Happy Birthday Lawson!

I can not believe it, and I'm still in denial, but our baby is turning 3. 3 means he's really not a baby anymore, and although he'll always be the baby of the family, Lawson is growing up. He's a potty trained, sleeping in a big bed, riding a bike with training wheels, counting, opinionated, bossy, big brother loving little guy.

There are 3 days in my life that are the absolute most important days: our wedding anniversary, B's birthday, and L's birthday. So as usual, I thought I'd pull out some pictures from his big day.

I started off a nervous wreck. I was so scared of having a c-section, but even more scared of having what happened during B's birth to happen. So I went with the flow...

All I remember with Dr. Martin held him up was, "He's huge!" He weighed in at a whopping 9lb 6oz. And all I could think was "I had a 9 lb baby, I had a 9 lb baby..."

I love seeing the love of my life holding OUR new love of OUR life.

Along with a proud daddy, there was an even more proud Big Bro.

B got to sneak into the recovery room to meet Lawson. I can still hear his precious little voice saying "I'm a big broder."

For days, he wouldn't touch the new little guy.

This momma of a wild little 2 year old was taking in every moment of a snuggly new newborn.

I loved the way he'd nestle his little body into mine. Momma's boy in the making right there...

Melt. my. heart.


I love every little ounce of that day, and Lawson, I love you. Thank you for being our sweet little "Yawson".

Lawson's First Swimming Lessons

Lawson started swimming lessons on Friday. He goes in the mornings when Briley is at school. He was so excited to go swimming, but a little confused that I wasn't going with him, and even more confused that he couldn't just play on the slide the whole time :)

He did very well though. Once he sat down, he had fun and listened to his teachers.

I couldn't get to close for a picture with my phone b/c I was worried that he'd want to come to me. He kept looking my way and waving.

The nice thing about doing lessons at the Y, is that they will come get the kids out of childcare while you are working out. I would love to watch his lessons, but I also think it would be good for him to do it on his own without me. I figured we'd give it a few more lessons before I decide on that.

Easter Weekend

Easter weekend started off with Daddy's surgery. Papaw came in town that night, and the boys were so excited to have him spend the night and be there in the morning too. (Last time he came, he had to leave before they woke up.) Briley is back into riding his bike with no training wheels, so the boys had to go out early that morning and show off their bike riding skills.

We had a big package come in, so I let the boys decorate and use it as a fort. It didn't last as long as I thought, but it was still fun.



I didn't do much cutesy Easter stuff this year, but I do have to say that we did a really good job learning the story of Easter. That's the most important part too! We used the Resurrection Eggs that I made at MOPS. If you don't have them, you need to look them up! They are a fabulous way to learn the story of Jesus' Resurrection. There is an egg with an item, and you open one egg a day for 12 days before Easter. Each item tells a part of the story Jesus' death and resurrection. On Saturday, we made Resurrection Rolls. They were yummy and another great way to learn the story.

B took these:

We rolled marshmallows in butter (the oils) and cinnamon/sugar (the spices) and wrapped them with crescent rolls (the linens).

After they baked in the oven, they looked like this:

When we woke up Easter morning, the Easter bunny had stopped by! We searched for eggs,


and found Easter baskets.



I need to remember to put them in cute pj's the night before Easter! After our egg hunt and digging into some candy, we headed off to the early service at church. All dressed and out of the house by 7:30 was pretty impressive! With so much time left in our day, we did some boat shopping, and then headed off to Opry Mills mall. It's finally open! I couldn't be more excited to have a mall close to us again, and the boys were excited to check out the Lego Store!


We never managed to get a full Easter family picture, but we had a great day. Lawson came home to nap, and then we headed to dinner with friends. It was a great Easter!

Daddy Can See!

Daddy survived Lasik! He came home and slept, and slept, and slept. I finally woke him up around 3. The boys and I had breakfast with friends that morning during his surgery, and when he came home to sleep, went played outside and ran errands to stay out of the house. When we finally got home, they kept themselves busy in B's room.

Papaw came in town that night!

Daddy's Getting Lasik!

The big day is in the morning! Nick is getting Lasik, and he is so excited. Sure I'm happy that he'll be able to see where he's going when he wakes up in the morning, and that he won't have to wear glasses, and that he doesn't have to deal with contacts. But I am so nervous! I do not like the idea of someone cutting or lasering his eyeballs. I mean, those blue eyes are what make me fall for him 12 years ago! Anyway, I'm sure I'll be taking pictures of him tomorrow while he's loopy from Valium :) Say a prayer that everything goes well for him, and that I don't have a 3rd child to take care of when he comes home!

