Party People

So...lately James has been having some trouble with sleeping, which by extension means that Ben and I have not been getting very much sleep either...so this post might be somewhat less coherent than usual....assuming my posts are usually coherent, that is!

I'm not even going to try to narrate these pictures, really, just show off my cute sweet kid. Here he is at Stella's house when we had our baby birthday bash, playing with a rainbow monkey in her room. Lately he has really been into "loveys" and cuddling in general.

He also LOVED pretending to drive around in the old car they had in the yard. This was another activity that we had to literally pry him from. Basically, any time there's a steering wheel involved? He's in heaven.

And then...the big kids joined in! Alisa is on the roof with David in the backseat and Malachy trying to jump in the window and I'm pretty sure Olivia is sitting on a chair directly in their path! Watch out, Olivia!
So those are the main pics from that event. This next picture is more recent, and completely unrelated, but I couldn't help posting it anyway, because look at those eyelashes!!!

He is really a beautiful kid. We are so blessed.

What a relief!

In case you didn't notice, we have at last come to the end of our summer-travel pictures. And if I feel not quite as relieved to be done posting them as I was when I was done with the actual traveling...well, it's close!

Okay, maybe not that close. But still...I hope you enjoyed them, and now I'm ready to move on to the present! (But do you like how James "helped" us unpack?)

Oh, wait. First we have to do very-belated birthday party pictures!


This is the cake that we made for the party we had with Stella and Camille, two other July baby friends here in NC...and for the rest of the story, you will have to tune in later. But didn't Ben do a great job decorating the cake?

I had great plans for this post but unfortunately, our internet connection, it is not so good. I'll try to put the rest of the party pics up again tomorrow, hopefully.

Sweet, cakey dreams to you all!

The reason we're sad summer is over.

No more watermelon!

Day at the Park

I am happy to report that it seems like fall has finally arrived. It's crazy the way it happens here in NC....one day, you feel like you're walking around in a sauna, and the next, you wake up to crisp fall air and the urge to have a cup of coffee and some oatmeal.

That blessed change happened 2 or 3 days ago here, and we couldn't be happier. We've already played outside a LOT more than the usual 100+ temps allowed, including TWO trips to the park. However, I forgot my camera! So here are pictures from back when we were all sweating buckets but still trying to enjoy the park. (Note: these pictures are from a Friday about 2.5 weeks ago, which also happened to be the beginning of college football season...hence the Sooners jersey.)

James loves the park, and especially the train. Here, you can see just how much he loves these things by the way he is RUNNING over to the train and how it bothers him not at all that I am way behind him and he is running into several people he has never even seen before (apparently, his stranger anxiety sensor is deactivated around trains) :

Here he is on the train...Since it looks like we're still sitting in the station, he's probably saying GO!

James also loves the boat ride, although it is enough to give any sane mother a heart attack....as there is not much keeping him in there besides his dedication to the driving portion of the ride.


I literally had to pry him out of there. He cried and cried because he wanted to stay on the boat All! Day! Long! but couldn't. Poor baby!

He was a little less sure of the carousel.

But really, I had to agree with him when I saw this sign.


No horse play on the carousel? Um, excuse me....what exactly ARE we supposed to do, then?

And we won't even comment on the fact that yes, there are probably plenty of parents in the Triangle Area who have trouble getting through a carousel ride without having a smoke. Sigh.

Yay for fall and the end of the summer-long heat wave!

A visit with Nana.

Some of you may know that my sister recently came to visit us. Sadly, we are again having technical difficulties, which consist mainly of James not wanting me to be on the computer long enough to download pictures from our camera. So for today, we will return to the past to continue playing catch-up with all of our summer pictures.

I don't have anything particularly clever to say about this series; it's simply all the cutest pictures we took when we were in Wisconsin and took a day trip down to Illinois to see Ben's Nana. James had a really great time, especially considering the dog action he got while we were there:


We also got to see Ben's cousin Courtney and her son Cade, who is a few months younger than James, and therefore fascinating beyond belief.

We tried to get a picture of Nana with her two great-grandsons, but unfortunately, the boys were less than thrilled.


What James really liked was the trampoline, and more specifically, watching his first-cousins-once-removed bounce on it. That was hours and hours of fun. Okay, maybe it only felt like hours to me...


By the end of the day, we were pretty worn out with all the fun new things to do at Nana's, and just wanted to chill in her hammock in the yard.


What a great day with Nana!

Come what may

Today is our anniversary. We have been married for 2 years, and have known each other for 6. We decided to go out together for dinner yesterday, and for the first time, we left James and went out on a "real date" to a nice restaurant by ourselves.

It was pretty cool....but we do have to admit, we missed the boy just a little bit. =) He, however, hung out at his friend Olivia's, and therefore never even noticed we were gone, which is just how we'd like it.

This is us dropping James off yesterday before our dinner, standing in front of Gwen and Brian's.


Hard to believe that around a year ago we had this guy:


We have all grown and changed so much since then! It is truly amazing how time flies. Especially when we look at a picture like this one, taken at a park in Wisconsin four years ago:


Okay, so Ben and I still *mostly* look the same. But who knew how much our lives would change since then? Definitely not us! But thank heavens it did change, in all the expected and unexpected ways that make life sweet. We are blessed to have each other and our little mister and thankful for every minute.

Happy Anniversary to us.