June 2010

For those of you who check in on our blog you can tell that 2 kids is keeping me much more busy than just the 1 was. I could keep it simple and just post the pictures but for my own record keeping I like to write something about the boys and what they are doing currently. It's hard to find the few minutes extra to do that so that's why the long lull in blogging.
Hard for me to believe that Will is nearly 10 months old and his 1 year birthday is just around the corner! He's still crawling on his tummy (not up on all fours) but he moves around the whole house very quickly and likes to follow us everywhere. He's pulling up to stand more everyday and he has 3 teeth with another pushing through. He's a happy, happy boy, loves to dance to music, squeel with delite, chase Eddie around the house, and loves to play with musical toys or have someone sing to him. He's weighing in around 21 pounds (only about 9 lbs. behind Eddie) and he's not much shorter than Eddie either! He's my "chunker-munk".
Eddie is still talking so much, he's very inquisitive, his vocabulary is pretty huge. he's our social butterfly and isn't shy most of the time. He's loving Will more and more and even verbalizes that now. he's also very protective over him (unless he's doing the torturing, of course). He still has his moments of being rough around the edges. I attribute part of this to being a boy and more to not being sure how to interact all of the time. If someone doesn't want to play with him he thinks he can hit them and that may change their mind....not working too well for him. He's also rough at times with Will I think because Will can't communicate with him and he wants Will to be able to keep up with him, etc. So, it's a work in progress and we continue to pray for guidance in this situation.
Last month John left us for 6 days to head to beautiful Hawaii for his brother, Baron's change of command ceremony for the Navy. The boys and I were left to fend for ourselves here and let me just tell you....the crud hit the fan! In those 6 days Will ran a fever (from teething), He fell out of his crib onto the floor, I had a flat tire in the van, the toilet was clogged most of the time, and I managed to wrip the entire front bumper off our van when backing out of a parking spot! Couldn't have been happier for John's return and pray he never leaves us again! :)

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Springing Forward!

Some random pictures from this month's activities!





April is nearly half over and I'm shocked at how time is flying by. It's much more difficult to find free time to blog let alone do much of anything else.
A week or so ago my brother and his girlfriend, Whitney, traveled down to visit for a week which was fun for the kids as well as us. It was great to celebrate Easter with them. This past weekend John and I were able to take a much needed weekend getaway to Ft. Lauderdale & Miami without the kids, which we left behind with John's parents. It was so refreshing and nice to reconnect with John without interruptions from kids. I missed the kids terribly but it was worth it to get away and the kids had a blast with the grandparents.
In the midst of this month Will has been sitting up on his own, acting like he's ready to crawl...he's actually belly crawling already, and his first tooth emerged last weekend. His personality is so sweet and fun. He loves Eddie so much, it's so fun to watch them interact together. Eddie knows just how to make Will laugh by goofing off!
Will is a solid 20 lbs., which is breaking my back, and he continues to love to eat!
Eddie's imagination continues to grow and I'm always amazed at what he says and does and also the way he remembers things is so neat! I'm so blessed with my family!

Playing Catch Up!

Where oh, where do I begin?? Feeling like it's been forever since I've blogged, probably can't even recall half of the things that have taken place but I have a few things to speak on.
I do believe, I can say that we are all finally healthy! A few runny noses around but I think that has to do with the high pollen count. I am so thankful that baby Will is better. We had to give him breathing treatments for a week because he had bronchialitis. Will is still growing so quickly. He is nearly 7 months old and our last weigh in a few weeks back he was nearly 19lbs. and he is about 29" long. He is eating some solid foods now which he seems to thoroughly enjoy. Seems to prefer this to his breastmilk feedings. He isn't sitting up completely on his own yet...he's a little top heavy so kinda falls over after a few seconds of sitting there.
Since I last blogged we've had some visitors come join us here in FL too. We had a surprise visit from my Dad back in February (he was sick while he was here:( ) and then just last week my Grandparents from Indiana were in town for a week. It was wonderful to see them interact with the kids and get to meet Will for the first time.
Eddie, continues to be Eddie....full of life and happy things! I was putting him in his carseat yesterday and he randomly just smiles very big and say's "Momma, I'm HAPPY" What a great thing to hear as a parent! He is soooo funny and I want to share some of the recent things he's said and done that have ammused me. Perhaps I'll dedicate a blog next time to this topic.
Something else that I'm excited about is the fact that we have a little garden that John started in our backyard that is really thriving right now. We have collards, butter lettuce, eggplant, broccoli, romaine, spring mix, & kale. It's been so neat to see things sprouting up and actually getting to eat them too! It's a hydroponic garden which seems to be working well, the photo I included here was a few weeks ago so now the veggies are much bigger!
Here are a few recent pictures of our life lately.

