beachy babies!

the kids and i enjoyed a beautiful day at the beach last weekend with kristie, karina, rhema, cindy, and her sweet friend bethany. the extra hands were such a blessing... this was my first excursion to the beach with both kids for an actual day at the beach (instead of just taking pictures or having a picnic), and it was really a great day! we also took the wagon, which was SO NICE to have for the babies when we'd moved them back on the blanket for the 100th time! so yes, you can enjoy the beach with two little kids. just bring along 3 adults with no children and a wagon. (oh, and it helps when your 2 year old doesn't like to walk in the sand, so you know he won't go far!) the worst thing that happened was that caroline kept tipping over face first into the sand while i was trying to get some pictures of her. i'm sure it was a funny sight to see me with my camera in one hand, holding it as high as i could away from the sand, and then my other hand trying to pull caroline's face out of the sand without hurting her or getting sand in the camera. (i did say the extra hands were helpful, but i guess at this moment, they were all actually getting a moment to themselves!) anyway, both caroline and the camera survived, and it looks like caroline will be making sand cupcakes in the future. i estimate she probably ate about 1/4 cup of sand, and of course, i was taking pictures instead of stopping her. but if you're a faithful reader of my blog, you'll know how glad i was that one of my kids loves the sand! :) actually, i was pretty proud of ethan this day. he willingly walked in the sand, played in the sand for a long long time, and not to be outdone by his baby sister, he even tasted it once! ethan and caroline also both enjoyed their first time in the waves, so it looks like ethan may turn out to be a beach kid after all! now if i can just get them to keep their hats on...

enjoy the pictures from our fun day... especially you, hope!!

our cool little pool

at the recommendation of a friend of a friend, we bought ethan this great baby pool from walmart. it's pretty big, and it has a cute little slide built in. after 2 trips to pick it up (duh, it wouldn't fit in our van!), we finally made it home with the pool one night. my mom took ethan outside while she was watching the kids the next day... she said ethan stopped, looked at the empty pool in the backyard and said, "hmmm.....pool....right." such the contemplater!! mom said he then stopped from playing several times and just kept going back to the pool to stare in it! he was probably wondering where all the water was! since then, we've played in the pool several times, but he has YET to brave the daunting slide. he will roll his balls down it, but it might be next year before he goes down it himself. maybe when he's 12. he's doing well to just sit in the pool at this point!!! but as you can see, he loves playing basketball in it. oh well. at least he's staying cool while he's shooting hoops. ha.


caroline has yet to play in the pool (usually we go out during her nap since i only have so many hands!).... but she LOVES the swing! this picture makes me smile so big, even though it's actually a blurry one. caroline seems to enjoy any little adventure, so maybe she'll be down that slide before ethan! :)

down by the bay...

we joined kristie, tammy, and danny's family for a fun day in the bay a couple of weekends ago. (we are actually technically family... brian's brother married kristie... but they treated us like family long before then.) anyway, we love spending time with their family, and this day was no exception. the kids had fun in the bay, and natalie even went on her first tube ride behind pappy's boat! ethan and joseph loved playing "bumper floats", and caroline refused to take a nap while we were in the water because she knew we were all having fun without her! (at least that's what i'm guessing.... and she gets that from her momma!) as you can see by the last pictures, the fun in the sun finally wore everybody out! i especially love the one of karina completely zonked in the swing! what a fun day we had with family and friends.

our family- summer 2007

i love how happy we all are in this picture, especially the kids! anyone with more than 1 child will attest to the fact that it is down right difficult to get everybody LOOKING at the camera for a decent picture, much less smiling all at the same time! i guess i give my kids plenty of practice at this, though. :)

caroline is 7 months old!

little sista is on the move!

after weeks and weeks of rolling around and scooting backwards, caroline discovered the joy of forward motion tonite! i don't know if it is actually crawling... it's more like scooting, but i'm calling it crawling. :) after getting stuck under ethan's bridge the other night (see above picture), i guess she'd had enough! enjoy this little video of caroline's first crawling.... sorry it's a little dark, but i wanted to make sure i captured her new skill and i knew i'd miss it if i took time to perfect the lighting! :)

happy father's day, honey!

happy father's day to my sweet husband, brian. i love to watch ethan and caroline adore their daddy, as well as their daddy adoring them in return. brian is always teaching ethan little things i would never think of, and ethan would love nothing more than to be at daddy's side every minute past 5pm! i am so thankful for a christian father for my children. thank you, Lord, for this daddy!

happy faces

just a couple of sweet brother-sister pictures i took last week....

happy girl

here is our sweet little teether giving us some good giggles while i tickle her. (this video was taken a couple of months ago, but i kept forgetting to post it.)

