two magnet boards to show-off artwork and classwork. Our fridge is stainless so magnets don't stick to it, so we needed to come up with another place to have the kids "brag boards".

So there you have it. It was pretty easy to do, and also pretty inexpensive which is a big plus in my book!

Hope you all had a fun Halloween and that there was lots of candy involved!! :)

can't.keep.up

Ever feel like life is flying by and you're just trying to hang on for dear life?? That's been the story of my life for the past few months. Confession time. I don't have it all together. Just in case I ever gave off the impression that I did (which is unlikely) I want to be honest. I'm SO not there.

I'm working on it. I finally got my "command center" for the house put together. It's a spot on a wall in our kitchen, that has everything from our family calendar, to meal plans, to artwork displays on it. It turned out really cute by the way - and it's really helped me keep everything organized. I'll try to grab a pic later. Right now I'm just glad to be sittin' down, and catchin' up with you folks.

So what is making these days fly by? Nothing too crazy, just life in general. We are so blessed to have all these wonderful things going on, but wow. I have so many wonderful posts to get up here, so I'm going to start at the beginning as they say and go from there. Don't worry - I'll break it up into different posts. I think if I did it all in one you all would run away crying and never come back!

So, let's get started. Two weeks ago we all participated in our areas local Race for the Cure. I try to do this event every year. Not only is it always fun, but it's a great way to raise some money for a wonderful cause. Thanks to all of you who donated to our goal this year. I'm happy to announce that we met our goal, which is AWESOME!!

The boys and I both raced this year. I did the 5K and the boys did the warrior dashes. Here is the little one all ready to head out to the race! As you can see she's ready to cheer on Mama and Brothers!

Next year they said they want to do the 1 mile, so it looks like I'll be doing the 5K and then a 1 miler with the boys. I think it's great they want to be involved in such a great activity.

Such a good time. AND just as a little note: I beat my best 5K time by 7 seconds!! Whoo Hoo I'll take it! My goal is to one day get my time down under 27 min - I'm so close, but it's going to take some work. Work that right now I'm not very motivated to do. I adore running, but these days it's all about quiet runs with the jogger and my baby girl enjoying the beautiful fall weather...not so much about "speed".

So, I'm going to wrap this one up for now. I know there really wasn't much to this post, but there will be another one in a day or so. I'm going to go write it now, but I'll just keep you in suspense as to when it will be posted. Oh yes, I'm sneaky like that. Hope you have a fabulous weekend, and if you're doing the trick-or-treatin' thing have fun and be safe!!!

Lucky 7

As I mentioned in my last post we had a pretty big event not too long ago. My oldest, who I typically refer to as the "big kid" turned SEVEN years old. First off can we stop for a second and absorb that...I.have.a.seven.year.old. What??!?!! It seems to have FLOWN by.

So to my big kid, happy belated buddy. We had a great day, I made his favorite (cinnamon rolls) for breakfast, opened presents, and had a celebration dinner at his favorite place, played games, watched movies - overall it was a great day.



Daddy was out to sea for the big day, so we waited until he got back to do our BIG family fun day - which was a trip to Busch Gardens. Thanks to the military appreciation day, the tickets were "on the house" - BONUS. I love a deal. The kids had a blast and our big kid rode every ride that he was tall enough to get on, which at 52" is a good amount. I took him on his first big roller-coaster ride which was a great moment for me. Growing up my parents always took us to theme parks every year, and I remember going on all the roller-coasters with them. Such great memories still - glad to (hopefully) pass those on to my kiddos.


He's having a party later in the month with some of his friends. We had to make sure the hubs would be around before we planned anything, so for him this is more like a birthday month, but as you imagined he's not complaining.

In his seven years he has already done so much, and I can't believe how grown up he seems these days. So, to my big kid once again...happy big 7 dude!!!

6 month-aversary

Yes yes, late posting again as usual. But at this point, I've posted all of these about a week late so really I'm right on time. At least that's what I'm going with.

Baby girl: I can't believe you are 1/2 a year old! My oh my how time flies. First things first. Your doctor appointment went great. You are 19 lbs and 27 inches, which keeps you in the 90th percentile. You did great with your shots, and the doctor said you were just "perfect"and doing all the things a 6 month old baby should be doing. Being that you are 19 pounds its no surprise that you love food.
You've been eating all sorts of new foods, so far you love everything we've given you. Some of your new foods are apples, sweet potatoes, peas, green beans, squash and bananas...oh and you love to "eat" apples. Really you just slobber all over them, but you're happy doing it.

You wear size 6-12 month clothes and are still wearing the size three diapers. Last week you had another tooth break through (top/front/left). I can't believe how fast you are growing and changing. You are still the happiest baby in the world and give smiles to all. You are such a joy and daddy and I just can't get enough of your sweet smiles. This is one of our favorite faces.

