Da-Da and a Movie

Today was a big day for both of our children....James FINALLY said Da-Da (exactly 2 months after he said Mama I might add) and Grafton went to her first movie!!  I will begin with James- he loves saying Mama and does so constantly! I love it of course but was starting to get a tad worried that he was never going to make the "d" sound!  However, today was the turning point for our little man...he has said Da-Da many, many times today and has even said "gl" and "l" a lot- which makes me a very relieved Mama! I finally feel like that tongue surgery was worth it last month since he is now making more sounds with his tongue. Yay for James!  I also feel like I need to update his mobility status....he now pulls up on EVERYTHING to stand and even takes steps from side to side to get where he wants to go (while holding on).  The downside....when he wakes up in the middle of the night he immediately stands up and walks back and forth fussing!

Now for Grafton- I have been sooooo excited about taking Grafton to see her first movie at the theaters.  Today Eric and I took her to see Winnie the Pooh and let her have the best experience she could have.  She was very excited to watch a movie on a "giant TV" as she called it and was even more excited to get candy and popcorn.  So we did it right- we got her popcorn, starburst that she picked out, and a strawberry slush! I feel compelled to say that she only at one little handful of popcorn, 1 1/2 starbursts, and one sip of the slush! Haha- but she was happy and that is all that mattered.  She watched the whole movie and when it was over she said "That was fuuuuun...let's do it again!"  It was a special time with Grafton, and we loved making the fun memory.

This and That

Here are a few pictures I have taken this past week- a couple are of James crawling around, some are of Grafton learning how to trace her letters, and a couple of the kids heading to a birthday party. As you know, I try to snap pictures as often as I can so that I will never ever forget how precious these little kiddies are. Oh how I love them.

Thank goodness for our playroom!

The kids have a blast playing in our playroom upstairs. Almost every morning we camp out in the playroom for an hour or two and play, play, play! Grafton loves her train table, James loves the ball house, and they both love getting out allllll the toys and making a mess!! Here are some pictures from our mornings...

Staying cool

This summer has been so hot, so all we can do right now is play inside!  It doesn't seem to be slowing Grafton down at all though- she absolutely loves playing with all of her toys inside. She makes up games, builds tunnels and caves, plays with her toys and James's toys, and colors or does crafts.  I love to see her imagination grow and grow, and it cracks me up when she brings out some "make believe" things like fake hot dogs that she has cooked or a make believe sucker that she is giving me. Her favorite thing to do this past week was pretend that James was a bridge! A BRIDGE?! He wouldstand up and hold on to his crib rail or her big girl bed rail and she would crawl under him over and over again!  He would laugh most of the time until she would get a little rough and nearly tackle him! It was fun watching them play together and giggle together- brought back lots of fun memories with my own brother :)

Grafton filled up James's crib with toys and jumped in to play!

 Happy baby boy getting into everything!

 Crawling all around the house

 The kids love to play in Grafton's bed!

 Playing the "bridge" game

 He loves to stand up

Smiles and Kisses

The kids were full of smiles and love today when James woke up from his nap! Grafton wanted to take pictures and next thing I knew she was kissing all over James and trying to put him in her lap! So of course I grabbed my camera and shot away!!  Here are some cute and some silly pictures I was able to take...

Miss Personality

Grafton has more personality than I could ever imagine and is just such a joy to be around. She makes me laugh all the time and sometimes I wonder how in the world I will be able to keep up with her!  The things that come out of her mouth are just too funny!  Like today I was helping her with a puzzle and she said "No Mommy! Stop! I am busy working with something!" as she tried to fit in a piece of the puzzle by herself. When she gets mad at me she yells "Leave me alone Mommy! Stop bothering me!" haha!  And when I put her down for a nap she says "I love you so much Mommy, I want to kiss you all over!" and she kisses and kisses my face and arms. She is just so sweet, so active, so dramatic at times, and so stinkin' funny! She sings and sings allllllll the time and loves to make funny faces.  Here are some pictures of her being a little ham this morning as we played while James took a nap.  I just love this little girl to pieces!

Sunday morning

I am always always trying to get pictures of my little ones because I know these precious moments are fleeting! Somehow we were all dressed and ready for church early on Sunday so I tried my best to get a few pictures of the kids.  It didn't work out too well since it was already 90+ degrees at 10:00 and the sun was so so bright, then Grafton decided she would rather put stickers all over her insread of taking pictures....but here are a few that I got! I love these children more than I could ever imagine- they have the sweetest and funniest personalities!

Birthday party fun!

We went to Hernando last weekend to celebrate Reid Wells' 3rd birthday! We had such a fun time seeing Evans and Julie and their sweet sweet families and catching up with old friends. Grafton had an absolute blast playing on the swingset and sliding down the huge blow-up water slide! I thought she would be scared but I was TOTALLY wrong- she was one of the first ones down it and wouldn't stop till everyone else had come in.  She is our little dare-devil apparently. James had a fun time crawling around and smiling at all the other children and babies. It was a fun fun time for us all!

Grafton's 1st time to go down the water slide!

 She loved it!

 My big man playing inside

 Always so so happy!

Grafton's concert

Grafton decided to put on a concert for us this morning, so we set up a pretend stage (using an umbrella!) got some props and started singing! Please excuse the messy hair, the pajamas, etc....we are having a lazy day at home!

She begins with the ABCs...

Then moves on to Jesus Loves Me...

Next is Rock-a-bye Baby...



And lastly she sings Itsy Bitsy Spider...



This sweet child loves to sing and her happy beautiful voice brightens even my darkest days. I hope she continues to lift her voice up to God and bring joy to us all. 

And he is off!

I finally found time to video James crawling this morning! Here are a couple of glimpses into James' crawling world!

A Patriotic Weekend

What a fun weekend we had celebrating our freedom and this beautiful land we get to call "home." We spent a lot of time at DeeDee and Pops' house- swimming, grilling out, and playing; Eric and I were lucky enough to have a date night while my parents watched the kids; we had some friends over to swim and cook-out at my parents house; and we watched the 4th of July parade on the square which Grafton LOVED!

Celebrating the Fourth of July reminds me of how blessed we are to have such freedom in our lives- freedom to live where want to live, freedom to worship our Lord Jesus Christ, freedom to love each other, and freedom to follow our wildest dreams. I look at my children and know that they can be and do and acheive whatever they dream of in the beautiful land God created for us. My heart is filled with joy, love and thanksgiving on this spectacular holiday.

The start of the weekend

 Typical...James pulling Grafton's hair and looking oh so innocent

 My beautiful girl

 reading with DeeDee

 silly kiddos

 playing while Grafton swims

 Taking a pool break with Pops

 Daddy's Girl

 Parade time!

 Family shot

 My babies

 I'm the luckiest girl around

 Sittin' with DeeDee

 Here comes the parade!

 We loved watching Grafton's face while the parade went by!

 Grafton was so excited!

 Making ice cream with DeeDee and Pops

 YAY! Uncle Scott came!