A fun little weekend

I promised some cute pics, and here they are! For starters, look how much this little man has grown in a year! We took this first picture about 11 months ago when we first planted this dogwood in our yard. Here's Sam at about 10 months...And here he is at almost 21 months! I think Sam is definitely growing faster than the tree...

As we head into the final couple of weeks before Caroline arrives, we're trying to spend plenty of time just having fun with Sam. He's starting to understand the whole baby sister concept. He knows his baby sister is in Mamma's belly and he knows her name is Caroline ("Caa-line"). He knows that pretty soon Mamma and Dadda will go to the hospital (hilariously cute word to hear him say...something like "op-it-el") and he will go stay with Chip and Phy at the beach. Today, I explained to him that Annie would go with him to the beach to see Chip and Phy, and he asked a very sweet question: "Sister come beach too, pleeease?" Hard to explain why she has to stay at the hospital instead!

Anyway, Sam had a great weekend. On Saturday, he had a playdate with his sweet friend Liza. They had a grand ole time playing in Sam's new big boy room with all the toys, the basketball hoop, and the golf set. On Sunday, he got all dressed up for church and even modeled willingly for the camera!

After church, we took Annie and Sam to the park for a couple hours, then came home and washed our cars. Sam was a huge help!

And then he decided it was time for "Sam. Bath. Bubbles. Bucket!"

So fun! And last but not least, here's a sweet pic of Sam and his favorite friend, Annie. Poor Annie...she's put up with a lot of pulled hair, yanked ears, and food being dropped on her head in the last 21 months, but at least she's now getting lots of love and attention in return!

Happy Monday to all, and have a great week!

Thankful

We have some new pictures to post, but those will have to wait. For now, we've just finished reading through our friends' recent posts from the last week or so, and are just struck by how blessed we all are and how much we - and so many of our dearest friends - have all grown since becoming parents.

Sweet Henry Hathaway made it through heart surgery like a little champion this week, and while we know it's such a blessing his condition was discovered early, we just can't imagine how hard the last couple of weeks have been on his mom and dad. It takes becoming a parent to know just how scary that kind of news must be and how scarring that kind of experience must feel. We breathed a huge sigh of relief this week, and now we are celebrating along with Katie and David and Henry and Cohen as Henry recovers like a trooper!

For other friends, the last few weeks have been exciting and life-altering in other ways...Brady is walking now, and the Brennans are moving back to Charlotte to start another chapter in their life with little Evan. And Frazier is cute as ever, pulling up and making sweet faces for the camera, and enjoying more time with her dad, who no longer has to commute 2 1/2 hours everyday! And so many other friends' families are growing and charting new paths everyday.

And life has been exciting and full of change for us, too. We've had a little bit of a false alarm/ scare with Caroline the last couple of weeks...the docs have been worried that she's not gaining weight, but we now know she's A-OK and should arrive healthy and happy sometime in the next four weeks! Sam is in the sweetest, happiest phase, and our hearts melt over and over again every time he does something new or especially sweet or especially surprising. It's literally like falling in love for the first time over and over again, several times a day.

I can't imagine anything more incredible, or more challenging, or scarier, or more perfect than being a parent. And today I'm feeling especially grateful for all these healthy, happy, kiddos, for amazing families and loved ones who provide support and love and prayers, and all these incredible friends to go through this amazing stage of life with.

Finally Finished!

After several weekends of house projects, we're finally all done! Sam is in his BIG big boy room with all his boats, Caroline's room is ready for her arrival, and our (much smaller) guest room is ready for Nana and Papa...or anyone else who wants to come visit!

In addition to the great room switcheroo, we've gotten (or adopted) a few new furniture pieces and new rugs in several rooms, moved lots of art around, and created lots of new storage solutions so we finally have a place to put away all those TOYS!

Yes, I had a major case of "nesting" with this pregnancy...but I knew from experience that whatever we didn't do now, we wouldn't be able to do for a couple of years!

We love the finished product(s) and are now ready to relax and enjoy our new house for a few more weeks...until a new baby turns it all upside down! :)

Nana and Papa's Visit!

Nana and Papa came to visit Sam this weekend! He had so much fun, and hasn't stopped talking about them in the day and half since they left. We had a great weekend...Sam showed Nana and Papa all his favorite things. We made several trips to various parks, played with every toy in his big boy room and play room, rode his tricycle and pulled his wagon up and down the street to the River, and even drove out to the beach for a shower for baby sister Caroline. He has grown a lot since they saw him at Christmas, and he's talking so much more, too. They were very impressed when he showed off his hilariously cute though barely recognizable versions of Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star and "Letters-Song" (that would be the A, B, C's - but Sam calls it "Letters-Song").

Nana and Papa got to be here for Sam's first REAL haircut (I'm pretty sure my attempt to cut his hair with crafting scissors doesn't really count). He was SO GOOD...I was really amazed...shocked, really. He was so fascinated by the whole process it never occurred to him to jump out of the seat and run all over the place!

On Saturday morning, Sam took Nana and Papa to his new favorite park, which he calls the Boat Park ("boat paaak"). Sam had a blast, but honestly we all did too :) Sam insisted that each of us take a turn with him on the slide!

Then Sam showed Nana and Papa the beach and boats!

We finished with the swings. When he was all worn out, Sam simply said, "Sam, Nana, Papa - go home. Drink milk." Guess the kid was thirsty! It was so sweet.

Later that afternoon we had a shower for Caroline at Aunt Meredith's house. It was great! Just friends and family, and plenty of folks to shower Sam with attention. It was so fun to have an excuse to get together with everyone, and Caroline received some adorable gifts! AND, the food was REALLY delicious, thanks to Chip, Phy, and Mere. We had a great time. Thanks so much to Mere for hosting!

