The Barbers

More friends! We love getting together with friends. Tonight, we visited with Scott and Leesa and their children, Elizabeth and Sydney. They are moving to St. Louis next week where he'll be starting seminary at Covenant (I've told them to seek you out, Kicklighters and Tuckers!). We love this family so much and will miss them after they leave. God has blessed us with many close relationships!

Lake Harding with the Patricks

Shea and John Mark Patrick (our friend and guy with three first names) were in our area visiting their family for the long weekend and invited us to their lake house to play (at Lake Harding). It was Andrew's first time on the water and he loved it! First, we relaxed while riding around in the pontoon boat and then we played on the SeaDoo. It was fun to jump in the lake and swim around to cool off 'cause it's humid and hot here! Shea and John Mark are awesome friends and were excellent hosts. Thank you for letting us spend Memorial Day with you on the lake!

Another visit with Laura

Laura came to visit us again this weekend. We love it when she's here. Not only is she super with my boys (although she's not here to babysit) she's a great friend whom I enjoy spending time with and talking to. We took the boys to the park this morning where we walked two miles before eating our sack lunch and playing on the playground. Here is a picture of Laura playing with the playdough on the floor with Andrew and Luke. If it were up to me, I would have Laura come visit everyday....I'm just glad Auburn University is only 45 minutes away!

HOT summer days

Boy, has it been hot these past few days. After waking from his nap the past three afternoons, Andrew has spent a few hours outside playing in his small pool and sprinkler. It's so hot that he didn't even want to wear his swimsuit.....so, I let him go naked. Why not? I mean, he was in the backyard where no one could see him! He had a blast.

My little Penguin

Andrew put his Pull-Up on all by himself today. He ended up with both legs in one leg hole. I tried to fix it but he wouldn't let me. So, he walked (waddled) around the house, strutting his "bad self".....he soon came to his senses and allowed me to make the proper adjustments.

Time with the boys

We are home.....the journey north this past weekend went smoothly but the drive-time home was hard. We thought that both of the boys would be extremely tired and would quickly fall asleep in the van on the way home; however, they were SO tired that it was too late and they cried almost the entire three hours home (we'll maybe not all three hours, but it felt like it - it was probably just an hour's worth of crying). We're glad to be in our own space, enjoying the familiarity.

The wedding reception was held at Chicopee Woods in Gainesville last night. It was absolutely beautiful! Today, before leaving the Atlanta metro area, we stopped at the Mall of Georgia to eat and play. Andrew loves riding the merry-go-round so Daddy snapped a picture of us enjoying the ride. Luke was strapped on Mitch's chest in the Snuggli so I grabbed the camera and took a picture. I love spending time with all my boys.

Reflections

We are in Gainesville, GA, this weekend for a wedding. We visited one of the parks that sits on beautiful Lake Lanier where I captured this moment between Dad and son. They were talking about the water and then started watching it ripple as they began throwing rocks.

My favorite

Hooked on 24 on Monday night.....who was the best on the show tonight? Agent Aaron Pierce. He rocked my face off when he addressed the "President" by his first name, Charles, after realizing the president was a traitor.

RoboCop is on 24...did you know that? He's playing the character of Chris Henderson. He's a much better actor at RoboCop than at being a traitor to his country.

The woman who plays the First Lady was one of the ladies on Designing Women. Cool.

Goodnight.

These past few days

These past few days have been rough on Andrew. I took him to the doctor Friday afternoon and it was confirmed that he had strep throat. I felt like a bad mother since three days had passed before I actually took him in. I just kept treating his fever with Ibuprofen and prayer. It was a good thing I took him to see the doctor (Mitch was gone to Presbytery so I was alone) as they are closed all weekend and I would have been stuck in the ER since I was told his fever would have gotten higher. Andrew slept so hard last night after the first dose of medication. He awoke feeling weak but seemed to be in a better mood. He took a three hour nap today and woke as a new person. The medicine was magic! The only bad thing about this whole thing is that he has to finish the pink berry medication over the next ten days....he's like his daddy was when he was little, running from me and kicking when I try to give him the stuff. Fortunately, he's not contagious at this point.

