Bipolar

Is it winter around here??? Or Fall? Check out this post for a few baby/pumpkin comparisons.

A Few More From FL

Just a few family pictures from our trip...

Florida 09

Just a few favorites from our trip to Florida. Wow, check out that alliteration. We spent a week at our old stomping ground, Ft. Myers Beach, "we" being my brother, sister and family, and us. We got into a good routine of going to the beach in the morning for a while, coming home for lunch and naps (for everyone!), swimming in the pool in the afternoon, then dinner and various other activities that included beach time again, ice cream, and dance parties. Mom, we missed you and John lots! I think this was the only picture I got of all of the kids together. And you can see it was quite successful. It's not easy getting 4 kids 4 and under to sit for a picture. Jackson and Deacon are in the middle, and Shepherd and Eva on the outsides.
Here's Deacon enjoying some time at the beach. He even took a little dip in the gulf. He didn't like it much.

Jackson's 3rd birthday was the 27th, so we had an early birthday party with my family while we were there. He was so embarrassed when everyone sang Happy Birthday to him. Quite cute. Here is Eva, Jackson, Nathan ( our friends the Loerop's came for the day to help celebrate), and Shep. Really, we just wanted an excuse to get more Publix cake. This was our THIRD cake and it was only Tuesday. If you've ever had Publix cake before, you get it.

On our morning trips to the beach we had to walk a little way to get there. And, of course, with 4 kids in tow, there is a a TON of stuff to bring. Thankfully, there was a cart that we could take which ended up also being transportation when littles would get tired. Quite a life-saver.

The kids really liked being in the water this year, so we would trek out to the sandbar to find sand dollars. Jackson loved making his fingers turn yellow from sand dollar "pee".

Don't worry Mom, I'll put more up soon!

My boys

We had an impromptu photo session the other night trying to get a few options for Deacon's birth announcement and these were some of the best ones. I decided that I might wait until after our trip to Florida this weekend to do his announcements though since there might be some good photo ops there too. Pray for us...Saturday we travel ALL DAY LONG! Not looking forward to that, but really looking forward to the margaritas and Publix cake that will be on the other end.

What we've been doing lately....

It's been a strange couple of weeks lately trying to figure out what our new "normal" is around here, but we've kept relatively busy and it's been good. Deacon is 5 weeks old already and is chubbing up nicely. And I'm getting a bit more sleep at night these days, which really helps my disposition. Just ask Todd and Jackson. I've been trying to be good about taking pictures. Don't want Deacon to have that second child=no pictures syndrome. But taking pictures of newborns is hard. They are always screwing their faces up crazily. So this was one of the best we've gotten in a while.
Whenever I take the camera out, Jackson wants me to take a picture of him, so we spent a few minutes the other day messing around with the camera and taking silly pictures.

Jackson has also graduated to his big boy bike, which he affectionately calls "My big ole big bike". He's having lots of fun riding it and it's nice that he's not eating his kneees anymore like when he was riding his tricycle.

And this just made me laugh. After Jackson took his bike helmet off the other day, he had the perfect Flock of Seagulls hair. Love it!

Out of the mouth of my babe

This was the conversation that Todd just had while he was drying Jackson off after his bath:
Jackson: I'm so big! My feet are big, my arms are big, my head is big...
Todd: yes your head is definitely big.
Jackson: yeah, it's hard to get my shirts off.

We like to think that big head of his makes him so much smarter!

I love this man!

Yesterday was our 4th anniversary...crazy...alot can happen in 4 years: 2 kids, 2 houses, lots more love. I love this man because he is an AWESOME dad- very hands on. I love this man because he's a faithful, loving husband. And really helpful around the house too. Even in the midst of the craziness of a newborn and a two year old, he found the time to surprise me with flowers, and he gave me the wonderful gift of hanging a ton of things on the walls of the house for me that finally help to make our house feel more like our own. And thanks to YaYa, we were even able to go out to dinner and a movie to celebrate 4 great years and the hope of a whole lot more. I love you my Todd!