Happy Birthday Daddy!

Today was John's birthday and we had fun celebrating tonight after he got home from work! He wanted homemade waffles for dinner so that's what we had, then presents and yummy ice cream cake. Happy Birthday to the BEST husband and daddy ever! We love you!

Michael's 5th Birthday!!

Michael turned 5 a week and a half ago!!! I still can't believe he is that old....it goes too fast. We had a very busy day starting with his baseball game where he got his first hit off the pitcher (see video below) and got the game ball!! He was so excited and proud of himself! His GG came in town that afternoon and they made a cake together. She makes a cake with the boys every year on their birthdays and is so good about letting them call the shots......which is apparent judging by the final product! GG said this was the tallest cake she has done. Michael was very specific about having 5 layers and what colors they needed to be and of course it wasn't complete until it had army parafinailia all over it! My Dad and Sybil came over to join us for dinner. Michael picked Applebee's for the cool speaker boxes they have on the table so you can tune into any TV you want (we wouldn't want to go anywhere actually for the food at this age right?)! Then it was back to the house for some presents. He got a Nerf gun that he had been wanting from Paw Paw and Ms. Sybil and the promise to go to Target with GG the next day to pick out what he wanted.....it turned out to be another Nerf gun. I'm not sure who had the most fun playing with the guns John or the boys!! I do love watching them all play together....it makes my heart full! I will say it is funny how there was a day when I thought that I didn't want the boys playing with toy guns and everyone always said "just wait, they're boys". Well, I can't even tell you how many weapons are in the stash around here. We are well equipped to defend ourselves against any pretend bad guys that come our way!! So, back to the birthday events. Michael had a fun weekend. We are having his party 2 weeks after his birthday b/c the place we are having it was booked until then. It's always more fun to drag it out anyway! He got to see Grandma after school last Friday and she took him to Toys R Us to pick something out and to lunch! He's a very blessed little boy to have so many people around who love him.

Let's play catch up!

So, Michael had his first Baseball game on Saturday and loved it! He was so adorable in his uniform. The game was tied b/c each team is only allowed 4 runs per inning and at this age and skill level it is a rare thing for getting anyone out on a play! John is the head coach for his team which also means he is the pitcher....talk about pressure! Oh, the name of the team is the Yellow Jackets so you know they are good! They are having a good time together which brings me to my next bit to share.......

On Sunday John and Michael hung out for hours making a wooden airplane together. I'm not talking about something they bought at the store and put together.....no, they took pieces of scrap wood and actually made an airplane! This was just one of those things that just makes me want to cry because I know how much it meant to Michael to have so much one on one Daddy time! There is no one in this world that Michael would rather spend time with than his Daddy. He is so proud of this airplane and I know that it will be something that he will have to show his kids one day! They haven't painted it yet but when they do I'll put a picture of it up. The paper plane in the picture that Michael made was the inspiration for the project.

Lastly......as Project Plane was taking place, Walker was busy hanging out with his friend (and neighbor) Hollis. They both just joined the Cub Scouts and are so excited about it that they put on their uniforms and played all afternoon in them. Don't they look cute!

Micael's Bike Riding Debut!

I totally meant to put this up last week.....especially for the Grandparents! Michael has learned to ride his bike without his training wheels and he is so excited about it! Daddy was the one who really worked with him and did a great job. I was told that I wasn't as good as Daddy (probably my lack of patience as I killed myself pushing him around on his bike while he barely pedaled)! I told him that it wasn't a free ride and then Daddy took over. John made it a lot more fun by turning it into a game and seeing how long he could go without help. In the beginning it wasn't very long but he has now made it up to 155 seconds which doesn't sound like a lot, but to him it was an eternity! Seriously, seeing his cute little face all lit up and how proud he was of himself was awesome! Go Michael!

Calm Before the Storm!

I can't believe it's been so long since I've posted anything! It's not b/c we've haven't been doing anything.......we're just too stinkin' busy!! I really thought that once school started that I would be so caught up on everything in my life that I would have to find stuff to do, ha! This is going to be short and sweet but I wanted to share a couple of pics from our Labor Day trip to Destin, FL.

We went down to Destin last Friday with one of my best friends, Candy, and her little boy Watson. We were supposed to go on Thursday but Walker woke up puking and was sick all day long. You know it's bad when he'd rather lay on the couch than lay in the car watching movies on the way to the beach!! When we got up Friday am, Walker was raring to go....like he had never been sick. So we decided to jump in the car and even though it was going to make our short trip to the beach even shorter we decided to go for it (not to mention we had already paid for it)! We stopped in Montgomery to have lunch with some of our really good friends (Du and Vicki) that we haven't seen in a while. After a short but nice visit we got back on the road. We made it to our condo around 7pm. Candy got there about 45min. after us and we all went and had dinner at a restaurant on the beach (Pampano Joe's). The kids had a lot of fun b/c they could play on the beach while we were waiting for our table.

Now for the calm before the storm part. When we woke up on Saturday morning the ocean was so still and smooth. I don't think I have ever seen it without any waves at all. It was kind of eerie....very quiet for the ocean. The water was absolutely gorgeous. It was perfectly clear and the colors of blue and aqua looked like we were in the Caribbean. It seemed especially hot since there was no wind at all. We had a great day playing on the beach and in the pools. We had planned on cooking out that night but then the clouds rolled in and we had a good little storm. I say that lightly.....the wind was fierce and there was lots of rain (you would have thought there was a hurricane close by or something)!!!

When we woke up on Sunday it was windy, cloudy and the waves were very big (the red flags were out). There were still a lot of people out on the beach and we still had fun. We were able to get in a half a day of beach time before we started packing up for the drive home. John, of course had been monitoring the Weather Channel off and on and made the decision that we needed to head home Sunday night instead of waiting until Monday. We got packed up and all went to The Crab Trap to have a late lunch before starting the drive. We got on the road about 4pm and got home around 10:30. We hit some heavy traffic on I65 where there were a lot of cars from LA and MS trying to make their way out of town and then there were a couple of really bad rain storms we went through. We did see some of the most fascinating clouds that we have ever seen before. I expected to see a funnel drop out of one at any minute. Thank God none did. In this picture it looks like it's touching the ground but it's not.We had a fun, quick last beach trip for the summer! Thank you God for your traveling mercies and for not allowing the hurricane to be any stronger than it was.