Beach Birthday

I couldnt ask for a better way to celebrate! 

I even got to celebrate with some of my fave family from out of state! 

At one point I was sitting alone with these two while the rest of the crew were at the water when a random woman came up and asked me if they were twins.   I was said, "NO WAY!  They're just cousins."   She kind of gave me a weird look and then went on her way.  The thought of having twins freaks me out! :)
After the beach we came home and Missy made pizza which was so yummy!  Then we had a delicious chocolate cake that Jed made and delicious brownies that Joy made.  I was in chocolate heaven!  I think the highlight of the day though was when Evan and Seth sang happy birthday to me.  It was so cute, Seth kept singing, "Happy Birthday to MOMMY!"  I just wanted to squeeze him. 

6 Months

Here are some of the things our little guy enjoys doing,

Hanging out with his big brothers.

Going for walks and just being outside in general.

Sleeping in mommy and daddy's bed.

Swinging.

Bathtime. 

Being naked.  Take this kids diaper off and he is a happy boy! :)
Some other things he really likes that I dont have pictures of are:
The dogs.  He laughs when they walk/run by and he loves to feel their fur.
To be tickled.
Being on his tummy and spinning in a circle over and over again, trying to crawl. 
Sucking his thumb or his fingers.
His carseat.
And of course being held! 
I cant believe he's half way to 1 yrs old! 

Lunch Time Convo

Me:  "Boys do you know who is coming to visit in 2 days?"
Evan: "I dont know." 
Seth continues to suck his thumb uninterested.
Me: "Guess!"
Evan: "Yay, Sethy, Guess is coming, Guess is coming!"  Bouncing in his seat, clasping his hands in front of him, with a huge smile on his face! 
Me: "No Evan, you have to guess."  While laughing.
Evan: "Guess who?" Confused but still very excited.
Me: "Hmmm, how do I explain the concept of guessing to a 4 year old?" 
Evan:  "I dont know."
Me: "Ok, can you tell me who you think is coming to visit us in two days?" 
Seth & Evan: "Guess!"
Me: "Nope."
Evan: "Joy!"
Me: "Not Joy."
Seth: "JUDAH!"
Me: "Yes! And?"
Evan: "Gigi, Tiernan, baby Siwas, Uncwe Ben, and Aunt Cici!"
Me: "Yes!"
Evan and Seth celebrate while eating their sandwiches!

On Tuesday Seth woke up sick, he had puked all over his bed and the floor, YUCK!  So he spent most of the day laying around the house with a bowl next to him.  He was such a good patient, right before he would get sick he'd yell out for me and I would come, hold the bowl for him and he didnt make a mess at all!  The thing that was cracking me up was that everytime he would get sick, Evan would stand there watching and start dry heaving all while trying to encourage Seth that he was going to be ok, "Seth, its ok, *yack*, dont worry Sethy!"  I finally had to tell Evan to go in the other room!  He such a good big brother!  Anyway, yesterday Seth was fine, back to his usual self and this morning he was great and then he started to get sleepy and cranky and "sick".  I think he really liked all the attention on Tuesday so he's acting sick.  He got himself a blanket, a pillow and a bowl and curls up on the couch, its so cute!  "Mommy my tummy hurts." He says it so pathetically while rubbing his tummy but if you offer him a cookie or to go outside he's all of a sudden perfectly healthy. :)
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Park Pics

Going for a walk.

"Let me give you a push baby Kane!"

His second time in a swing (the first was this weekend but I forgot the camera) and he loved it!
Interesting info on St. Patty's day, http://theresurgence.com/Vintage_Saints_Saint_Patrick_Part_1 check it out.

Swapping

I've joined this thing called Swap Tree.  I've traded two books now and its pretty cool!  Thanks to the recommendation of my friend Katie, this came in the mail yesterday:

I'm really looking forward to reading it!  Go sign up and get swappin!  Also if you have any book recommendations I'm always looking for new stuff to read. 

So check out what Kane learned to do yesterday!

Yup up on all fours!  He's going to be off and crawling in no time! 

Congratulations to my friend Chaeli who recently had her first son, Brennan!  I'm so happy for you, Chae!  I'm looking forward to watching him grow up via blogging. :)

Goodbye Aunt Becky

After a year and a half of trying to convince my youngest sister to move to Florida Tracy and I finally persuaded her in January!  So Becky drove herself down here and got to work on finding a job, well things didnt go as planned.  Instead of finding a job in Florida she found a job with Norwegian Cruise Lines in Hawaii!  NCL held open interviews in Orlando in Febuary and Becky went because the idea of working in Hawaii sounded pretty amazing and she got hired!  I have to say that while I'm sad that it will take her away from us, I'm still really excited for her!  She'll be bussing tables at first but there's tons of room to move up in the company, they'll pay for her to go to college and she gets to see Hawaii!  Oh and they offer family discounts but really I'm excited for Becky, not the future cruise I'm going to go on. :)  Anyway, she has to get a few things in order before she heads off to Hawaii for her first 4 month term "at sea" so she needed to go back to Michigan.  Two weeks ago she was getting ready to pack her stuff up and drive back home when we woke up one morning and her car was gone!  It was such a surreal feeling, at first we went outside and looked up and down the street thinking we must have forgotten where she parked it but no such luck, it was definitely stolen.  We called the police who werent very hopeful that we would find it but they took the report and told us to wait.  Well, a couple days went by and at this point we realized we needed to come up with a new plan.  Well, it just worked out that we're wanting to buy a truck (at least thats Jed's plan for right now) and get rid of our car so we offered to sell it to Becky.  Since she's always dreamed of cruising around in a sweet, four door, white, Taurus she jumped at the chance. :)  It took a while to work out all the details but as of Monday she was set to go and then she got the call from the cops, they had found her car.  Sadly everything under the hood was gone but the good news was that all her personal stuff was still inside.  We went over to get her stuff and we found a creepy note from the car theif.