Luke is enjoying life. You can tell he loves the camera. He likes being naked, too. I'm gonna have a fantastic Mother's Day, I'm sure!

Solid food and not so solid food

Tonight, at five months of age, Luke had his first taste of solid food. He wasn't too impressed, as you can tell by these pictures. He still has a tongue reflex so most of the rice cereal ended up in the fold between his chin and neck. I'll try again tomorrow night. I'm sure he'll like peaches and pears better than the nasty bland cereal.

Andrew, however, found it hard to keep anything solid down. He upchucked three times before finally settling down for the night at 10:3o. He fell asleep at 8pm in my arms, which is rare. He didn't have a fever so I had no indication he wasn't feeling well until I heard him upchuck (via the monitor). I picked him up, stripped the bed sheets, put him in the bathtub, put clean sheets on the bed, and decided to lay down with him and sing him to sleep. It worked but I heard him upchuck again about ten minutes later. I only have two sets of sheets for his bed (yeah, I know you feel my pain, Amy) so after stripping the bed again and bathing him again, I made his bed with our bedsheets and a quilt. This time, however, I decided to rock him back to sleep. Guess what? He upchucked again but this time all over me. Back into the bathtub we BOTH went. He finally settled down and seemed to be in a better mood as he wanted to play and talk. Guess we'll see how late he sleeps in the morning.

Back Home

I can't believe that we were on vacation for five days and I didn't take any pictures! We had a great time visiting friends up in Birmingham. I was able to spend some time with Crissy, Maja, Anita, Angie, Tasha, Leslie, Nancy, and many others. I love you all!

I was also able to make some new friends.....Stokes and Connie Skellie, Adam Wright, and Rick Barnes. If you're looking for some new music to listen to and like the sounds of Caedmon's Call, Allen Levi, or anything by the RUF ministry, then check out some of their soundbites on their sites by clicking on their names. I sang along with Stokes and Adam on Sunday morning in church and, in the words of Eric Liddell from Chariots of Fire, "I [felt] God's pleasure".

I always get inspired with a new craft project when I spend time around Tasha. This time she showed me how simple it was to make a dress from a pillowcase. So, after getting her instructions, I went straight to Maja for her help in getting my "new" project started. Below is the final result.

Luke's first sink bath

We're on vacation this week so I was forced to find alternatives to bathing Luke since I didn't bring his safety bathtub with us (it's so bulky!). While staying at our friends' house, the Claytons, I just put him in the kitchen sink. It was hard to hold him up since he's not sitting on his own completely yet but it was a fun time. Daddy took a picture.

One sleeps & one plays

Andrew loves his new large backyard. One of his favorite things to do is to play with the water hose and get all wet as he is here in this picture. While Andrew plays, Luke does a lot of sleeping.

Just rambling.....

I watched the best show on television tonight....yeah, that's right.....24. Only four hours left of the 24 hour day. I'm hooked on Jack Bauer and am planted in my chair for the entire hour. It's cool how Jack never goes to the bathroom, can receive a great signal from land to the commercial airliner he's on, always has the right equipment on him to get the job done, and relies so heavily on his PDA. My question tonight is, after all that drama to get the recording back that implicates the president as the bad guy, why didn't Jack just download the digital recording to his PDA so Chloe could send it to CTU/Homeland Security? Don't tell me it an old-fashioned tape recording, cause I don't buy it.

Anyway, on a different note: We were up late last night cleaning the apartment since we had to be out by the first of the month. We called a babysitter at the last minute to basically sit and watch TV at our house for three hours while the boys slept so we could go back to the apartment and scrub toilets, mop and vacuum floors, and pack the last load. Now all the random piles of stuff are sitting in my dining room.

I would like to post a few pictures that I've taken these past few days but, since our computer is at Gateway headquarters getting "fixed", I can't just stick my Memory Stick into the hard-drive. That means I now need to find the USB cord in one of the many packed boxes so I can upload the pictures to Mitch's laptop that I've been using to post to my blog. Later!

