miller finds another use for his yankee hat:

how sweet! carter & amelia share a snack:

miller & his towel. he then proceeded to sit next to avery and steal all their food. what a little mooch! (some how i did not manage to get a single picture of avery that was in focus-sorry, girls!)

memorial day 05.26

everyone loves a holiday because it means josh is off! on memorial day we did a little shopping including a new blow up pool for the summer. after naps, we blew it up and the kids had a blast!

another trip to the zoo 05.25

memorial day weekend we took a trip to the zoo with jennifer & avery (david was at a conference in london). the craziest part was driving in one car. we always joke that we should carpool and with the cost of gas, we may have to in the fall. so on this particular venture, we decided to put three britax car seats across the middle row of our expedition-that is what we should have taken a picture of. the kids loved it. anyway . . . back to the zoo-we had a blast even though it was hot and sticky.

miller loved the butterfly exhibit and we had to pull him out of the flower beds as he chased them through the garden.

miller was also fascinated with the elephants this trip-just look at his face!

ballet recital 05.16

this year, carter asked to take ballet (we also signed her up for gymnastics). after much searching, we decided to take at ms.pat's school of dance in cordova. we had many school friends in other classes, one of my past parents is a current teacher, many of my past and present students are also students there, etc. also, they have a very similar philosophy to teaching ballet that hope does to teaching preschool. ms.pat's wants children to have fun and love dance. they have a simple recital to minimize cost and put the focus on the child, not the costume, music, etc. it just seemed to be the place for us. carter really loved it, and when daddy had a wedding on the day of the recital and was going to have to miss it and there would be no pictures to show him (because our other camera is his backup), the teachers at ms.pat's quickly moved things so carter could perform on another day. we were very thankful!

love this last picture of her running off stage! she was so cute and i loved just being able to sit and enjoy her performance, which was made possible by my wonderful father who selflessly volunteered to keep miller so mommy, daddy & meme could go and dote on our sweet girl.

gymnastics

later, the class took off their tutus and ballet shoes and showed off what they had learned in gymnastics. as i am sure everyone has, we had already seen many of these new skills at home-somersaults on the bed & couch, crab walks from room to room, etc. 

somersault:

sassy walk back to the line:
bow (note the very dramatic bow occurring in the background. the teachers literally came over to check on her because each bow became more and more extreme!):
her first bouquet from mommy & daddy:
we were allowed to leave after her last performance due to her age and the length of the program, but we chose to stay and let her watch the older girls. carter has absolutely loved ballet this year and wants to take tap next year instead of gymnastics. she would also like to take hip hop, but it is not offered anywhere until age 5. carter had a blast watching and dancing along to the other girls' performances. 

lollies 05.11

on a sunday in may, we decided to run a few errands after naps. one of our stops was j.crew in saddle creek, where they just added the crewcuts line. one of the girls asked if she could give the kids a lollipop. sure! uhhh . . . little did we know they would be so big! the kids loved them!

3 year old picnic 04.23

this year for carter's school picnic, we let it just be her. we feel like sometimes it is nice for one child to get all our attention. she thought it was fun to eat with mommy and daddy while at school but was very distracted by all the families and playing going on around her. 

a family brought a bubble gun which everyone thought was great and wanted a turn at. carter had a blast running in the grass with all her friends and eventually getting her turn as well.

a total rant

i have been trying to post regularly, but not too often because i am about to run out of edited pictures. josh still has one wedding to go before he is caught up and can edit our dinky pictures. if you know how we are with a camera, you know we are either on or off. we either have a camera in tote and use it even when others think nothing important is happening, or we didn't even bring it with us. it's not that we are event capturers because what we take may not be a true event, it is just whenever we feel like taking pictures. since school is out, i have toted the camera a couple of times, and some of you may be wondering where are those pictures? and like i said, they are coming . . . as soon as josh edits them! ha! 

so, enjoy a few more posts before we get caught up and i can also blog about daily life-like the reason i am blogging now is the newer neighbors next door have decided to weed eat right outside our bedroom window at three o'clock in the afternoon in the middle of the summer. i understand he is retired and thinks that you can do yard work at whatever times you like, such as 6-8 am, 3-5 pm or my favorite, 7-8 pm. oh my gosh! does he not know what it means to have toddlers!!! they like to sleep in all those time slots!! and sometimes, i do too!! and, that is my rant for the day! (btw, this rant is much nicer than when i called josh 2 minutes after being woken up 5 minutes into a nap by weed eating outside my window!)

the one where miller turns 2

miller turned 2 april 17th. we celebrated with a retro cookout the following weekend. i choose birthday party themes based on my children's current favorites. anyone who knows miller knows he LOVES to eat but he is also obsessed with the play kitchen, plastic food, and specifically the plastic cheeseburger buns. so, that is where our theme was derived. we decided to make it a retro theme because, well, we love anything from the 1950s because that is when both homes we have owned were built. so, here is the food . . .

the birthday boy with his papaw, sporting his paper hat from the varsity in atlanta, georgia. thanks, papa joe, for picking those up for us at the drive-in.

