jax

last  weekend we made a delightful trip down to jacksonville, fl to visit my brother and his family for a few days. i prepared for the worst when it came to the actual car trip with three small boys. and i am pleased to say they were excellent. excellent. all three of them. they are good travelers and very flexible but that tuck man does not liked to be strapped in a car seat for long. 

they made themselves busy busy with all sort of things. grey couldn't wait to get to garrett's house and i was afraid he was going to pull the ol' "are we there yet?" every 2 minutes until we got there but thankfully he was more interested in the bajillion activities i had packed.

we hit quite the storm on the way down but finally arrived a little after 11 pm. 

friday was filled full with lots of fun! we hit the jacksonville zoo that morning. what an awesome zoo! matthew and i loved it. the weather was absolutely perfect. 

we looked at the map, rode the train, played on the best playground i've ever been to, had a picnic, oh yeah and we saw some animals! 

my favorite were the penguins. garrett and grey tried their hand at the camera. grey got to use my camera and got a stellar shot of a penguin swimming by. 

and the boys played on REALLY big elephants.

we reluctantly made our way back to the house and hit the beach later that evening for some family pictures. i was so glad to capture some images of life right now for them. what a stunning little family!

my boys just played in the ocean in their clothes. and had a blast!

the adults got to finally relax together friday night and have a little conversation.

saturday morning we got to go watch garrett play t-ball and uncle nathan coach! we got to see garrett hit a ball that was pitched to him, run the bases, and be the catcher. grey thought it was awesome.

unfortunately we had to leave after lunch on saturday to make it home for church sunday morning. 

as we stopped for a short bathroom, nursing, stretching break, we told the boys to hop out of the van and stretch their legs. so they did.

we did get the pleasure of stopping in columbia to see papa and gigi and eat a delicious dinner. what a treat! 

we had a blast and are so thankful for nathan, allison, garrett and sweet wyatt. we are so glad we got to come down to your stompin' grounds and spend some time together. sorry we broke a plate, disrupted your sleep, and took over your house. good thing we know you love us too!

wrc.7months

the will-meister is officially 7 months. 

our play time has been kicked up a few notches with the addition of a half real crawl, half commando crawl. by the end of the week i'm afraid he'll be full out crawling. 

the time has gone so fast. i realized around 6 months that he was INDEED 6 months. and at 6 months that baby needed to be broken of his habit of waking up at 3 am to eat and snuggle with mommy. thankfully it only took about a week or so but he is now solidly sleeping from 7 pm (sometimes 6:30 even) until 5 or 5:30 am. then he pulls out another hour or two until he's ready for the day! woop woop. 

he naps well for me. two solid naps during the day and wakes up a happy happy boy! getting him up from his nap never fails to make my day. he greets me with the biggest grin ready to play.

he continues to be so very enjoyable. he is most excited to see his brothers and watch them play. with his new found mobility, he has started to join in more often. and oh my, does he love a good bath with his brothers! he always gets really tired around 6 so we stick him in the tub with grey and tuck and they play, play and play some more. he splashes them and they splash him back which evokes the sweetest giggles. i'll have to catch that on camera soon.

he is continuing to teeth. but it doesn't affect him too much. he is just so stinkin' happy.

thankfully as i mentioned in my previous post, he is eating more solids! he continues to nurse like a champ and prefer it to eating solids but i sneak those in frequently. he has been into gumming on some avocado in recent days and i catch him actually leaning in for more.

as i watch this little one grow i just want to hold on tighter and tighter.  i can't wait until he wakes up to hear that belly laugh again!

until next month...

camera dump

 i had a couple of very randomly full memory cards that i dumped today. here were some of my findings of our every day.

1. peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

every single day without fail the boys eat one for lunch. grey now eats an entire sandwich and tuck sticks with halfsies. it's usually accompanied by a cheese stick, some grapes, and a lot of silly.

2. good ol' fashioned play time.

these three boys are becoming fast friends. grey and tuck are letting will into their brotherhood and it's fun to watch. whereas most of our time is spent outside in this perfect weather we've had, they never fail to include the littlest brother in almost every activity he can be a part of.

