Six Months!

Our little buddy made it to six months!  I think it's gone a lot faster the second time around.  He's a pretty happy guy most of the time.  He's a snuggly little fella and he's got a great laugh.

No crawling yet but it's planks and push-ups and mountain climbers all day long over here!

He just started food this week and has been catching on pretty quick.  So far we've done sweet potatoes and peas and while it's yay on the potatoes, the peas have been dubbed as just tolerable.  But he did eat them!

And Daddy stopped by a garage sale and found some cute shoes for him.  They won't fit for awhile yet but it was fun to try them on anyway:)

We love you, buddy!

Easter On The Homefront

Got to go to Illinois for Easter this year!  It was a full weekend, with lots of good quality family time.  Time with my immediate family AND both my mom and dad's sides.  I almost said there was plenty of time, but plenty means more than enough and I could always go for a little more!

Summer experienced her first Easter egg hunt and was pretty pleased with the results.  (Candy!)  But now this morning she was playing with the plastic eggs and took them to the kitchen and said "Eggs! breakfast?".  Guess she'll need to eventually learn the difference between real eggs and candy eggs:)

My nephew- what a dude.  We got to sit out and enjoy the awesome weather while we watched his sister's first soccer game.  She scored three goals!  

A quick egg coloring session was held on Saturday afternoon.

These two.  My dad and an uncle who has always been like my 2nd dad.  So thankful for them!!

Girl picture!  Well, and Sawyer.

Another night, another family get together.

This girl loooooooves to be outside and looooooooves to swing.  It's going to be a fun summer!  Well, fun until it's time to go inside.  Then it's not so pretty:)

Grateful for a great weekend with beautiful weather celebrating the death and resurrection of Jesus!!

Summer-isms

Summer is starting to say some pretty funny stuff these days.  She was an early talker so we've heard lots and lots of words come out of her mouth, but she's starting to be able to have simple conversations now.

This past Sunday evening when it was so nice out we went on a walk around our neighborhood.  When we got home, she was trying to tell Danny something about her jacket, but he was having a hard time figuring out what she was trying to tell him.  Everything was just all wrong for her!  The conversation went something like this.

D: You want your jacket unzipped?

S: No

D: You want your jacket to stay on?

S: No

D: You want your jacket zipped?

S: No

D: You want your jacket off?

S: No

(All of this with a little intermittent whining of course.)

D: Well I don't know what you're trying to say.  What do you want?
S (without missing a beat): I want candy!

Of course you do, Summer.  Of course you do:)  We got a good laugh out of that one!

That picture, by the way, is still from Florida.  Fresh out of the bath with a little leftover sand and sunscreen in the hair makes for some great hair gel!

Florida 2017

Ah, Florida.  You came and you went.  Much too quickly!!  We've been back since Saturday now and I think I'm still in denial that it's over.  It just flew by this year!  But it was a great trip, nonetheless.

Summer was great on the way down- until it was time to go to sleep.  And then?  Well, it was like she just didn't believe in sleeping in the van.  It was awful.  But at least she looks happy here at 4:00 in the morning!

And that first night upon arriving, all four of us slept amazing.  Even Sawyer.  Me and Danny are late nighters, typically going to bed at 11:30 or 12.  But that night we were all asleep by 9 and slept until 7 the next morning.  It was glorious!!

Sunday after church we got to spend some time with my cousins who moved down to work with The New Beginnings and then hang out with some of TNB crew for supper.

The rest of the week consisted mostly of fun in the sun.  Summer was a little leery of swimming, which I guess isn't all that bad when you don't know how.  But man she had a death grip for most of her time in the water!

But she didn't mind soaking up some rays with daddy:)

One night we went out for supper with just us and Aaron and Cassie, and then to a fun playground afterwards.  There was also a neat little musical playground close by that the kids really liked.

The little kids AND the big kids:)

Summer did love the beach!  She was always a little sad when it was time to be all done playing in the sand.  It was so fun to watch her enjoy it!

So you know how sometimes you see a beautiful family picture and it was the only good one out of a lot of attempts?  Well, we made all the attempts but we never got the really good one!  So I guess we'll just work with what we have.  But I sure do love the people in this picture!

By the end of the week Summer was getting a little braver.  At one point she even came and sat on this ledge all by herself with no prompting.  Baby steps!

As for this guy, he pretty much hung out in the shade all week long.  I realized when I got home that he really only made it into about two pictures.  Whoops, sorry buddy.  But he did great the whole week and while we were there he started rolling back to front.  The first time he did it he got a huge smile on his face like he was all proud of himself.  So cute!

Usually at the end of a trip I'm ready to be back home.  I can't really say that this time around though!  Guess I'll start counting down the days til next year...

Winter Wrap Up

And by winter wrap up, I really meant that I just wanted to clear off my camera.  So here's a giant picture dump!

