Wow- it has been a long time!

Wow!! I can not believe that it has been three months since my last blog post! So many days have come and gone, so many memories made, and yet, I do not know where to begin or what to say. haha.

The days of summer have come and gone. One of the favorite things in this house over the summer was POPSICLES! We could not even say the word without Peyton going into full up and down jumping, POP- sicle.... POP- sickle... POP- sickle. It was always like that. Anytime we went in the garage freezer, we would hear, POP- sickle!! He loved some popsicles. Still does. But, we do not let him indulge *quite* as often. He is down to one every other night versus every single night during the summer. Unfortunately, he is now hooked on lolli-bee-pops! haha. Everytime we get in the car to pick up our brothers from school he starts singing it... "lolli-bee-bop!!!" Thanksfully, you can get a huge bag of dum dum lollipops in the Halloween section for fairly cheap these days. And, he is a very thoughtful brother. Anytime I get one for him, he always asks for one for Chloe too. :-) These two are like two peas in a pod. They really do love to be together...

Popsicle time!



Here they are one day when Peyton decided he wanted to be a make up artist. (I think he may need a little more training on the correct way to apply mascara).

Over the fourth of July weekend Peyton fell down and skinned his knee. As it was healing (and because he refused to keep a bandaid on the boo boo), he fell and skinned it again. This cycle repeated itself one or two more times, before his entire knee starting looking really, really gross. We realized that it must be infected and tried harder to get it healed. After a few weeks of nothing working, we decided to take him to the doctor. The night before his appointment we started noticing these red dots on his leg. The infection was spreading... The next day, it was confirmed. The pedi diagnosed him with impetigo... a skin infection. Yuck! It steadily got worse, even after ten days of antibiotics, he still looked like he had the chicken pox times two. By this time, it had spread all over his entire body. A week later, back to the pedi we went. This time they said that he had eczema. Hmmmm.... okay, that is different. They gave us a new cream to try, and lo and behold, it worked! Well, pretty much... I guess this will be an ongoing battle.

Here is a picture of the kiddos just before the doctor...

(before it got really bad)



Let's see.... what else has happened since July

The boys started back to school. Tyson is now in the third grade!!! He has two teachers this year, which is a nice change for him. Mr. True teaches math, science, and some other fun stuff, and Ms. Foxworth teaches Language Arts and all that comes along with that. He is really enjoying third grade, but we are a bit concerned with the amount of testing he has to do each week. Geez... no wonder we are falling behind in the U.S., there is no way they have enough time to teach new material with all of the testing they are doing. Okay, off of my soap box now...

Landon is in the First grade. I think his favorite part of the new school is that he does not have to wear a uniform anymore. haha. (We are actually really happy about that too...) His teacher is Mrs. Richardson.  He seems to really like his class, and he has a lot of new friends this year. He is still going to speech, but he only goes two days a week now, so that is a step in the right direction! We are seeing a lot of growth in that area for him, and it certainly has not held him back academically! Of course, one of his favorite activities continues to be playing video games. He loves that Nathan is here every once in a while to play with him (Nathan still lives here, but he is not always available to spend time with the boys as he has his own social calendar. ha!).

Here is a picture of Landon and Peyton playing Mario Kart.

As usual, Peyton is running the show. haha!

Both Tyson and Landon will be playing Upward Basketball this year. That should begin in a month or so and run through February. We are looking forward to that. We are also looking forward to our trip to Disney in January. :-)

I realize that this post does not have any pictures of Tyson and only one of Landon. That is because they really just like to run and play outside and are barely around when the camera is out, but that is something that I am going to make sure to change. I need pictures of my big guys as they grow up too!!

Until next time, which hopefully will not be another three months...

We have moved!

After months and months, years really, of dreaming about finally moving out of the old house, it finally happened. We found a house that we loved just outside of Raleigh, where everyone would have their own rooms, we would have a nice family area with a bonus room, and the dogs would have their own space (along side Eee-o, the guinea pig). Even Nathan had a room, could it get any better?

So... on May 13th, yes, FRIDAY the 13th. haha. We had the movers all lined up for the next day, and everything went off without a hitch... almost! The movers had told us that it would be a "10 hour day." They arrived at 9 am, and got to work. Evan left to head to the new house with the babies to meet the cable installers (or someone like that). A few hours passed, and I noticed one of the movers was working really hard, while the other was working really hard at taking breaks and complaining. Fun!

Fast forward a few hours and I hear them starting to say things like, "I don't think it will all fit" and "Well, what do you think we should do?" Another hour passes, and we are coming up on hour six of this "10 hour day" and we have not even gotten all of our furniture loaded into the truck, forget the 2 hour drive that we still had to make to the new house. Finally, they come around and tell me that, in fact, all of our stuff will not fit into the moving truck. So, they are waiting for someone to come and pick one of them up to take them back to their facility to pick up a second truck. An hour later, the new truck is there, they are back at work, and finish up rather quickly. So off we go... they go to weigh the trucks, we head to new house, stopping for some drinks and gas on the way out of town.
The boys and I got to the new house a little before six, and the movers pulled in less than 20 minutes later, which was strange because they were suppose to go 40 minutes in the other direction to weigh the trucks before heading to the new house. But, we were happy that they were there. And so the unloading began. A few breaks later, and we were just waiting on the bonus room furniture and a few boxes. This is when we found out that the couches would not fit through the bonus room door. haha! After some "creative" work on everyone's part, the furniture was in, as were the plans for some touch up paint.