3. EARLY mornings.

now that the tuckmeister is in his big boy bed, he gets up when he wakes up. and it's early. like 5:00 some mornings. and he tends to wake up grey while he's at it. 

it just so happened that saturday morning while matthew was camping, ALL THREE boys were up at 5:30 a.m. we snuggled up and watched some cartoons for most of the morning until i could down a few cups of coffee.

4. these four.

 

these guys play together every afternoon. grey and tuck adore adam and krista. adore them. we pray for them every day before naps and every night before bed. we thank God for them at meals.

we are so blessed to have them as our neighbors. i love that our boys are able to make memories with these guys.  they are forever on a ship being chased by bad guys or playing house or running from evil zurg, aka tucker. 

5. food, FINALLY!

will is consistently eating food. he i actually opening his mouth now! he has obviously been getting what he needs from me so i haven't been pushing it too hard but seriously?! he'll be 7 months old this weekend. he loves bananas and sweet potatoes. so proud of that little man. it's been a long time coming.

6. tucker time.

though this deserves an entirely separate post i will say that he and i have some special time monday and wednesday mornings while will is napping. we talk at the sink while he helps me do dishes. we hunt for acorns. we color pumpkins and apples. and we bake together. time well spent.

he also comes up with some stellar outfits. while searching for pecans.

7. bike riding.

grey got his cousin jacob's old bike and he has been a riding machine.  he has fallen off a few times and acquired a few good scrapes. i told him it's not a good time on your bike if you don't skin your knees every now and then. they show that you are playing hard and having fun! 

although he has let up a little on his riding as of late, i plan on taking him out one on one soon for a good ride.

welp, 7 is a good round number of randomness. i'll have to do this more often!

flashback friday

in honor of a clemson homecoming.

i miss all these girls. wish we could all make it to a game together. maybe if we weren't living all over the country and all having babies :) those are some special people right there.

if i wrote a book

it would be 2 pages and go a little something like this.

page one.

study God's Word. dig deep and let Him show you who He really is. not who you think He is. He is so much greater than that.

page two.

magnify the Lord in all of His greatness. wherever you are. it will make you small and He great.


the end.

i believe this applies to any and all circumstances and will remind myself of His greatness when i just don't understand. or when things do make sense.

soccer, s'mores, and football

grey had his first soccer game this weekend. oh my heavens.

how would you like that guy to be your goalie?

it seems to be that grey is more interested in conversing with his friends than going after that ball. wonder where he gets that? he liked to stick towards the back of the bunch of 4 year olds chasing the ball around the field and hang out with his friends, mainly annabelle. 

he did actually do pretty good playing goalie. it's not so aggressive. right up his alley. he wasn't paying attention and one slipped by him. after that, he blocked 3 goals! and i think the thrill was throwing the ball back into the game.

i did catch him in the middle of the action a few times. overall i think he just plain had fun. 

i know tucker showed his love for the sport during half time. 

Poppie, Marmie, Greer, and Luke were in town for the weekend. Luke and Poppie got to enjoy the game with us.

we also had a yard sale saturday morning. we have a little more moola than we had before and we cleaned out a bunch of stuff. WIN. now it's on to organizing what's left!

it was such a treat to have family in to stay this weekend. the kiddos played outside lots in the cool weather and got along so great! grey and greer are just the cutest and get along so well they played and played and played.  luke and tuck are definitely little boys...times two! seeing them all together makes me realize what a precious gift it is that they have each other. we were missing garrett and wyatt and hope to ALL be together soon.

we roasted marshmallows saturday night (all the while keeping a close eye on the game). s'mores are always a hit.

 luke just liked the plain ol' marshmallow.

and i think tucker just likes burning things.

the oldest two LOVED the s'mores. 

will even tried to get in a s'more.

those kiddos make me laugh so hard. they are all so different and i so enjoy seeing them interact with each other.

we ended our saturday watching the tigers remain undefeated in a victory over virginia tech. woo hoo!!! 

the boys dressed for the occassion sunday morning. 

and have watched youtube video after youtube video of clemson cheers and chants.

tuck's favorite is by far tiger rag. grey is slowly but surely teaching him how to do it. he's got C L E M S OOOO N down without the proper fist pump form. 

this is what we spent the morning doing. and he has some serious moves to go along with it. 

go tigers!