Just Hanging Out

Our last night in Columbia we got all the kids clean and then put on a movie for them... we popped some pop corn and let the kids enjoy some down time.  They were all tired so I think they enjoyed a relaxing evening before going to bed.

The picture quality was not that great in this picture but I loved seeing them sitting together and enjoying some down time!!

These two you can definitely tell are cousins!!!  Their profiles are SO much a like and with them both having short hair cuts I think people would think they were brothers instead of cousins!!  Jacob has a lot of me in him and Micah is a spitting image of my brother so somewhere in there they came out and are growing up to really look a lot a like!

Like I said, Micah loved having a few boys to hang out with and have fun with.  When Jacob and Chase started in on their daily rough housing moment, Micah did not hesitate and he jumped right in.  I wish I had taken a video of their wrestling match ... Micah laughed the entire time.  He thought it was great fun!!  He is home now with his Daddy and I'm sure they will begin having their own daily wrestling matches.  These boys are going to have tons of fun growing up together!!!

Fun Outside

After our busy zoo day on Monday we decided to take it a little easier on Tuesday.  We had a lazy morning and then headed out to Sandhills to walk around and do a little bit of shopping.  We had lunch together at Brixx (the kids and Sarah loved our little pizza place) and then headed home for naps.  After naps we had dinner and then Charles went out front and set up our sprinkler.  The kids were so excited to go run in the water and they all had a blast!!

All five kids enjoyed the sprinkler.  They ran, jumped and even took a trip around the cul-de-sac, bare feet and all!!  And Luke enjoyed watching the fun from the stroller.

The kids had a B-L-A-S-T together out front!  Jacob and Micah are such great buddies... you can tell Micah soaks up all the boy time he can get.  He loved rough housing, running, swinging and playing with the big boys and he fit right in with them!! 

These kids are so close and it makes me so happy for them to be able to see each other more than once a year.  This visit was unexpected but so, so much fun!!!  Can't wait to add Luke into the mix the next time we get together (which hopefully won't be too long from now)! :)

Cousins Together in Columbia

We are just now finally adjusting to all the fun and excitement that we've had over the last few weeks... what fun it was to have Sarah and the kids come stay with us in Columbia.  I never thought that we'd have them at our house and get to show them how we do things at our home but it just so happened that we got that chance a few weeks ago.  Sarah left Maryland where she had been staying with her mom, drove to North Carolina to visit one of her great friends and then headed here from there.  They got to our house on Saturday and we spent the next 4 days having so much fun!!  The kids lived out back... it was so nice to throw their crocs on and send them out the door and not have to worry about a thing!  When they were inside it was for either food or a nap! :)  Monday morning we took the opportunity to show them around our zoo, Riverbanks Zoo.  What fun we had!!  (I walked out the door that morning without my phone AND my camera but thankfully Sarah had her camera with her so we got a few pictures of the fun!!)

There was one elephant that morning that was definitely showing off for us and it was something I had never seen in all the times I had been to the zoo.  The elephant was up on some rocks (not where the elephant should have been standing) and reaching his trunk up as high as he could into the trees.  It was actually pretty cool to watch... we were "up close and personal" and the kids got a kick out of being able to see into the elephant's mouth!!

The kids had so much fun together!!  We had my double stroller (heavy!) that carried Luke and one of the big kids and then we took our wagon (even heavier!!).  Poor Sarah literally had to drag that thing around the entire zoo... something was not right with the wheels and it wouldn't turn very easily.  I think we both got a good work out that day! :)  Sarah got some really cute pictures that I love... the one in the bottom left corner of this last collage I must have really loved... I used it in both collages I made but was too lazy to go back and fix it! ;)

By this time all the kids and both of us were tired and hot.  We took one last picture together and then went to buy the kids a nice cold treat!  It was my boy's first time having Dippin Dots and they LOVED them!!!  Our zoo day was so much fun!!  It was a little crazy with 6 kids and only 2 adults (we got a few funny looks every time we'd go out on our own from having 6 kids so close in age!) but we managed and everyone had a great time!!

Already a Pro ;)

To say we have a baseball player in the making is an understatement!!  Chase is only four but seems to hit the baseball like he has been playing for years.  He is definitely a natural and loves learning more and more each time Charles works with him.  Chase starts t-ball this summer and he is so excited.  Over spring break Charles took him out to buy him his very first glove and t-ball bat.  They also bought a few balls like what they use for this age so that Chase can get used to them.  Using a real bat as opposed to the tiny plastic one he learned to hit with is very different and it's the same kind of thing with the balls!  I picked up my camera a few nights ago to video Chase hitting balls with Daddy and these two videos were too cute not to share!! :)

Chase is doing so well!!  I think he would be bored with regular t-ball because he can already hit the balls that Charles pitches to him but that's the good thing about playing at the YMCA this year... I've been told that the boys have the opportunity to hit the balls pitched to them first and then they hit off the tee if they need it.  I can't wait to see Chase in his little uniform (which he will probably swim in because he's so small)!! 

This next video was too cute not to share... Jacob is Chase's biggest fan and nothing makes him happier than when Chase is doing well!!  Chase hits a foul ball and yet Jacob reacts like he hit a home run :)  Love these two boys!!