It was nice to get settled in. The boys started school the following Monday, which was a big change, but they made friends fast and were sad when the school year ended. But, they were happy about one thing... we left for vacation that same day... Mickey Mouse, Here We Come!!

The Most Magical Place on Earth

We have been going to Disney twice a year for the last few years, once in the summer and once in the cooler months. Whew- let me tell you, those cooler months have spoiled us!
When we got to Disney, the first two days were in the low 90s. We thought, ahhh... this is nice. We can do this! The that third day came... high 90s! What a difference a few degrees makes! Ugh... We spent a lot of time in the pool back at the Saratoga Spring Resort, one of our favorite places to visit. We would get up early in the morning, go to the parks until 1 pm or so. Then we would head back to the resort for naps and pool time. We would head back out around dinner time and stay at the parks until between 8 and 9. It made for a nice break in the day, and the kiddos absolutely loved the pool, especially Peyton!
Here are just a few pics from Summer 2011 Vacation...

The boys ask to have their picture taken with Mr. Potato Head and Buzz every year. :-)

What a cute little mouse we have.

 They all enjoying digging for bones at the TRex Restaurant.

 This was at the hotel we stayed at prior to checking in at Disney.

 They were so good sitting in their stroller.

Landon and Lightning McQueen. Tyson asked us to take a picture of McQueen and Mater, but then he didn't want to be in the actual picture. Boys...

 More stroller time...

 The boys' favorite ride... Expedition Everest. We learned that if you went to Animal Kingdom about two hours before they closed, you could get right on this ride. Over and over and over. So we did... about 12 times in a row... Twice. :-)

 She was ready to go swimming

 Okay people, let's go already.

 Landon finally was tall enough to ride Rockin Roller Coaster. That was awesome!

 The kids all loved the Honey I Shrunk the Kids movie set playground.

 The Carousel is always a hit with these kiddos.

We had a blast... can't wait to do it all again real soon!!

We Have a Fantastic Nephew

Our little family has been blessed with some great extended family members. One of those is our fantastic nephew, Nathan. Nathan moved to Greenville to go to school at ECU a little over four years ago. We loved having him come over and visit us for dinner and to go to church with us on occassion. He became a staple in our lives, and the boys absolutely loved having him around. He was always Evan's go to guy for helping with chores or dog sitting/ house sitting when we went out of town. He even came and sat with the boys while we were in the hospital having Peyton. Fantastic young man!

On May 6th, Nathan graduated from ECU with a bachelor's degree in Engineering. This coincided with our upcoming move, so we were really glad that we were able to see him through his college years, but we were so sad to be moving away from him. He has made us riduclously proud to know him. He has gone through some tough times, times when we worried about him, and times where we marveled at his resiliency. And, he made it through everything to earn that degree on time! :-) Needless to say, we were excited when graduation day rolled around.

Even though he acted like he didn't see us in the stands, we knew that he saw us. haha.

Everyone was so proud.

After the graduation, the entire extended family went out to lunch to celebrate. We had Mexican followed by cake. YUM.

This is Nathan with Sarah, his girlfriend at the time.

These days we call her his fiance. :-) A few weeks after graduation, he popped the question, and she said Yes! We could not be more be excited for them. And the best part? She lives where we moved to. So... three days after we moved in, he moved into our house. Yay for us... He is still around. :-)

We are proud of you Nathan, and so excited for you and Sarah and your future together.

Happy Birthday Daddy!

May 8, 2011 was the day.

Poor Evan- every year he has to share his birthday with so many other events. This year his birthday fell on Mother's Day. On the actual holiday. Not just around Mother's Day, but on Mother's day. Last year it fell on the day of Peyton's first birthday party. The year before, it was just after Peyton's birth, so it was filled with doctor's visits, bilirubin checkups and altogether chaos.

This year we were smack in the middle of closing on a new house and celebrating a college graduation (see next post for details on that). Not to mention the other million things happening, but we tried to celebrate as best as we could.

We went shopping, one of Evan's favorite things to do. :-) We drove to Raleigh on Saturday (the day before his actual birthday), and went shopping at South Point. Wow- can I just say that we LOVE that mall! Evan found all kinds of stuff for the house at Crate and Barrell, and then we had lunch at the Cheesecake Factory- Yum!

For some reason, I did not get any pictures of the birthday boy, but we did snap a few of the babies enjoying dessert with my phone. :-)

Happy birthday to the greatest husband I could ever hope for, the best daddy to our babies, and my best friend in the whole world. I love you baby!

Evan...

You are a hard worker.
You are a great daddy.
You are the best husband.
You are a smart man.
You love to shop.
You love to enjoy new foods.
You do not enjoy being home for days at a time. haha
You are my best friend, and
I love you!