Midweek Randoms

Lily is so into talking on the phone right now. Whenever Jacob, Grammie, Yaya, or Aunt Myra calls, she begs to talk to them. She carries on conversations quite well, believe it or not. When I talk on the phone, I'm typically multi-tasking, so I hold the phone on my shoulder/under my chin...Lily hasn't quite figured out how to do it though. Ha!

Lily and Levi are always climb up on stools when I up Asher in the highchair. They love talking to him and playing with him.

All tucked in the highchair with a baby doll and a play lemon. 

Levi does not get what you're supposed to do with a tent. Ha!

A sweet girl from church came to play with Lily today! Lily had the greatest time with her. She played hard and took a nice long nap.

Silly Lily with her first up-do. :)

Asher was pretty fussy yesterday, but I think he's going through a growth spurt. I upped his milk and he was much better today.

In an effort to cut our grocery bill, we have been eating a lot of beans and rice. I've decided I'm not a very good bean cooker. The red beans turned out split, grainy and mushy. The black beans we not ready when it was supper time...even though they should have been by the recipe I went by. Oh well. Hopefully I'll perfect the cooking of beans over the next few weeks.

Levi's glasses were missing all day. We seriously searched the house from top to bottom. Jacob even searched through the kitchen trash, but we still couldn't find them. Finally, when Jacob was down on his hands and knees looking under the bookshelves for the fifteenth time, he glanced up and saw the edge of the glasses poking out from under the Bumbo. I can't tell you how happy we were to find them!

We went to visit my sister's family and Baby Cameron tonight. What a perfect little guy he is! I loved getting to hold him and chat with my sis while our hubby's talked and the kids played.

Happy Wednesday!

Weekend Happenings

We had a pretty fun and exciting weekend!

We hosted a get together at our house on Friday night, so we spent most of the day cleaning and cooking to get ready. The kids were so good to play well together so I could get stuff done. 

Everyone who came brought a snack to share, so we ate and then some people played outside (we had some outside games set up) and some people stayed inside and chatted. It was a lot of fun! 

Of course we had a few near spats but with Daddy's intervention, they were avoided.

I was thrilled to get a picture with my baby man! It seems like I'm always behind the camera.

We ended the evening with s'mores. So fun!

Saturday morning my sweet sister called me and said she thought she was in labor with my second nephew! Asher and I had the awesome privilege of attending her birth! She did so so well! After having a really rough hospital delivery with her first son, she decided to use my midwife this time around. Cameron Tyndale was born at 1:45pm. It was an amazing experience, although I must admit, I was pretty happy to be on the coaching end of things this time rather than the actual birthing! Ha.

Saturday is my usual grocery shopping day. Since I was at the birth clinic all day, I had to go to the store in the evening. Jacob and the kids decided to come with me. Of course it started pouring on us right as we pulled up to the store. The clouds looked so crazy! We were glad it was just a thunderstorm and not a tornado!

I hope y'all had a great weekend!

4 months.

My little Asher is 4 months old! He is such a joy in our home - I can hardly remember what it was like without him!

• He still drinks about 7oz of goat's milk formula every 3-3 1/2 hours.
• He sleeps from about 9:30pm - 6:30am (straight through) and takes 3-4 naps each day.
• He weighs 12lbs 2oz and wears 3 month size clothes.
• He likes to sit in the highchair and watch everything that's going on.

• He is teething - has actually cut one tooth. This has caused him to be fussy some lately.
• Constantly chewing on his hand, a toy, or mama's hair {ick!}
• He reaches out and plays with the toys on his play mat and grabs toys from us when we hand them to him.

• He has ginormous feet! LOL
• He is a happy little man most of the time.
• He loves to be outside!
• He laughs and smiles so much! I love it!

We are so thankful for Asher and how well he fits into our family!

Evening at the farm.

These pictures are not the greatest. They are phone pictures and some are in a dark barn, but it's the memories I want to treasure for my children.

We have been spending more time with our families since Jacob is free most evenings during the summer. It's been so nice to be able to visit on other days than Sunday so we're not rushing home to get the children down for naps or bedtime. Lily and Levi have loved getting to go to the barn and play outside...which they don't get to do since it's dark by the time we get there on Sunday nights.

Papaw and Lily headed to the barn.

Yaya, Levi, and Lily watching the brand new baby goat and his momma.

Lily holding the new baby goat.

Levi was content to watch from Yaya's lap.

Yaya about to milk the momma goat.

