Time with Mimi and Poppy

One of the hardest parts of living away from family is not getting to see them as often as we would like.  We do our best to get home as often as possible & we LOVE going home. But, the next best thing is when our family comes to us. A few weeks ago, Mimi, Poppy and Grandma Fessler did just that. 

Whenever, family comes to see us we get to enjoy being tourists in our own town. So, when Mimi & Poppy came we did a lot. We ate at Bowen's Island and Sticky Fingers downtown. We went to Kiawah for the day and had a picnic and played at the beach. We went to church together and went out for ice cream and just enjoyed each other's company.

The hardest part about family coming in town is having to say goodbye when they leave. But, not to worry...Marmie and Poppy come in later this week and we go to see Mimi/Poppy & Marmie/Poppy in 2 weeks. We will gladly soak up every bit of this precious time!

Loving being with Mimi and Poppy

enjoying swinging at the playground

Luke playing on the playground

Will starts school

Before school

This fall has brought a big change to our family and our daily routine. For the first time, we have a school schedule. Yep, that's right, our big boy has started school! He started September 4 (which was also our 7th wedding anniversary). He goes Tuesdays and Thursdays from 9-1, which doesn't sound like much, but it is just enough for him to get his feet wet. 

We have learned some things about Will. He like most kids, I'm sure, has some odd quirks. We are still learning how to handle them, but he does not like to be surprised and he does not like to do anything for the first time. So, when he got into his preschool back in May, we started to talk about school. We have talked for 3 months about how much fun it was going to be, how many friends he would make and the things he would get to do. That didn't matter to him. As far as he was concerned. He wasn't going!

As we got closer to school he started to get more and more concerned that he was going to school. In fact the week before school, he informed me that he was going to hide in his closet the morning school started so that I could not find him! Thankfully, we had the chance to go and meet his teacher a few days before school started. He did not even want to do this. We went as a family to eat at Chick-fil-a before hand. As we left dinner and drove to his school, his attitude started to change and all of a sudden he was willing to give school a chance.

Once we got to school, we were the 1st family to arrive in Will's class. This gave us about 5 minutes alone with his teachers and for him to explore his class. It was just what he needed. He enjoyed playing and meeting 4 new friends that night. After that night, the following Tuesday morning could not come fast enough!

Needless to say, we still prayed A LOT for peace on that monumental Tuesday morning. Will woke up early and was dressed and ready for at least an hour before we had to leave! As we drove him to school, he was so excited and could hardly stand it. He walked right in and barely gave us a goodbye. We did, though, get to snap a few pics and give him a quick hug & kiss before we left him.

So far, school had been great for him! He looks forward to going and is sad on the days that he doesn't get to go. We knew he would love it. He is such a social butterfly and loves being around friends. In fact, he is already begging me to ask one of his classmate's mothers to allow them to come play. He loves school and I love the great progress we have seen in the past 2 weeks!

Playing in the kitchen center.

A quick pic before Mommy & Daddy left.

After school. He had a great day!

Healthy Boys

Earlier this week the boys had their 2 and 4 year old well-check visits.  Our boys do pretty well at the dr.'s office, but I brought Mike with me for this one. They were both due for shots and, well, I just wasn't sure I could handle that by myself.  I'm so glad he came, because Will decided not to cooperate for half of the things that he needed to do. Yep, we will have to wait until his 5 year old visit to do his hearing and vision test. He just flat out refused. The nurse said it was totally fine, but I think she just didn't want to hear him cry anymore! Other than that we made it through just fine and we found out that our boys are healthy as can be and evidently tall. Both were in the 70th percentile for height. Hmmm...maybe basketball might be an option in our future.

Our big boy weighed in at 34 pounds and 41.5 inches tall. He was 77th percentile for height and 34th percentile for weight. 

Our baby boy weighed in at 28.5 pounds and 34 inches high. He was 73rd percentile for height and 54th percentile for weight.

After the appointment, Mike's gentle heart promised the boys dinner out and ice cream. He can't stand to see them in pain and watching them get shots was more than he could handle. So, we ended up at Fazoli's and Baskin Robbins and had a fun night as a family. Below are some pictures of Luke hamming it up while he was eating his spaghetti. Seriously, this kid keeps us laughing!

Will's special day

 Last Friday was Will's 4th birthday. Since he is old enough to understand what a birthday means, he got to pick out everything that he wanted to do for his special day. Here are a few pictures to show the fun that we had:

First we went to chick-fil-a for lunch. Will really wanted to have lunch and share cake with a few of his closest friends. So we invited Henry, Jack and Miles to come and a play with us. Will picked out his cake from Publix. He was happy to share his cake, but none of us were allowed to sing to him. Just a weird stage he is going through right now. (That morning when he woke up he reminded me that we could not sing to him, but maybe when he was taller we could!)