Babysitter in training

We had overnight guests a few weeks ago.  They also had a little girl named Summer who was just a couple months younger than ours!  They weren't too sure what they thought of each other...

But most of their kids were older and some even enjoyed playing the games that Danny loves and I tolerate occasionally for him:)  So that worked out well!

Look Mom, I found my toes!

They make me really happy.

And my thumb.  I found my thumb too.  And even though you always try to make me take the paci instead, I just really like my thumb!

We got to stay with "Ampony" for a few days!  Summer liked him a lot more than what the picture would suggest.

There's that thumb again.  And a little bumbo acrobatics.

Summer really wanted to play our game with us.  Good thing she was satisfied with a few of the pieces that weren't being used!

"I hold Sawyer"

One of the children in this picture loves necklaces and one does not.  I'll let you decide who is who:)

Grandma's surprise (anyways we attempted to make it a surprise) 60th b-day party, where much sugar was consumed.

Corrie's dream come true- leading Summer around by the hand wherever she feels like!

Sawyer's first haircut: the before picture.

The after picture.  I think overall it was successful thanks to Danny's tips on how to cut it!

Summer the copycat.  Sawyer still struggles a little during tummy time to stay up for long periods without growing tired and face planting.  Mostly because I forget about it and don't put him on his tummy enough.  But Summer decided to do tummy time along with him, laying face down every time his head would fall!  Moral support I guess.

And now winter is officially over.  Happy Spring to you!!

The Big 3

Well we've been married three whole years now:)  Woo hoo for us!!  And we had a fun little outing to celebrate!  So, back in October when all the sisters in law took Danny's mom to Beef and Boards dinner theater for Christmas, I saw that in 2017 they were going to be showing Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.  Which caused me to gasp in delight!  Literally if I remember right:)  I love that show.  Back in high school chorus we sang a medley of the songs from that musical and ever since then I've wanted to see it.  Now, I have seen one production of it from a community theater place and one high school production.  But I just really wanted to see it with people who actually acted for a living.  And here was my chance.  So I dropped just a couple not so subtle hints and let it go.  But I just kept thinking about it and I knew it would be done showing at the end of March.  So finally I told Danny all the reasons I really wanted to go and he him hawed around and listed the reasons it probably wouldn't work.  But then one day he came home from work with tickets.  That he had bought IN DECEMBER!!!  What a guy:)  He did good!

So off we went to Indy!

The food was mediocre but the show was fabulous!  Our seats were close enough that I could actually touch the stage so that was cool but we were almost as far to the side as we could be so we saw a lot of profiles.  But it was still great!

At the dinner theater you have to pay extra to get a real dessert so we thought, if we're paying for dessert, we may as well pay for something we really like.  So it was off to the Cheesecake Factory for us!  Danny got banana and I got key lime.  Soooo tasty.  And they even decorated our plates special!

The restaurant was at a mall so we just walked around and did some window shopping after that before heading home.  And much to my delight, Sawyer took a bottle pretty good while we were gone, which I had been a little worried about.  So that was just the cherry on top I guess.

Thanks, honey for such a great anniversary celebration!!

And Now February Is Over Too?!?!?!

OOPS!!!  The last time I posted I lamented about how January was over and I think I might have talked about posting more.  Well, you see how that went!

We've had a pretty good winter thus far.  Although winter is almost officially over- yay!!

We've played games,

Summer was introduced to the wonder of licking off the beaters,

and Sawyer has practiced his tummy time.  (I think Summer got the better end of the deal on that one!)

Unfortunately though, sometimes tummy time goes awry.

We had a nice little Valentine's Day supper at home-

complete with some pretty tasty chocolate covered strawberries.  I think we might make those a tradition!

But sadly, the sickies also hit (with a vengeance)us that day, making things a little less romantic:)  They kinda came out of nowhere in the middle of the day, right after I had been telling people we have managed to avoid them so far.  Lots of paci time and movie time and snuggle time around here!

We managed to get better enough to go enjoy the hotel getaway with Danny's family, though it was NOT a sleep filled night for anybody in our room.  Well, except Sawyer.  He did good.  But Summer made sure we remembered she did not feel good and wanted us to know she much preferred her own bed.

Peek a boo!  Sometimes the trick to getting this guy to sleep is putting a blanket over his eyes.  And then he wakes up and peeks out and it's so stinkin cute!

I made Summer a rice box.  She loves it.  I love the idea of it but the reality of it isn't quite as fun:)  But she really doesn't do too bad with it if I keep an eye on her so it was worth it!

My parents came out to visit for the weekend.  We welcomed them with a broken water heater and invited my dad to fix it!  We were pretty glad it happened then, because they had brought the truck out so he could use it to haul in a new one and install it himself rather than us needing to have one delivered and pay someone to do the work!  Plus the following weekend we had a family of nine (yes you read that right- NINE) staying with us and it would not have been quite so convenient for it to go out then!

A hot water heater box makes a wonderful hideout:)

Up next:  Happy Anny to us!!