June 14th, 2007

One of the bad things about my hubby's job. He works a lot, we miss him, he misses the kids & the silly things we do, all the fun we have. That would be looking at the glass half-full though. One of the great things about my hubby's job is that I get to spend TONS of time with my kids, sometimes too much, no really. This just happened to be a day where we got to have a little fun just hanging out.


Will does eat in his high-chair sometimes, and enjoys it. Most of what daddy sees is a son who must be held all the time. Nate gets to see Will when he's tired and needs his mommy more than normal though.


Our dogs know where the good spot is at meal times. They keep my floor cleaner than I ever could.


Will enjoys feeding himself. He gets REALLY messy.


He cleans himself up, at least that's what he thinks...


Will makes silly faces when he drinks from his cup. Oh yes, sometimes he does drink from a cup, it's not always mommy, it just seems that way.


We were watching So You Think You Can Dance. A show we got hooked on in the hospital after Will's delivery. I don't know where Sloan learned that Pulp Fiction dance, we've only watched that movie once & it was before she was born.


Evie the ballerina!


Yes, I am writing about a day where daddy was gone. Sloan took this picture!


And she took this one too! She's a good photographer!

June 26th, 2007 - Another Happy Birthday!

The girls went to another birthday party this afternoon. Patrick was in Sloan's kindergarten class at school last year. The party was at the pool at the Country Club of Jackson, and the kids had SO much fun.


Evie going off the diving board.


Evie going down the slide.


Sloan going down the slide.

Sloan also went off the diving board, but the kids were moving so fast I could hardly get the pictures taken. Will played some in the baby pool & had a blast as well.

Our busy lives!

If you are reading this you are probably wondering what happened. Well, we got busy, our USB cable decided to stop working so I took some time off of our blog. We are still busy, but Nate did figure out that the cable from my MP3 player would work for our camera as well, so I updated a couple of weeks over a couple of days.

The girls are swimming the length of the pool now. They should be ready for their first swim meet next Monday (a week from today). I will surely take pics of that!

Sloan and Evie in their team suits. All the pics I took Sloan looks fidgety.


We've still been spending lots of time at the lake. Will is at an age now where he loves it. I did realize that I hadn't posted any realy update on him at his birthday. He weighes 23lbs, that's down a full pound from his 9month check-up. Right now they are just watching him. He barely missed tripling his birth-weight and the weightloss, our doc isn't overly concerned, but I am supposed to really encourage him to eat. He really doesn't like to eat much, he would just rather nurse, but at this point (go figure) I am unable to produce enough food to keep up his weight - his pediatrician was amazed that I got him to 24lbs on pretty much nothing but breastmilk though. What can I say? He's also still really bothered by his GERD, as both our other children were at this age, so that's not helping our cause any. We let him eat pretty much anything he wants, but some stuff just doesn't agree with him. He's much larger than Sloan was at a year (18lbs), and a bit smaller than Evie was at a year (26lbs), but Evie had been on the Reglan for 9 months, which I begged the docs not to give to Will unless he really needed it b/c we felt it really disrupted Evie's ability to sleep. If he needs it now, at least his sleep schedule is already set.

He's not walking yet, but neither of our other kids have walked before 15 months. He's a pretty good kid.

All Nate wanted for Father's Day was to get to go on a jeep trip with some of his buddies. Pretty simple request, so of course he went. That was a busy weekend, as you will see below. We also dog-sat that weekend. Our friend Kyla's dog Baby stayed with us all weekend. She's really sweet & did very well considering how different our household is compared to what she is used to. Kyla is married & they have one child, and he doesn't get around yet. Baby tolerated the chasing, carrying and pulling from our children, and the rough play from our labs like a champ. And she's so cute! How can you not love that face?!

A day at the waterpark!

On Saturday, June 23rd we got a chance to go to the Rapids, our local waterpark, with Katie, Danielle, Elizabeth and Melissa. Will was the only mand in the group. We had so much fun. Our girls are really loving all the swimming they are getting to do this summer!


Sloan is swimming off one of the waterslides.


Elizabeth coming down the waterslide.


Our girls had a blast. From left: Sloan, Elizabeth, Evie, Danielle and Katie.


Our girls are SO silly!


Evie coming down the waterslide.


Evie getting out after one of her slides.


Danielle Coming down the waterslide. Evie's watching.


Katie coming down the waterslide. That's Evie watching her very closely.