Going to see the other animals.

Seeing Lily and Levi having such a good time at the barn with Papaw and Yaya reminds me so much of my childhood. I remember being at the barn as much as I could "helping" my Granddaddy. I don't remember him ever once losing his patience with us kids, although I'm sure we were completely underfoot. 

Birthday and July 4th Week.

Last week was such a busy, busy week.

On Monday, my brother's - then girlfriend, now fiancee - who was in town for the 4th, came over for the afternoon to spend some time with me and the kids. Then we went over to my parent's for supper with all the family. Lily and Levi had a blast playing outside.

Sweet couple.

Of course we had to go to the barn to see the animals. Lily held the kittens and didn't break out in a rash! The last time she touched a cat (about a year ago), she broke out and we assumed she was allergic to them. She was so excited to be able to pet and hold them and not have to just look at them.

Tuesday was my birthday! We started out the day at Cracker Barrel for breakfast with Jacob's family (that's the only picture we took all day. sad!), then Jacob had a meeting all morning. Our mother's helper came to watch Lily and Levi so I could get out and do some fun stuff. Asher tagged along with me. First, we took my friend who works at the Post Office a milkshake from Chick-Fil-A. Back when I was selling hair bows and going to the PO every other day, I got to be good friends with C. She had a baby girl about 3 weeks after Asher was born, so she's just recently gotten back from maternity leave. We had the sweetest visit even though we just chatted between customers.

After that, we went to the hospital to visit Jacob's Pawpaw. He wasn't doing very well that day, but he perked up a lot when I read some Psalms to him. He was a baptist preacher for many years, and he still preaches when he's up to it. Thankfully he's improved just over the couple days. The doctor finally figured out that he has a small fracture in his back - which has been causing Pawpaw's excruciating pain. We are so thankful to have an answer and a plan to get him back on his feet, Lord willing.

Asher and I ate lunch with Mom at Panera, then we headed home to get all three babes down for their naps. 

We had a good 4th of July. Our annual church picnic was in the evening. It was super hot and the kids got a little cranky when we tried to get a picture, but overall it was great!

We enjoyed yummy food.

Visiting with my sweet Memaw.

Feeding the goats.

Playing tug of war.

Looking cute in patriotic clothes. 

 (excuse the fake smile, she had too much to do to smile normally for the camera)

Enjoying beautiful fireworks.

Thursday and Friday were spent trying to get our house back in order from the chaos of the week. 

On Saturday morning, a friend, who was in town at her parent's house, invited me and the children over to play. We had such a fun time! Lily is already asking to go back and see Miss Emily.

Sunday was pretty normal with church in the morning, dinner with Jacob's family, home for naps, then back to church in the evening and supper at church.

I'm hoping for a pretty low-key week this week...but we'll see how it turns out. You never know what fun things might pop up!

18 months

My little man is a year and half! How can that be?

He is such a busy boy - always moving, getting into things and being a little helper.

He loves helping empty the dishwasher. Seriously, when he hears me open it, he drops whatever he's doing and runs to help. Love that boy!

He is a daredevil. Climbing, standing in rocking chairs, you name it, he'll be found doing it.

He burned a little finger on the stove top a couple weeks ago. He wasn't even in the kitchen when I went to get Lily off the potty and when I came back, he had a chair pulled up to the stove and was saying "hot, hot" while holding a little red finger up to me to blow on.

His stubborn streak is coming to the surface very quickly. He has just learned to say "no" and it seems to be his favorite word. 

He will try to repeat anything you tell him, but sometimes they come out like grunts. He has some trouble putting some different sounds together too. Like, he can say "ba" and "ll" but he can't say "ball." I think a lot of it has to do with his abnormal palate. We go back to Children's this month or next month...I've got to remember to call and make an appointment. We are praying that he just needs speech therapy and not surgery.

He is looking more and more like his Daddy did when he was little.

He and Lily get along really well most of the time, but Levi sure does know how to push his sister's buttons.

He is cutting two molars right now.

He weighs about 20lbs, wears size 3 shoes and wears size 12 month clothes.

Eating is really touch and go with him right now. He'll eat something and love it one day, and hate it the next. Cheesy eggs are his favorite right now. 

He loves water...to play in and to drink. I rarely give Lily and Levi juice, so on the 4th when it was super hot and we were playing outside, I gave them juice, and they took one sip and started begging for me to dump it out and give them water. It was funny!

I'm so thankful for my first-born boy. God has used him to bless our family immensely!