"sister" as miller affectionately calls her

brother & sister eating their mini cheeseburgers 

and, to follow the theme & desire of the birthday boy, we had cookies & shakes instead of cake. every time i asked miller what he wanted for his birthday he would yell with enthusiasm "cookies!" so, that is what he got! and he blew it out through the bubble wand-silly boy!

miller made precious faces when he opened his presents. here he is trying to reach the bottom of the bag to find . . .

this! yeah for tools!

ROAR! that was miller's reaction when he pulled this out of uncle john's gift bag!

WOW! what is that? addy knows. grammie and papa joe gave miller a scooter. pictures to follow in another post.

thanks everybody for all the great gifts and fun times! miller loves you all!

giggles with grammie

the night before we celebrated miller's 2nd birthday, josh's parents spent the evening with us. our children love all of their grandparents, but it is especially fun to see grammie and papa joe as they don't live here. this particular visit grammie and carter created her own fairy tale. it was very cute and funny listening to the different things they created. 

"i love la"

the first weekend of april josh surprised me with a trip to los angeles to celebrate our anniversary. it was the first time since miller was born that i have been away overnight from carter and the first time for miller. josh has wanted to take me "out west" forever and thought this would be a fun whirlwind trip, and that it was.

we stayed here:

we drove this:

we shopped and ate here:

we waited in line to celebrate with cupcakes here:

and, we photographed ourselves in our bathroom mirror before dinner here:

we had a very full and incredibly fun first day. what an amazing husband i have!

speaking of which, if you are wondering why in the world we went on an anniversary trip in april when we were married on may 15th, it is because of the crazy, hectic life josh currently has. josh has started a wedding photography business that has him working several nights and weekends. he loves capturing a couple's special day and hopes to one day focus on this love full time. as for now, he is a very busy man, but he doesn't mind because he feels called to his passion. so, if you haven't visited our click here next links, click here and enjoy some of his recent events. 

day two in la

sunday morning we woke up, packed and headed to the santa monica pier before heading to brunch where we ate from an incredible spread while looking at the beautiful ocean. then we hopped a plane to see our sweet babies just before they went to sleep. thank you meme & papaw for watching our children and letting us have a great weekend! thank you to my wonderful husband who schemed and planned for months to surprise me with a fabulous weekend! i love you!

"who loves ya, milla?"

"wana does!" 

wanda was miller's preschool teacher this year. she is from new york and is a die hard mets fan so we had planned this picture since fall when we started school. so, the day after opening day, a preschool day, miller proudly wore his yankees hat for "wana" as he calls her. 

now, about wanda, i have to tell you . . . she was a blessing to our family! working at the preschool, i knew who wanda was, but carter did not have her when she was in the ones. she had another set of wonderful teachers who we love (and one who we miss dearly as she and her family including one of carter's first friends, libbi, have moved away!) and, honestly, i really wanted miller to have the same teacher/room/etc. but God knew better. He placed miller in ms.wanda's room. (side note: we team teach at hope. each class has 2 co-teachers. wanda's co-teacher had to leave after christmas and another teacher joined her. we love them both too, but miller has a special relationship with "wana".) so, let me tell you about wanda, she is loud and crazy and miller loves every second of it! everyday she asks the kids, "who loves ya?" and then teaches them "wanda does!" they shout it back and forth and it is adorable. 

working in the same environment as my children attend preschool has been a blessing from day one. i knew the second carter had a high fever, saw the first time she dressed up and adamantly wore the sequined top all day, knew the second miller had an allergic reaction, nursed miller through mastitis, evaluated carter's "first" haircut by a little boy in her class, and on and on. knowing my children are loved by who takes care of them is more important to me than believing in the preschool's play based curriculum, loving teaching in my own classroom, loving the people i work with, etc. it just so happens i have all those things too, so like i said hope has been the place for us since we started three years ago!

but back to wanda, oh how we love her! so, if you get the blessing of a loud new yorker shouting "who loves ya?" to your child, consider it just that-a blessing! we love you too, wanda!

a family tradition

we have a family tradition every spring to celebrate the changing seasons. no, not the seasons of winter to spring, but the seasons of football to baseball. that's right, baseball! every year on the  yankees opening day, josh comes home for lunch and we have hot dogs while watching the game, or this year, the rain delay! miller really enjoyed the "game" while eating his hot dog, one of his favorite foods. and carter ran around chanting, "let's go, yankees!" 

oh, blog!

so, this blog was supposed to be a place for us to share photos and stories with all of our family since everyone lived out of town. at the time, josh would send photos by email and we would get a plethora of comments that we loved to hear and wanted other family members to be able to view. the commenting never really caught on with the fam (honestly, i don't think they know how!), most comments have come from friends. and over time, we have totally slacked on posting because we didn't feel like anyone was reading or viewing. occasionally, someone would comment to us that we hadn't updated the blog, and occasionally, josh would go into turbo mode and post the highlights of the past several months. 

then, in the april (after much harassment), josh made a decision, he was going to keep our blog up to date and post regularly, but as you can tell, that didn't pan out. he did it for a couple of entries, but now he is too busy with his own blog and photography business to even think about posting here. people say, "why don't you post?" well, because all of the photos are on josh's computer, and let's be honest, you come to look at cute pictures of my kids, not read the witty remarks i post. so, i am trying to update our blog, i will back up to when josh last posted, so . . . . stay tuned! and, feel free to comment (hint, hint)!