Sloan is coming down the slide too. She was so brave at the waterpark. Let's see if she'll start to go on the tube & wakeboard again at the lake now...

There's a flock at the party!

Saturday, June 23rd we had another birthday party. This one for our former neighbors (I say former because they recently moved) and schoolmate of Sloan & Evie. Alexis and Aubrey lived next door until this month, and they have a very similar last name to ours. It's another bird... It begins with a "P"... They repeat things...

The party was at Deep South Cheer where they set up huge inflatables for the kids to jump & play on. We did recently get a Pump It Up here, but I haven't gotten to see inside it yet. Anyways, the kids have a blast when they go to parties here.


Sloan going down the giant slide.


Sloan lifting the giant toy like it was a loaded barbell.


Will even got into the act this time.


He had so much fun!


He even tried lifting the giant barbell.

Birthdays go on forever and the Parties never end

We've got another rush of birthday parties coming! They liven up our routine and give us something new and different to do. They can be so fun - when my kids cooperate.

On Friday, June 22nd we went to Grace and Shelby's birthday party at a pottery painting place.


Sloan and Evie really seemed to enjoy it.


Sloan painted a black puppy.


Evie painted a pink ballet slipper.

Everything went really well, until Sloan knocked one of the pieces off a shelf and it broke into many pieces on the concrete floor. We left quickly after that.

Really, the party went well & I enjoy getting to know some of the parents better since we are still newcomers to this area.

A visit from some friends from Texas!

On Monday, June 18th some great friends of ours from the great state of Texas came to visit us! Sloan was so excited to see her friend Sarah and I was equally excited to see Sarah's mommy Whitney and to meet her and Matt's newest baby Christopher. Evie and Lucy are very close in age - Whitney and I spent some of our pregnancies together taking our oldest children to Story Time at the Bellville Public Library. Evie tried very hard to grasp our enthusiasm but she couldn't seem to remember Lucy, so when their van arrived at our house and Sarah was the first to get out Evie greeted Sarah with open arms and a very enthusiastic "LUCY!" Sarah looked a little afraid. We all got inside, had some dinner & the kiddos got to play - it was SO fun & we were so glad to get to see them!


Sarah and Sloan playing with the Soccer Boppers.


Evie and Lucy were watching the show.


Sloan and Sarah sure were giving us a good show! It was quite the Soccer Bopper match.


Christopher is so cute & so sweet! He was laughing at his silly daddy after he'd had his dinner.

Birthday Cupcake-Cones

I finally got around to making a birthday cake for Will's first birthday - last night, only 3 days late. Actually I made cupcakes and I made them in ice cream cones.


Yes, Will is very scared. We never practiced having a group sing loudly and out of tune to him. The Happy Birthday song was not a big hit.


He did enjoy his cup cake though. He loved it!


Nate didn't want any leftover cupcakes. So, after all the kids had already had at least 2 cupcakes we held a cupcake eating contest. You see, on the far right, Nate is offering $2 to the winner.


Elizabeth is looking a little green...


Danielle looks a little like Captain Jack, except her facial hair is blue.


Katie is waving bye-bye to that cupcake. It found a home in the garbage can in our garage.

Our winner was the man in pink - David. Sloan looks a little sad in the group picture because after 2 cupcakes already her tummy hurt too bad to participate in the contest. David forfeited his win to Elizabeth as he'd entered the contest over the age limit.

Will is ONE!

We went to our local Japanese restaurant for Will's birthday tonight. It's becoming a family tradition really, we went to this restaurant for Sloan's birthday as well.


Will is hanging out with his buddy David


Again, I don't know what the deal is with Sloan & her funny faces for pictures...


Elizabeth and Danielle. We had yet another night where someone thought Elizabeth is my daughter... They are both such pretty girls. Don't you think?


Will is checking out the chop sticks. I think he'll be a pro in no time.


Sloan and Katie were making whirlpools in their Sprites. I am amazed we didn't make an even bigger mess than we actually did.


Evie - well she's just a pretty kid isn't she...


Will spent much of the night with Melissa. She was actually worried that I might feel like I was missing out... Really, if he'll let someone else hold him for a while my left bicep gets some rest & I am happy. I love my son & all, but he gets SO heavy.


We had such a great chef. He could make his spatula levitate!


Will on the way home - happy kid. HAPPY BIRTHDAY WILL!