Our new house

Tonight is our first official night in the "new" house. It's almost midnight and I'm staring at boxes of stuff sitting around me throughout the house. So much to do....glad that my mother is coming tomorrow for the weekend! Mitch and I had a neat time putting Andrew to bed tonight because, you see, it was not only his first night in his new bedroom but also his first night in the big bed with a bedrail as well as his first night sharing a room with his little brother. We feared it all might be too much transition at one time, but Andrew fared well. The monitor is on high so I can hear any little bit of movement before one wakes the other up. It's so nice to be in a house and out of an apartment where you can hear everything. My friend Amber is also moving out of an apartment into a house with her husband and two boys. Amber, isn't it wonderful? The only thing about moving that I hate is the cleaning up...especially scrubbing the refrigerator, floors, tubs, and sinks. Not to mention packing all the little items of things that don't really have a place anywhere....that would be related to my "random piles" post a few weeks back. Well, here's a picture of our cute little house with the HUGE fenced in backyard - Mitch almost came home with a Beagle puppy the other day since we now have a place for one. He knows that the kind of dog that I want. However, I don't think a dog is a good idea right now so I'm glad he decided against it. Email me if you need our new address!

Remember this?

I sometimes think about my childhood and the funny memories I have. I wonder what memories Andrew is making now. Will he look back and laugh like I do? Why do we have to grow up?

What about you.....got these same memories?

1. a banana seat bicycle with a plastic basket that had flowers on it?
2. Love's Baby Soft was the first "real" perfume you ever owned.
3. Holly Hobby sleeping bag, stationary, and wall hangings.
4. the electronic game, Simon.
5. homemade ribbon barrettes in every color imaginable.
6. you wanted your first kiss to take place in a roller rink
7. Strawberry Shortcake, Blueberry Muffin, & Huckleberry Pie.
8. metal lunchboxes
9. annual gathering around the TV for "The Wizard of Oz"
10. a magic eightball
11. Friendship pins on your shoelaces
12. Weekly Reader
13. Sit-n-Spin
14. Big Wheels
15. Shrinky Dinks
16. Judy Blume books
17. recording songs off the radio by holding up your tape recorder to the speaker
18. Little Debbie's Star Crunches
19. Cookie Crisp
20. LA Gear
21. Wax on, wax off
22. Star Search
23. Miami Vice, Magnum PI, Fantasy Island, Love Boat, Growing Pains, Family Ties, Facts of Life, Moonlighting, Knight Rider, Different Strokes, Benson.
24. Ferris Bueller's Day Off & The Breakfast Club
25. Atari
26. pegging the bottoms of your pants
27. wearing two different color socks to match your outfit.
28. Twisty-bead necklaces
29. leg warmers
30. banana clips, Wet-n-Wild makeup, scratch and sniff stickers
31. Pop Rocks with a Coke
32. Donkey Kong & Mario Brothers
33. snap bracelets and jelly shoes
34. Tiffany or Debbie Gibson
35. Member's Only and the Izod alligator

Festival & Friends

Angie & me

We spent all day Saturday playing. We enjoyed the Moon Walk at our church festival, spending time with extended family, and visiting with friends who were here from out-of-town. Now, we have a week left to get moved out of our apartment into the house so blogging might be light!

Time with Pop

My boys love spending time with Pop. He always makes them smile. Here he is having a conversation with Luke......and below is Pop giving two of his grandchildren, Andrew and Emma, a ride on his back. Thanks for loving our children, Pop!

They're already pinching them.....

...and I'm only four months old! I hope it's not like this forever. I mean, don't they know that I don't find this the least bit funny? Why are they laughing at me? Will someone please tell them to stop?!

Party til ya drop!

What seems like a weeklong birthday celebration is finally over. Don't get me wrong....I've enjoyed the planning, preparing, and celebrating, but I'm pooped! Andrew welcomed many friends and family to his 2nd birthday party this past weekend. They created flower pictures from their handprints, played on the playground, ate lots of sweets, and went on an egg hunt. Here are a few pictures that I promised.