And this one as well...

You can hold yourself up now when sitting, and you want to move so badly.

I see you crawling in the near future. When that happens there will be no stopping you. You are determined to be able to keep up with your big brothers. You still LOVE your bouncer seat and I'd say it's your most favorite past time (other than being loved on). You also seem to really like going for a run with mama. After we drop the boys off at school we take off for a few miles. Mommy goes on foot and you take in the scenery from the jogging stroller. Usually you fall asleep sometime along the way, but while you are awake you just babble away. That's another thing - you talk ALL THE TIME. All sorts of new sounds. It seems like every day you come up with something new. I love it.
Thankfully you are still sleeping through the night just fine. You go to bed around 7:30 and wake up about the same time as your brothers (6am) which is fine with me because I'm already up. You greet me with a big old smile and we get our day going. As I already mentioned, you like to go running, bounce, eat and play with your brothers. Now that I think about it...if that's how I spent my day, I'd be a really happy baby too! That's all for this month girlie. As always we love you more than you could ever imagine and are blessed to have you in our life!!

That about wraps up this month. More posts to come, because we had another big milestone here - big kid turned SEVEN!!! Pictures and stories to come!! We also have this guy back.

Don't worry - we made him shave the goofy 'stash shortly after he got home.

field trip love

Oh boy are we in trouble. We have always joked that our little "munchkin" (middle son) will be quite the heart breaker when he grows up. There is just something behind those blue eyes and that sweet grin.
Let me back up.

Wednesday I was lucky enough to join my munchkin's class on their first field trip. We went to the zoo. Running around with a class full of 4 year olds was quite the adventure to say the least, but it was such a good time! I love getting an "inside" view of my kids in their school environment. It's so fun to watch them interact with the other students and to hear the teachers stories. Not surprisingly there were some pretty good ones when it came to my little guy. He has a way of winning over anyone he meets.

It was while I was observing all this that I noticed M&M (my name for the cute couple).

These two followed each other around the entire zoo, never more than a few feet apart. They ohhed and ahhed over snakes, searched for the tigers, watched tortoises eat some lunch, even enjoyed a post-zoo snack together.


It.was.adorable. Her mom was there as well and we just watched and laughed at the sweetness of it all. Ahh...young love.

rained out

Well, I started this post on Friday - so if part of it sounds off, that would be why. I am sorry to report that there are no soccer pictures, not a one. This would be do to the fact that there was no soccer - so (this time) it wasn't me slacking on the job! It rained.all.weekend. No joke. I don't think it ever stopped on Saturday. And, this weekend has been just the same so far. I feel like we might need to locate an ark!

The kids and I still managed to have a good weekend, even with the downpour going on outside. Here are a few shots, just hanging around the house. Ignore the mess, but they were just so cute all playing - little sister was LOVING being included with big brothers.

I tell you what, this week - last week - seemed to drag on. It hasn't been bad, just long. Monday was an absolutely perfect day - which works out well because it happened to be my birthday. The weather was AMAZING - just imagine the perfect fall day and you would be there. I went to lunch with my beautiful daughter and not only was my sandwich free (rewards points put to good use) BUT it was free brownie day to boot for rewards members...talk about a great birthday lunch. Free always makes it taste better I think! Then we went shopping until it was time to pick up the boys. They were super sweet to mama as well and gave me dozens of birthday hugs and kisses. The only thing that would have made it better was if the hubs was here to celebrate with me. But he did have these delivered - such a thoughtful guy.

The rest of the week was been pretty low key. Sadly the fall weather was just a one day deal, the next day was hot and humid again, and the rain is back. But I sure am thankful for that one day.

Last night I got a sitter for the boys and baby G and I went to have a girls night in with some of the wives from the boat. It was my first time really hanging out with them, so it was nice to get to know them a little better. The ones that were there were real sweet gals. I'm glad I went. Oh, and I took these bad boys...WARNING they are dangerous!! Like you can't eat just one (or five) dangerous. If you check them out, get ready to drool...I'm just saying.

With that I'm off to bed...or at least get myself headed in that direction. Catch ya later.

quick update

What a wonderful day!! We had some cooler weather move in and it was amazing! I took baby girl on a run with the jogger after dropping the boys off, and could have run forever, but we stopped after 4 miles to meet up with a friend for coffee. :)

Sorry I haven't been around much. No real reason for that other than I was just busy soaking up all the family time we could manage in the few moments the hubby was home with us. Well that and going to soccer practices, dr. apts, bible study, play-dates, etc.

