Friday, January 13, 2012

It’s been a while…

We’re alive and well! With the convenience of Facebook and the fact that all my family and friends are on it, blogging got left out. I do read the blogs that I follow from time to time, so I haven’t completely been out of the loop. I’m going to use this post just to catch up a bit.

Brock and I celebrated our 7th wedding anniversary in September. We went to Gatlinburg, TN in December to celebrate. We had to postpone it twice due to bad weather in the North East. Brock went to Baltimore in September and New Jersey in November with Alabama Power to help restore power. It was our first trip without taking the kids! It was much needed and we had a wonderful time. But what’s the one thing I forgot to pack? My camera, of course! I did take a few pictures with my phone, but it was nice to just enjoy ourselves and not worry about taking pictures of every single thing.

Sawyer is 5 1/2 and is in Kindergarten! He enjoys school and is doing a job learning his sight words, writing and math. He just doesn’t quite enjoy reading that much yet, but I’m hoping that will come soon. He’s all boy and loves to “work” with his daddy on our farm. Santa brought a real 4 wheeler and he loves it! He’s had a healthy year so far with very few asthma flare ups. We’ve been able to control it with albuterol when he does start to flare and have been oral steroid free so far! Last fall/winter was very hard asthma-wise. He was in K4 and had several bad flares and did 3 or 4 rounds of oral steroids. We’re very thankful and praying for continued health and that he’ll eventually outgrow the asthma.

Riley is 2 1/2! She goes to daycare 4-6 days a month and enjoys it! She’s all girl and loves all things pink. She’s a talker and loves to sing. “God Our Father” (or “God Our Fadder” as she says) is sung at least twice during each meal :) She knows her colors (although she sometimes confuses red and yellow—red is yellow and yellow is red), can count to 10, and sing her ABCs. She got a Leap Frog ABC phonics refrigerator magnet that I hope will help with letter recognition and phonics. She enjoys playing with it and her favorite letters are D, J, R.  She’s had a healthy year with only 2 ear infections in the past year.

We’re scheduled to go back to Boston in March for a full cleft clinic visit. We’ll meet with her plastic surgeon and have a dental, speech and hearing evaluation. We’re taking Sawyer with us this time and it will be his first time flying! I’m hoping we can have a little fun while we’re there, but it’s going to be a short trip.

On a very sad note, my computer crashed last January! I lost thousands of pictures going back to when Sawyer was 2. I’m super thankful for this blog and Facebook, or I would have lost everything. Lesson learned: always back up your pictures!

So here are some pictures from this past year (April 2011 until now)…

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I’ll update with Christmas next…

Monday, August 23, 2010

Beach Vacation

We spent 5 days at Panama City Beach last week and had a blast! It was my family, my brother's family, my mom and my aunt. We stayed at Splash, which was great because the pools and splash areas were partially or fully shaded. Riley wasn't too sure about the whole beach/splash area to start off with--she got scared right off the bat by the large splash area. It had a HUGE bucket of water that dumped and was pretty loud. By Day 2, she was enjoying herself, although she never really loved the beach. Sawyer loved every minute of it, from sliding down the water slides to learning how to swim to finding tons of shells on the beach.

All packed up and ready to go!
Born to be wild and ready to get on the beach!

my adorable little surfer girl


I love his poses :)

playing in the sand

happy for a little while
Will somebody please let me outta here??




I would love to know what's going on here...

Tuesday, April 27, 2010

Our Little Lady is ONE!

 
 The best family pic we could get ;)

Riley turned one on April 16th and we had her birthday party the following day. The weather was perfect so we had it outside. I chose a ladybug theme for her and it was adorable! She really got into her cake...so much so that we pulled out a metal tub and had an old-fashioned outdoor bath :) It's hard to believe it's been a year already. We are so thankful that God blessed us with her. She is a sweet, happy, loving baby and she adds so much love and fun to our family.



Papa and Biggie with their grand-girls

sweet birthday girl

The birthday cake and Riley's ladybug smash cake





Maybe black icing wasn't such a good idea...

She thinking "What have I done?"

All clean!

nothin' cuter than a little hiney :)

special sugar

Now for 12 things about Riley:
  • She can say "Mama," "Dada," "byebye," "uhoh," "nana," (banana) and is trying to say Sawyer "Aw-er"
  • She's not walking yet, but is standing up more and more on her own and cruises everywhere
  • She's the fastest crawler I've ever seen
  • Riley is a great eater and loves fruits and veggies, especially bananas (she can eat at least 2 in one sitting)
  • She's got 9 teeth now
  • She loves playing with her brother, and he loves to help her walk by holding her hands
  • She signs "finished" and "more"
  • She gave up her bottle about a week before her birthday without any fuss
  • Riley gives the sweetest, sloppiest, open mouth kisses ever :)
  • At her 1 year check-up, she weighed 24lbs 1oz and was 31in long (3lbs more than Sawyer was at a year old)
  • She loves to play outside
  • We've been working on animal sounds, and so far she knows a monkey says "ah-ah-ah"

Monday, April 12, 2010

Take Me Out to the Ball Game!



Sawyer played his first t-ball game on Saturday. It was so much fun! Seeing them hit and run and try to catch the ball is so exciting. And they only tackled each other a few times :) I am guilty of being a bit of a paparazzo...I took 167 pictures!  Here are just a few...well, a little more than a few...