This is in reference to the fact that she had bank statements in her car.  I grabbed the shifter handle that I found in her backseat for a keepsake.
Anyway, she took off on Tuesday morning for home and we miss her!  Evan keeps asking when she's coming back and it was strangely quiet yesterday without her.   Hopefully we'll get a chance to visit her in Hawaii!  Love ya sis! 

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Yesterday Evan was impressing me with his writing skills.  Check out his first ever attempts at his name.

Its not perfect but its a great start!&

Distractions

Sometimes I need to get stuff done around the house.  It used to be that I could put on a cartoon and uninteruptedly make dinner, clean the bathroom or just sit and sip some coffee but my boys are smarter than that now.  They notice when I'm busy doing something and take full advantage, getting into as much trouble as possible and making huge messes.  Who can blame them, sometimes its super fun to take all the cushions off the couch and jump on them!   So for the sake of our couches and my sanity I've come up with some fun stuff for the boys to do.

Driving cars through rice kept them entertained for almost an hour!  Which then led to my next idea,

I gave them each a couple of oreos in a bowl to crush up and once the were done they had "dirt" to drive their cars through.  They ate a lot of the dirt before they got to play with it.

I put shaving cream on a cookie sheet for them to play with not intending for them to involve cars this time but apparently cars + anything equals a good time! 

Seth got a little carried away.  Fortunatley shaving cream cleans up easy enough!

A better option for Seth is dressing up and make believing that he's a puppy or "cwipperds" as he calls himself. :)

Last but not least, Evan loves cleaning, I'm serious the kid is a neat freak so letting him help where he can keeps him quite occupied!  In the morning he wakes up and immediately asks to vacuum, its awesome! 


This one is a different story, he loves to be held and who could resist him?   Fortunately he naps a lot. :)&

6 Years

Yesterday was mine and Jed's anniversary and we had a such a great time celebrating!  Jed got home from work and we headed out.  He surprised me by taking me to this shop in Orlando that sells flavored popcorn!  I love popcorn I have it almost every night before bed so I was pretty impressed by Jed's thoughtfulness.  I didnt even know a place like this exsisted until last night.  I picked out 3 different flavors to take home for later and we headed to dinner at Olive Garden.  After dinner Jed had one more surprise in mind but it involved more food so we needed a quick break so we wandered around Target for a while.  Once we were finally feeling like we werent stuffed we headed to Downtown Orlando for this:

The most delicious cakes I've ever tasted!  Other than when I spilled my coffee all over the table and my purse, it was a great night.  You might ask, "So what did Jed get for your anniversary?"  Thats a good question, I'll show you.

Jed likes to smoke a cigar or a pipe from time to time but hasnt had a pipe for a few years.  I picked this out for him and a couple of different flavors of tobacco. 

As soon as we got home last night he went out back and tested out his new pipe.  It smelled so good! 
At dinner as we were discussing our future we realized a couple of things that blew us away, first in another six years we'll have a 10 year old, an 8 year old and a 6 year old, HOLY COW!  Second if we kept having kids at the rate we have been then by our twelfth anniversary we would have 6 kids and I'd probably be pregnant with #7!  Again, HOLY COW!  Thats not our plan, I'm pretty content with the three I have right now but, it was just one of those things thats funny to think about.  Anyway, we're both really excited for the next 6 years as we work together to do whatever it is that God has planned for us! 
On a totally different note, yesterday during the day Evan pulled out his picture book and opened it to the animal page.  He went from animal to animal asking me what each one ate.  I was pretty honest with him, Camels, elephants, and zebras eat plants and grass while lion's, bears and snakes eat other animals like camels, elephants and zebras.  He was amazed.  Since we have black bears around our area (that sometimes wander around neighborhoods) and have found snakes in our backyard I explained to him that he needs to stay away from certain animals b/c they're dangerous.  After a few minutes of pondering what I told him this was our conversation.
Evan:  "Mom, dont worry, daddy will take care of the lion, I will take care of the alligator, Seth will take care of the bear and baby Kane will take care of the snake.  You and aunt Becky stay here."
Me: "What are you talking about Evan?" 
Evan: "Daddy is a boy, I'm a boy, Seth is a boy and Kane is a boy so we'll go take care of the animals....  dont worry we'll use tools."  (He started making a throwing gesture while grunting)   You're a girl and aunt Becky is a girl so you stay here.
Me: "Are you going to protect us?"
Evan: "Yes, we're going to go kill the bad animals with tools."
He spent the next 20-30 minutes planning and acting out what he would do.

Evan and his book of "good" and "bad" animals.