Catching Up: March Overview Part 2

You know spring has arrived when Lawson starts playing outside in the mornings. He gets up before Briley, and as soon as it started getting warm, he started playing outside on the patio. This is my view in the mornings when I drink my coffee. I love, love, love lazy spring mornings mornings. The birds chirping, the sun warming everything around us, and just spending time with my boys.

Who says there is anything wrong with playing cars outside in your Batman undaroos???

Busted!

LOVE this face!

Busted again!


The boys have been asking daily when the ice cream man would return, and he finally did! I guess it's time to start keeping cash handy again :) What better way to eat your Spiderman popsicle than wearing a fireman raincoat and cowboy boots?


A few weeks ago, I went to one of my Mom's groups, and our speaker was Robin O'Bryant. She is a popular blog writer and author of Ketchup is a Vegetable and Other Lies Mom's Tell. I hadn't read the book yet, but I heard she was hysterical, and she was! I came home and downloaded the book to my Kindle app immediately. (Love that thing by the way! I wonder if Nick has notices all of the Amazon charges yet...) Anyway, she mentioned something about how everyone makes things seem nice and rosey on Facebook and blogs. So I started wondering if I did that. I mean, I certainly don't mean to if I do. Everyone sees me with my arguing kids, right? But I started thinking, it's really that I just don't take many pictures of the ugly moments. I take pictures of the fun stuff, and that's what I blog about! So I came home, and decided that I would start documenting the ugly stuff too. Well, it turns out that my kids don't like me putting a camera in their face when they are mad. They get even madder! So here they are at their worst... well maybe not worst, sometimes it's worse than this.

Life is really hard when you have to wake up from 3 hour naps everyday.

Yep, that's real life right there!



B's turn! This is the "is computer time really over? 5 more minutes, please?" face

... and the arguing b/c it's really time to get off face.

Life with a 2.5 and 5.5 year old is like living with 2 bipolar people. One minute they are as happy as can be, playing, independent, etc. and the next minute they are fighting, screaming, and playing. So, there I did it!

Catching Up: March Overview Part 1

March came and went so quickly! I spent so much time looking forward to our trip to Disney, that things weren't as exciting when we got back home. Before I new it, March was over and I didn't blog anything! Here's a quick look at what we did from my iphone.

Middle TN was in the "white zone", meaning high chances of severe storms. EVERYONE was talking about it. I just knew a tornado would be heading our way. So we cleaned out the safe closet, and I even brought down Lawson's crib mattress, which fit pretty well! The boys thought it was GREAT! They sat and played the ipad and didn't want to get out when the storm passed. It was all a lot of talk, nothing terrible hit, thank goodness.

We've had lots, and lots, and lots of fighting going on. So much so that I've avoided taking both boys grocery shopping, but one day it was necessary. So off we went! I just knew this would be a bad idea. We normally ride in the car, and I let both boys have a kiddy basket. Oh my goodness! They did great and looked so very cute as well.

B is quickly learning how to read. Everyday he does better and better, and I am loving watching him learn. He loves writing, and can "spell" without any help. This is his birthday list that he got started on. I'll translate the first line: Hero Factory

When we got home from Disney World, we had a week of spring break left. It was so hot, it felt more like summer break. We played outside, went to the park, and played in the sprinklers. We went to the Nashville Zoo one day and checked out the new dinosaurs.


The Nashville Zoo doesn't even compare to the Memphis Zoo, but they did have a nice little petting zoo area. Lawson loved brushing the goats!

We went to the dentist! They LOVE the dentist and ask to go whenever we pass it! There are video games in the waiting room, and they get to wear shades and headphones as the watch TV on the ceiling. Lawson even went back all by himself. He was already having his teeth cleaned when B and I went in.

Briley's name was drawn for the No Cavity Club, and his picture will be in the next Nashville Parents magazine.

We've been playing outside constantly. They love playing baseball, driving the Jeep, going to the playground, and playing with neighbors.

Soccer season has started, and Lawson is dying to play!


And... yesterday we were Egged!

They were so excited! If you have kids in your neighborhood, you should do this! The loved it.