So I guess we have been a tad busy, but with (mostly) good stuff. Lots of stuff started this week, and I'm very excited about it. The boys both started soccer - always a good time. They have their first games tomorrow! My bible study started up this week as well. Can I just say how much I LOVE CBS!! If you've never heard of it, it's "Community Bible Study" and they have groups all over the country. Check it out and see if there is one near you, I promise you won't be disappointed. I'm so blessed to be near a group again and can't wait to see what the Lord has in store for us this year.

Crazy as it sounds, the boys had their first FULL week of school this week. Between holidays and hurricanes every week has missed a Monday up until this week. I took full advantage of my time while they were at school to get things done, so that when they got home I could have some fun time with them.

My oh-so-big four year old had his check up (complete with 4 shots and a squirt up the nose of flu mist) and did FAN-TAS-TIC!! He was a champ about the shots and he's growing just fine. 75% for height and 50% for weight. He's a healthy happy kiddo. The soon-to-be 7 year old had his check up today, and checked out AOK as well. He's still TALL - 90%. Thankfully no shots today!

They are growing up so fast

Tomorrow is soccer and then I think we are going to settle in early, get the baby off to bed, and then the boys and I are going to have a movie night. Complete with popcorn and "party soda" (that's what the boys call pop). Should be a fabulous time. Hope you all have a mighty fine weekend. I'll try to post some soccer pics before Monday rolls around.

toot toot

Hey folks!! I hope you are all enjoying your Labor Day weekend.

Yesterday was a big day for me. I ran my first post-baby race, a 1/2 marathon no less, and it was fabulous. I ran the VA Beach Rock 'N' Roll Half. I've never ran any of the RNR series before and really enjoyed it. There are bands all along the course, which is thankfully very flat, and a lot of other entertainment from the spectators. We finished up along the boardwalk at the beach. If you ask me, there isn't a better place to run than along the water.

I ran, I finished, I am ecstatic!! I didn't break any PR's, or even come close, but I had such a great time, and finished feeling so blessed! Blessed that I have the ability TO run and blessed that I had my family there to cheer me on.

Family pic after the race. There is one missing...you will see why below. And yes, those are porta-pottys behind us. Scenic photo spot it's not, but a good picture all the same!

Me and one of my biggest fans

I'm proud that I was able to finish 13.1 miles just 5 months after having a baby via c-section with minimal training, the hubs gone for most of it, and only one double digit run. And I'm happy that this morning I'm still able to walk. If this all sounds like I'm tooting my own horn a bit, well you're probably right...TOOT TOOT!!

I also got to spend some time with some of our good friends from GA that were also running the race, and even spent the first 8 miles running with one of them. It's nice to have some company when you're spending 2 hours out of the road.

Me with Johnathan and Marc

And a HUGE THANK YOU and I LOVE YOU to my hubs, parents and kiddos. They are always there for me to support me and I am so thankful. It was an EARLY morning (everyone up before 5am) and they were all troopers and didn't complain one bit. Although there was one that didn't make it to see me cross the finish...

Poor kid...he was just plum worn out. And finally, just because this picture makes me giggle. The little one taking her bottle from Daddy...on the back of a beer truck no less - classy I tell ya!

Sometimes that's just how we roll around here. With that I am off.

5 month-aversary

Can it be?? My little girl is now 5 months old??

Baby Girl: You had a very eventful 4th month of life, but first things first. You are in 6-9/12 month clothes and your size 3 diapers. I don't know how long you are or how much you weigh, but I can tell you have gotten longer because it's time to raise up the seat in your favorite new place...
You LOVE LOVE LOVE to bounce. Especially when your brothers stand next to you and jump while you do it. You laugh and giggle until you give yourself the hiccups. It's adorable.

You have worked through your cereals (rice, barley, and oatmeal) and so far have loved it all. Soon we will start introducing veggies! Yum. You still sleep through the night and are starting to take a (somewhat) predictable nap in the afternoon. Such a blessing for mama!!

You also had not one, but TWO teeth pop through a few weeks ago. They are so cute, but mama has to be careful before she lets you chew on my fingers!

Can you find my teeth??

You are still just the happiest little thing. You are so social and love to be around people. You smile at anyone who talks with you and are just such a joy to us!! You also still love baths, stories, and grabbing your toes! This is your new favorite thing to do, and you work to grab them wherever you are.

Happy Baby

You took another road trip this month, however this one was not planned. There was an earthquake (small - but present all the same) and a hurricane all in the same week!! My oh my. Mama decided to head out of Irene's way, so we packed up the car and drove down to stay with Grams and Papa's until the storm passed. It was a long trip for just a few days, but we had a good time. You went swimming and got lots of sugars from your grams and papa.

That wraps things up for this month. You are just so much fun, we can't get enough. We love you to the moon and back sweet little girl!!