Jacob is also doing really well... Charles already has him hitting the balls that are tossed to him so it's not going to be long before we have two baseball pros!!  I have a feeling that we are going to be very busy with these three boys during baseball season in the years to come!!! 

Handsome Boys

We went to the Children's Garden on Saturday morning to attempt a little Easter photo shoot with the boys.  I decided to go around 9:30 that morning which was right in the middle of Luke's nap so it wasn't as successful as I would have liked but we did get a few good ones of all the boys as well as a few of the boys by themselves.

This is one of the few good ones that I got of them together.  It is SO hard getting all three of them to not only look at the camera at the same time but somehow also get a smile on their faces.

 There were times we would get 2 out of the 3 looking and smiling at the camera but then the third would not be.  Taking pictures of two kids was hard enough, three is proving to be next to impossible! ;)

I mentioned that we opted for this little photo shoot instead of letting Luke take a morning nap and he made sure to let us know that he was not o.k. with that choice.  Oh well... it made for a few funny pictures!!

Overall, we spent about 30 minutes trying to get a good picture of these three.  I walked away with a handful of good group shots which was good enough for me!!  These three boys are such amazing blessings!!!

 And these individual pictures were just icing on the cake :)  Getting individual pictures is SO much easier than a group picture!!!

Jacob's 3rd Birthday Fun

I know I'm a bit late in posting about Jacob's third birthday but better late than never, right?  We had such a great weekend celebrating our second son and just how much he adds to this family.  He has proven that he is so much like his mama, in both physical traits as well as his personality.  He is sensitive, shy at times, loves following his big brother, lives to be just like his big brother (sound familiar Becky??), studies situations before jumping in... he loves to snuggle and loves for people to watch him do new things.  A few weekends ago we had a party to celebrate Jacob's three wonderful years and we all had such a great time.  We had a sports theme party pretty similar to Chase's 4th party but instead of focusing more on football like we did with Chase we put the focus on all sports.

Lots of people special to us came, including Aunt Ashley and cousin Eli.  This was the first birthday party for Jacob that they've been able to make it to so we were super excited to have them here!

Present time!!!  Aunt Anna took a few videos for me that I will have to get from her but he was so cute opening each gift.  I can still hear the "Oooohhh, lloooooookk at this!" that he would say as he opened each gift.

 He was so excited to open his present from Aunt Becky, Uncle Jason, Noah & Colin.  He LOVES his Cars and Finding Nemo search books so much!!

He is also so proud to wear the t-shirt Uncle Matt, Aunt Sarah, McKenzie, Maddie & Micah sent from Japan.  It has a picture of the jet that Matt flies on the back and whenever that shirt is clean it is on his back and he wants to tell everyone he sees about how Uncle Matt flies that kind of plane!

Hugs all around to all of his buddies who came.  He has one of the most thankful hearts of any child I have ever been around!!  In the mornings he is just SO thankful for everything, including his cup of milk.  "Thanks for this milk, Mom.  Thanks!!"  Another quick story about his thankful little heart... I had to buy new tennis shoes a few weeks ago (Jacob had worn holes in his) so instead of buying him new shoes I instead bought Chase the next size up and then handed down Chase's old shoes to Jacob.  As I handed Chase his shoes and then gave Jacob Chase's old ones he got the biggest grin on his face like I had just handed him the brand new ones.  He was so proud to be wearing his big brother's shoes and did not care one bit that he didn't get the brand new ones.  All day that day he kept thanking us for his new shoes!!  He melts my heart!!

Cake time!!!  Big brother had to help blow out the candles! :)

Once we were finished with the cake all the kids went out back to play.  It was a beautiful day and they all enjoyed the fresh air!!  Thanks to all our family and special friends who came to help us celebrate our sweet Jacob.  I can't believe it has already been three years.  We blink and the time is gone!!

Total Transformation!!

When we built our first home in Greenville the builders put seed down in the backyard and unfortunately the seed never took.  That left us with a huge yard in Greenville that we could never afford to sod so we just grew weeds and eventually, when those weeds were cut short, it looked like grass.  So when we knew we would be buying a house again one of my criteria was to have an established back yard.  Well, as we went through the process of finding our next house it became clear that I would have to give and take on a few things, our yard being one of those things.  A few months ago Charles and I started talking about a few upgrades we wanted to do around here and I knew that my #1 priority was to upgrade and transform our backyard.  At the end of last summer we bought an amazing play set for the boys to enjoy and I knew that adding mulch around the play set and putting in grass would make our yard that much better for the boys.  We did our research and ended up choosing a great company to come in and do the work for us.  This past weekend Charles worked hard on putting a wooden border around the play set to keep the mulch separated from the grass.  I think he did a great job.. the guys that came in on Monday even said the same thing!  Charles also removed the concrete decorative border that the previous owners had put down... I couldn't stand that stuff so it was so nice to see it gone.  Then it was up to the crew to till everything up, put down top soil, lay the sod and spread the mulch.  Right now we are in the "water twice a day" phase and I will be happy when the grass takes and you can't see the seams anymore but already it's proving to be so great for the big boys.

Before the work began... one big sandbox with a few weeds here and there!

The difference is huge!!!!  I am so thankful that the boys can go out back now, play and get sweaty and not come in as two big dirt balls!!

Looks good, huh?!!