And, finally, it's official...I'm really huge. Here's Miss Caroline at 33 weeks!

Hope everyone had a great weekend!

A gorgeous weekend, and a celebration for Caroline!

What an awesome weekend! We are finally almost finished with all our house projects, and just in time, because the weather has been AMAZING! The trees and flowers are starting to bloom here, and we're taking every chance we can to be outside. Yesterday we spent the whole afternoon at our new favorite park. Here are some sweet pics of Sam, who cannot get enough of sliding!

The best thing about this park is that it's right by the Ortega River, so there's plenty of boat-watching to do when we get tired of playing.
Sam loved watching the boats go by. What a cute little man :)
After our park adventure, we got some ice cream!

Last night, Mom got together with all her favorite Jacksonville girls for dinner and a "sprinkle" (not a shower...just a sprinkle :) for Caroline. The girls sprinkled Caroline with all kinds of adorable girlie things and some great practical things...cute pink outfits, pjs, blankets, bows, socks, a pink diaper pail (when you have two kids in diapers, you need one for each kid's room!), one of those cute bottle-drying racks that looks like grass, and a huge box full of baby wipes! They even gave Sam a book about becoming a big brother! It was so much fun to have a chance to get out for dinner and see all the girls, and SO exciting to start celebrating Caroline's upcoming arrival!

Today was another gorgeous day. Sam looked like such a big boy when we got dressed for church this morning that I HAD to snap a picture of him. He was not happy about having to pose for me :)

Today we went to Big Talbot Island for one of our favorite nature walks through the maritime forest and a brief walk on the disappearing beach as the tide came in. Here's a picture of Miss Caroline at T minus 8 weeks!
There wasn't much beach to play on by the time we got there, but Sam had fun picking up shells amidst the driftwood and the weird rock/sand formations.
As we walked back through the trail to our car, Sam plopped down in the dirt and started playing. He got pretty dirty...
...and then dirtier...
....AND dirtier!
Ahhh, this is the life :)
Hope y'all had a great weekend!

BIG BOY!

Well, if you've been wondering what we've been up to on our weekends the past month, it's basically been one of two things:

(1) Moving furniture/rooms around in our house; or

(2) Getting out and enjoying the warmer weather!

Starting about a month ago, we started the process of moving Sam into his BIG BOY room! We moved the guest furniture to a new room, had Sam's room painted, then had fun moving Sam's furniture into his room. Sam tried out his new chair and gave it a thumbs up!

This was a multi-step process, including moving furniture into Caroline's room while we moved Sam's old furniture out. In the meantime, Sam was a big help using the dustbuster to get up all the old dust bunnies hiding behind his crib!

Moving the new furniture into Caroline's room...

When we put down the rug in his new room, Sam got so excited! He ran around in circles, enjoying the big new space for him to play in!

We were a little unsure of how this transition would go, but Sam has been so great! He slept well from day one and is happy as a clam in his new digs. We're happy because we have more space to store his toys...and he's happy because he has more space to destroy!

Unfortunately, we don't have any "after" shots yet. We've made a lot more progress since then, but all of these rooms are still works in progress. We've put together Caroline's furniture, gotten Sam's room partially decorated, and we're making progress in the guest room and our room...but we'll probably need a couple more weeks. We are so proud of our progress and loving how our house is coming together :)

The second (and MUCH more exciting) thing we've been up to is enjoying being outdoors in this warm(er) weather! We've had high 50s/low 60s pretty regularly, and we've been taking advantage of it! We've been up to Fort Caroline, been to the park lots and lots, and taken many long walks in the neighborhood.

The weather was gorgeous last weekend, and after a morning of making more progress in Sam's room, we decided to head to the beach for the afternoon. Sam walked and walked and walked, and picked up half the shells on the beach singlehandedly :)

We crashed at Chip and Phy's house overnight, and Sam had a great time playing with his grandparents while Mom and Dad went out for a nice dinner at Medure. We're trying to use the rest of our Teal Deals before they expire, so we've had a couple delicious date night dinners lately!

In the morning, we woke up and took another great walk on the beach. Sam walked some more...and picked up some more shells. What a sweet little man :)

The weather wasn't quite as warm this weekend since we've had rain the last couple of days, but it was clear enough and warm enough to spend the afternoon at the Zoo! Sam had so much fun!

This kid LOVES animals, so he was in heaven the moment we arrived. We would pick him up at each exhibit so he could see over the fence, and when we would finally put him down after a few minutes of watching (and making lots of animal noises and/or repeating the name of the animal we were looking at over and over), he would start walking off toward the next exhibit, saying "MORE! ANIMALS!" It was unbelievably cute.

Here were a few of his favorites from the Africa exhibit...

A highlight of the day -- Sam got to feed a giraffe!

He thought this was really hilarious :)

Clay's favorite -- the Jaguars exhibit. Clay tried to pose with Sam, but Sam was much more interested in watching the Jaguars!

Another Sam favorite -- the Kangaroos in the Australia exhibit! We didn't get any great pictures of Sam with the kangaroos, but Clay snapped this cute one of a very happy Sam :)

And here's a new shot of Caroline in my quickly-growing tummy. I'm feeling REALLY big these days...and only about 10 weeks to go!

But the BIGGEST highlight of the day was the TRAIN! Sam kept hearing the "Choo-Choo" sound as we walked around the zoo and got more and more excited about riding the train, but we saved it for last because we were afraid that we might never get him off once we got on :) Needless to say, Sam absolutely LOVED riding on a REAL choo-choo train. I think this was the happiest day of his life :)

As we passed by the animals, Sam and another little girl on the train had fun making animal noises at them (and at each other). What a great day!

We promise more cute Sam pics and some pictures of our finished Big Boy room and nursery to come soon. In the meantime, lots of love to all and hope everyone's doing well :)