My Love, My Valentine

I can remember the time when Valentine's Day always felt like such a bummer, wishing and hoping that Prince Charming would come and sweep me off my feet on the "most romantic" day of the year. Getting all dolled up to go out...usually with friends only to come home feeling no different at all and feeling like I would never meet the man of my dreams. I breathe a huge sigh of relief these days knowing that I will have a perfect Valentine to snuggle up to not only on Valentine's Day but everyday for the rest of my life! I actually look forward to tomorrow more than this day because it is our wedding anniversary! This year we celebrate 7 years! In the bible 7 represents completeness or perfection. I'm SO blessed and I would marry the same man a million times over. I remain amazed at how God orchestrated our lives to meet up how and when we did as only He could! I'm a perfect testimony for the sermon that preachers always preach about not letting your own agenda get in God's way. I prayed and prayed for years for different scenarios to unfold in this way or that, little did I know that God's plan was way bigger and better than I ever dreamt. I'm forever THANKFUL!
Wanted to share a couple cute pics of my boys that I played around with on photoshop. Eddie gave them out to his family and friends as his personalized Valentine's Day cards. The picture of Will, I stole the idea from my creative friend, Becky, thanks Becky for the cute idea. :)

GO COLTS!

Officially not a huge Pro-football fan but being that my roots are Indiana we have to say we're rooting for the Colts tonight for the BIG game. Here's our little guy showing his support.

Sigh...

sigh (sī)
1.to take in and let out a long, deep, audible breath, especially in expressing sorrow, relief, fatigue, longing, etc.
This word seems so approriate to describe how I'm feeling at this moment. Kids are quietly sleeping and John and I have a few hours to ourselves. It's been such a difficult month with kids awaking at all hours of the night with fevers, whines, cries, etc. Not to mention dealing with long days of sickness amongst the entire family. In my last post I mentioned that Will & myself had escaped the illness but a day later we were also sick. I breathed a sigh of relief when we all seemed to be over it, but 1 week later Eddie was had the bug again!
Although the entire month of January was quite the challenge we had a few days of fun & a few laughs to go along with it.
Will's latest stunt...rolling over! He turned 5 months old already in January, can't believe how quickly he's changing

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HAPPY YEAR!

2010 has been a crazy one already for us. We've all been whipped out by a flu bug and are just now able to get out and about to do something. It did however, spare Will, which I'm so thankful! Eddie has only been sick 1 other time in his 2 years of life so it was a real learning experience and trying time for us. John and I were pretty knocked out too but thankfully not the worst at the same time. So I'm singing praises for good health and look forward to moving on with our New Year!
Along with the sickness, we've been dealing with, what I hate to admit to be the "terrible twos" with Eddie. Daily, I feel I'm left to wonder who came and hijacked my sweet baby boy. It's so sad and I hate dealing with it but I know I'm not the first or the last. I pray I can have patience and deal with this effectively for Eddie's sake.
I hate it that bad behavior takes the attention away from our sweet little Will. I want to just say how absolutely sweet Will is. I can see big personality difference between he and Eddie already at a young age. I remember knowing that as soon as Eddie could he would be off and running...I was right and then some. Will on the other hand is sooooo layed back and not much bothers him. He's so happy and about as easy as babies come. A much needed balance at this time.
I have so much love for my boys, appreciate their differences and just need prayer that I can bless Eddie & Will with good parenting and guide them to be Godly boys. Eddie, John, Aunt Kerstin & Karis
Will & Daddy