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the all-night fight for the pearly whites

my daughter already appears to have inherited my competitive nature.... she got the word that ethan's first teeth came in one at a time, so i guess she felt the need to top her brother... and caroline is now proud to sport TWIN TEETH in the bottom of her sore little mouth. (if you click on the picture, you can see her teeth really really well.) this mom would have been just as happy with the 'ole one-tooth-at-a-time thing if that would have meant more sleep at night this week. it's been a long one, folks. both sunday & monday nights, she was up five times in the middle of the night... at the exact same times. and this is my child who has been sleeping through the night since christmas. when ethan cut his first tooth, he and i were out of town... and this week, brian has been away on travel. how is it that he escapes the tooth debut yet again?

so, the first 2 teeth have broken through... maybe this means we'll be off the painful teething hook till her 1 year molars. it seems that the first ones are always the worst. at least she's cute with her little teethies. it makes me smile to see her toothy grin... though at 3 am i honestly can't see well enough to enjoy them. :) thankfully, she's been her happy self during the day and is still taking great naps. so it could be worse. thank you, Lord, for my happy (day-time) baby!!

brian will be home in the next hour, so we're gonna go outside to see if we can see "daddy's plane go round and round" as ethan's been saying all week. have a great weekend!

food groups according to ethan

the other day, ethan watched me make a big 'ole oreo cake for a friend who just had a baby, and i even let him have 2 licks of the creme filling (i could've eaten the whole bowl!!). of course, he was asking for "one more yick" over and over, but thankfully it was naptime! so later that afternoon, ethan wanted a snack and asked for "a few crackers" as he always does. i knew we were having pasta for dinner, and i try to somewhat balance out the breads w/ fruits & veggies, so i told him no crackers, but that he could have an apple. "no appa". or he could have a banana. "no bee-nah-eee". then i told him, "ok, but no crackers. if you want a snack, it needs to be a fruit or vegetable." he then stopped to think, and i honestly thought he was thinking about which fruit he wanted! after being quiet for a minute, he looked over at me SO seriously, and here was his healthy snack request...

"soooome cake?"

and that, folks, is all the proof you need that ethan is indeed my child!

ethan's new 'do!

ethan has had 7 haircuts at home by sweet auntie k, but his hair just grows too thick and too fast for just scissors to handle. as you can see above, his hair would fall down in his face or just go plain crazy if i didn't constantly brush it over to the side. i'd been talking about getting his hair cut pretty short for a little while, and daddy was all for it (well, think about how brian wears his hair!). i'd pull back the front of his hair, and i could see that a short cut on him would make him look so grown up and handsome, but my mommy's heart just broke thinking about buzzing off all his beautiful hair! the other day, i had tentatively decided to take him to get his hair cut that night, and well, ethan woke up from his nap that afternoon with this 'do.... resembling a high school girls' prom up-do!!!!


and that was all she wrote.... we took him to get his hair cut that evening! the whole day, i'd been sort of preparing him, saying, "we're going to get your hair TRIMMED" (being careful not to use the word "cut" because i didn't want him to think he was getting cut and hurt!).... i was very intentional in what words i used all day... we pull into the parking lot of the hair cut place, and ethan exclaims, "GET HAIR.... CUT!" so much for intentionality, huh?

a friend of mine told me about this new, adorable kids salon in town, and it was the same price as supercuts. it's a saloon theme with cowboy stuff everywhere. the kids can sit on horses and play video games while they get their hair cut. of course, ethan wanted daddy to wear a purple cape, so he opted for the "sit in daddy's lap" version. :) haha. he was pretty unnerved at the stranger pointing the buzzing instrument at his head, even though we told him it was like daddy's razor. but once i starting shelling out crackers, he was content. here's some pictures of ethan's first professional haircut... i'm still getting used to this BOY running around the house!

ethan happily waiting in the fun salon
he's not so happy now!
(don't you think brian looks good in purple? heehee!)
he survived the haircut!
he's not sure WHO that is in the mirror!
here's our big boy

a few more...

ok, here's the last few pictures from our trip down south. ya gotta love the big row of rockers on the front porch of every cracker barrel! ethan is smiling because he devoured 2 bowls of fried okra! and caroline is smiling because, well, that's what she does best!



and it would not be a trip with my husband without a journey to the beloved apple store. like father, like son... they're just drawn to it. :)



well, i'm all caught up with pictures from our trip now! i wish i could say the same about the laundry...

we are equal opportunity photographers...

so we also attempted to take some 2 year portraits of ethan... but he's much more mobile than caroline and was much more interested in the sand and shells (his shoes were on!)... so here's what we got. they are indeed some precious moments, but i think we'll have to take another stab at these for the big frame on the wall. (if he'd been standing still for the close-up, that one would be the winner...)






and this one isn't quiiiiite portrait worthy, but i had to share it... somebody get this kid a tissue! :)