After lunch, and after Luke had a nap, we went to the outlet mall to walk around and window shop. Surprisingly, our boys love doing this. While we were there we got the chance for a photo-op with our big boy.

After, the outlet mall, we ended up at Moe's for dinner and Toys-R-Us so that Will could shop with a gift card that he had gotten from his birthday party. He came home with a 10 pack of cars from Cars, one of our favorite movies. (We really needed more cars to add to our collection!)

Will, we had a blast spending the day with you! You are a sweet little boy with the biggest heart! You are very caring and compassionate and are very concerned about others. We love you and are so proud of who you are growing up to be!

Luke's Special Day

Mommy with the birthday boy

I talked previously about how important birthdays are at our house. I want to make a big deal about them and let our boys have a day where they get to spend time doing things they don't normally get to do. This year for Luke's birthday we were in Atlanta. His birthday was low-key and fun. We took him to chick-fil-a for lunch and then shopping at Toys-R-Us. We ended the day by going to Stone Mountain for a picnic, train ride and the laser show. 

Mommy & Daddy with our sweet 2 year old!

Lighting the candle & trying to keep it lit!

Showing Luke how to blow out the candle.

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Enjoying the cupcakes!

We love you Lukie! These past 2 years have flown by, and we have enjoyed every minute of watching you grow and change. You have made our little family complete with your daily dose of humor that the rest of us enjoy!

Birthdays

I love birthdays! Obviously, I think that mine (September 27) is the greatest day on the calendar, but I am pretty fond of Mike's (February 6), Will's (August 24) and Luke's (July 23). I literally want to celebrate for the whole day, whether it is my day or theirs.  You know go on a special outing, have a special lunch and/or dinner and of course a special cake.  

When I was growing up, I remember doing just that. I remember getting to pick a special place to go for dinner. I remember getting a cake and always getting to pick the menu for Sunday dinner at Granny Gin's house (which was a huge deal!). But the best part is that my parents & my sister were always with me and if it worked out between school and work schedules we spent the whole day together.

So call me crazy, but I want to do the same thing with my kids. I want to make their entire day special, because frankly, to me it is special. Their birthday marks a wonderful change in my life and a day I will never forget. So, if that means showering my kids with a lot of extra attention and giving them extra sugar, then so be it.  And maybe, just maybe, when they turn 32 they will have fond memories of how we celebrated birthdays in our family.

Speaking of birthdays...Here are just a few pics from the boys party this year. My dad took a ton of pics, these are just a few that I was able to grab on my camera.

Sitting in the birthday chair. Will was less than thrilled because we had just sang happy birthday to him.  He freaked out and decided not to cooperate for the rest of the party. He is going through an "embarrassed" stage. What do you do?

Right before the freak out. 

Party room window decorated for the boys party at Jump for Joey in Hiram, Ga

Luke enjoying opening his presents. Will had no desire to open presents until his cousin Jake started helping out. That seemed to motivate him to see what he had received.

Luke with his new favorite ball. He was watching another birthday party in another room!

Luke and Tate playing on one of the bounces. All the kiddos that came were exhausted, but I think they had fun!

P.S.) We did a special day for Luke on his birthday in July. I will post those pics and write about it soon. Next week we will do a special day for Will. As soon as I can I will post about it as well.

Two years ago

Luke & Mommy meeting for the 1st time

See that picture there? That was two years ago. July 23, 2010. Luke's birthday. He was not even an hour old, he had just been cleaned up and swaddled and the nurse handed him to me. If you have children, then you will never forget this moment. It is literally life-changing. Mike and & I already had one child. All of our love went to him. Before this moment, I struggled with whether I would be able to love Luke the same amount as Will. But as soon as he was handed to me, that struggle was gone. I was in love and I would never be the same.

Fast forward two years and I literally can't even imagine what our like was before Luke. For the record I can't even remember what life was like before Will. All I can say is we had to have been bored. Not now though! These two little boys keep us hopping all day!

Luke has a special place in my heart. He is my little Lukie, my little snuggle buddy, my mama's boy. He can be sooo sweet and he can be sooo bad. He makes us laugh with all of his antics. He has such an adorable little sing-song voice and honestly he can get away with anything when he bats his eyes at me or when he tells me "tant-too" when I hand him something. I think it is precious the way he snuggles his monk when he sleeps and how he has to have it to go to bed. That boy has my heart & I'm pretty sure I have his!

Happy 2nd Birthday Luke! We love you very much!