Judge me all you want

So this new child of mine is not exactly a stellar napper. I mostly carry him around with me until he falls asleep in my arms or the sling and then lay him down as I whisper a prayer for him to just STAAAAAAAAAAAY asleep!! So today I plopped him right smack in front of a Baby Einstein video in the playroom (Emma joined him) ... Did it work, you ask? For about a lousy 10 minutes. :)

POOL!!!

When we bought our new house, I'm not sure we were quite prepared for the time & money that would go into our ghetto rundown pool. But after a long road and many many dollars... we LOVE it!! The kids are in it just about every day. :)

BEFORE...

AFTER!!

Reese likes to play it safe on the stairs and drive his trucks

WEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!

Our resident handstand expert!

On the road again...

Happy 4th Birthday to cousin Seth!! We made the trek to Iowa again for our annual Seth celebration... and had a great time at his Spider-Man party. The kids played on the Backyard Adventure (call it by the right name or Seth will quickly correct you- it is NOT a playground) and on the Slip-n-Slide and with the teeball set. Wish we could've stayed longer (mostly to avoid the drive back in a 15 passenger van with all 3 kids on one bench and the rest ABSOLUTELY jam packed with furniture we bought from them)... until next July!!

Seth's expression describes his overall feeling of ending his nap to start his party...

Emma and sweet baby Paige (this baby is near perfect- she hardly makes a peep!)

On the Backyard Adventure!!

I love my Aunt Heather... and anyone who holds me

Yes, Reese, we actually CAN take this home!

I'm so big!

Lincoln Samuel is going to be 12 weeks on Monday and he's quickly approaching 16 pounds! We love him in all his chubby sweetness. :) He's smiling so big and sleeping much better at night.

His big bro and sis can't get enough of him!

I pledge allegiance

Josh has been talking about going to DC again for a while now and so for his 30th birthday I surprised him and took him there! Lincoln got to meet his namesake and we toured the city in awe of all the amazing monuments, memorials and museums that tell us about our American heritage. What an amazing history our country has. We packed as much into 3 days as we possibly could. We even got to see our super great newlywed friends Jon & Lauren who were in town on business! Josh stood in line at 6:45 a.m. to get tix to go up into the Washington Monument, we saw the Jefferson & Lincoln Memorials, WWII Memorial, Vietnam Memorial, Iwo Jima Memorial, Arlington Cemetery and Robert E. Lee's house, Capitol building (twice) which we also stood in line early for, White House tour, Crime & Punishment Museum, Air & Space Museum, National Gallery of Art, Museum of Natural History, a DUCK tour, Mount Vernon (my favorite!), Library of Congress, National Archives, and I may be forgetting something if you can believe that. We had such an amazing time- just wish we'd had longer! You better believe we're going back when our two favorite places open back up after renovation: Ford's Theater and Musuem of American History.

Can you do anything else but respect the thousands and thousands of men and women who have died for our country??

Lincoln slept through it, but here's good old Abe. What a guy.

Um, yes, that is George Washington's house! 80% original- we even got to see George's bed where he died.

Josh insisted on posing at every last place we visited. :)

The awesome view of the White House from the window of the Washington Monument!

Yes, we go to Florida a lot...

Ya gotta love it when business trips take you to a sunny place like Florida! We went to Orlando so Josh and his dad and bro Mark could set set up a booth at the Wesleyan conference to tell them all about what they do- sell cars at a discounted price to people in ministry! And so the kids and I begrudgingly ;) sat by the pool for a week with Grammie and Aunt Sarah. We got to check out Downtown Disney (including the amazingly huge Disney store and the LEGO store) and the kids totally loved it. We also spent one day at Typhoon Lagoon.

Lincoln was mostly found like this. :)

Reese's feelings about dinosaurs in a word: OBSESSION
You can imagine how he felt about this giant LEGO dino that moved.

Every 5 year old girl's dream: getting sprinkled with pixie dust at the Disney store...

and posing with Cinderella...

This is a poster advertisement for a massive place called T-Rex that is coming to Downtown Disney... in the Fall of 2008. It's a good thing Reese can't read. He would have been heartbroken to have missed this by couple months!

Sweet chubby baby Lincoln lounging by the pool. As you can see, he's having no trouble gaining weight.

Mr. Reese enjoying our hotel's pool.

more to come...

I have more posts coming, but too many pictures to go through right now... stay tuned!!

Mr. & Mrs. Jon Thompson

Lauren, one of my bestest friends got married and I had the honor of being her matron of honor (that makes me sound so old)! It was a great weekend filled with wedding festivities... the bachelorette party that Jen, another BFF and bridesmaid, so fantastically helped me with... an amazing bridesmaid brunch... rehearsal stuff... and a really great ceremony. Jon is such a great guy and it is obvious that God brought them together in His perfect plan. I don't have many pictures because I spent a good portion of the weekend with a baby strapped to me!

This mama of (soon-to-be) 5 knows how to make a baby happy!

That's one happy bride. :)

This picture is hilarious because it makes Jon look confused and Lauren look mad,
but it's the best I had of the two of them... love you guys!! :)

Birthday Surprise

So my darling hubby planned a fun birthday surprise for me this year... a nice dinner, just the three of us (love ya, Lincoln!) at one of my favorite restaurants, then we met up with some friends to go see the new Indiana Jones movie (great!) and then the next morning we took all the kids to the zoo to see the new KOALA exhibit!! I totally love koalas and Josh had heard they were coming... it was lots of fun even though they slept the whole time... they're still super cute! Happy 30th to me! :)

So many aunts, so little time

We were SO blessed when THREE of our aunts came to visit in the same week- there just wasn't enough time to enjoy them all. Aunt Laurie and Mickey from NY snuggled with Lincoln (and the other 2) as much as they could and took us shopping til we dropped... and Aunt Pat hung with us around the house, helping with the grind of cooking and cleaning and the every day stuff! We had such a great time with them and are so thankful they got to come!

Bike Parade

Winnie was here for a short visit before her family went camping... so we go to take her along to Emma's bike parade at school! All the kids decorated their bikes and then came out to show off their hard work to all the adoring fans. Reese and Winnie thought it was the coolest- and especially loved playing with the safety cones. ;)

Mother's Day!

Emma's class put on the sweetest program for all the mommies and each kiddo had made his/her mom a fun hat to wear while we watched. They sang funny songs and then invited us back to have cake and punch. It was adorable!

Check out those stylin' mamas!

Awww...

The joy of cupcakes

Mr. Reese after thoroughly demolishing his cupcake...

HICCUP

This is hilarious and it explains why his hiccups in utero felt so forceful...

Soooooo sleepy

Some sweet pics of Lincoln... this is what he does when he's not eating. :)

I Scream, You Scream...

So my computer game addict daughter was surfing the kid-friendly web and found this great recipe that we decided to try on this rainy day... it was super fun and worked really well!

Ice Cream in Two Bags

3/4 C milk (we used 1%, but 2% or whole would probably be better)

4 tsp sugar

1/4 tsp vanilla

handful of chocolate chips, chopped fruit, nuts, whatever

1/2 C kosher salt

3-4 C ice cubes

gallon baggie

quart baggie

heavy duty tape

In qt baggie, mix milk, sugar, vanilla, chips.

Seal with tape and place inside gallon baggie.

Pour ice cubes and salt around smaller baggie and seal large baggie with tape.

Put on your winter gloves and shake, shake, shake! Toss it back and forth and shake for about 5 minutes or until it looks thick enough to eat!

Baby Days

So our days are mostly consumed with our little newborn punkin... Emma cannot get enough of him and you can generally find her squeezing him, kissing him, begging to hold him. Reese had been ignoring him, but we had a breakthrough today when he asked to hold him! By the look on Lincoln's face, you can tell he was surprised too. :)
Here is another thing Emma dreamed up to do to her little brother- I cracked up when I turned around to find she had put her shoes on him. Poor kid doesn't know what's coming.
And my sister (Aunt Kara) lovin' on Lincoln... he's pretty snuggly.