VBS Week in Flippin

Rhett had a wonderful time at Vacation Bible School at my parents' church last week. He was in Flippin from Sunday to Friday, and he still didn't want to leave. I noticed that he had big tears streaming down his face when we took the exit to our house yesterday. I asked him if he could tell me what was wrong, and he was barely able to choke out, "I just miss being in Flippin." :( Last night before bed he said, "I wish I was going to Bible school with Jaiden again tomorrow". I think it's safe to say that he had a great week!

Here are Rhett and Jaiden side-by-side at VBS on Thursday:

He was sweet to Alexee when she came to see him at church. I overheard him tell her that he missed her while he was in Flippin without her.

Alexee and Jeryn ran to meet Granddad when he got home from work:

Alexee asking for another taste of the yummy homemade ice cream that Mo made:

(The ice cream was for a family get-together that we had on Thursday night, but I'll post pictures of that separately when I get Mom's photo cd--I didn't take very many.) I love her curls in this picture--her hair gets curly when it's really humid.

Jeryn's blow-up horse was a source of great entertainment for Alexee. She wore it around her waist during most of our visit--ha!

Crosby at 3 months (+ 1 day)

Crosby was three months old yesterday!

• He is a happy baby. He really only cries if he's hungry, sleepy or if he needs to burp.
• He still eats often. His "schedule" is generally: 6:00 am, 9:30 am, 12:30 pm, 3:30 pm, 6:30 pm, in bed for the night at 7:00 pm but wakes up to eat around 11:00 pm, again at 2 or 3:00 am, then he hopefully goes until close enough to call it the 6 am feeding (sometimes it's a little earlier). So I feel like I spend most of my day feeding him with chasing the other kids and making breakfast, lunch and dinner for them in between!
• He likes bath time and seems to love being on his changing table for some reason. Lane says it's because he knows that's where he goes to get nice, clean pants. He smiles when I put him there, and I love to talk to him and try to make him laugh.
• He laughed out loud for the first time (that we heard) on Father's Day last weekend. (Laughed at Lane sticking his tongue out at him and making silly faces.) He smiles at Rhett and Alexee a lot, too, when they get up in his face and act silly.
• He's outgrowing all of his newborn clothes now and wearing mostly 3 month outfits.
• He likes to watch ceiling fans and look out the window.
• He's not really on a nap schedule yet. He falls asleep almost every time we get in the car, and he'll still sleep through errands MOST of the time (but I can't count on that 100% any more). If he sleeps a lot in the morning, he usually doesn't sleep much in the afternoon (and vice versa).
• He likes to sleep on my shoulder (or anyone willing to hold him). Sometimes I fall asleep burping him during the night, and we sleep in the chair for a few hours with him on my shoulder. Even though I feel tired all the time these days, I like those times with him during the night. It's sweet to have him sleeping that close.
• He's not a big fan of "tummy time", but neither was Rhett or Alexee, and they sat up and crawled and walked, etc. with no problems, so I guess I won't worry about that too much. He has a flat spot on the back of his head, but so did the other two, and they rounded out.
• What little hair he had at birth has fallen out (it was sort of brownish with maybe even a tint of red to it), and it looks like it's growing back in blond. He will probably have the same coloring as R & A. His eyes are very blue, just like theirs (and Lane's).

VBS Day 2

I'm really missing Rhett, but it sounds like he's having a great time in Flippin. Mom made his and Jaiden's picture before VBS this morning:

I smiled when I saw that he was wearing his striped pirate socks with his sandals today! :)

Lane's parents came through town today and kept Alexee and Crosby while we went to lunch and ran a few errands. It's always fun to get to go eat together with no distractions! (Thank you, Bob & Rose Mary!) Alexee had a lot of fun playing with them, and they thought Crosby had grown a lot since they saw him last.

More fun in the sun

I thought I had rescheduled A's weekly swim lesson for today, but there was some confusion, and her teacher didn't show up. I didn't want her to be completely disappointed so I took her to the sprinkler area of the pool, and she seemed to love it. She kept yelling, "This is FUN!" It was great watching her laugh and run and scream when the water hit her!

She's so much fun!

Happy Father's Day!

Happy Father's Day to Lane! He is such a wonderful husband and father. He works so hard to balance school, work and family and he does a great job at everything.

I had a chance to briefly see my Dad and wish him a Happy Father's Day today, too! We met him this afternoon so that Rhett could go home with him and attend Vacation Bible School at their church this week--R was so excited! Here we are in the McDonald's parking lot, our meeting place.

Dad e-mailed me this picture tonight of Rhett and (his cousin) Jaiden beside the new bunk beds at my parents' house. Bunk beds are R's dream come true. Since we visited his friends Zachary & Trent earlier this year and he saw their bunk beds, he's suggested to us numerous times that we could just give his bed to Crosby and get him bunk beds for his room. :)
Lane was sitting on the bed this afternoon watching tv when Alexee climbed up beside him, propped up her feet and opened a bag of raisins to snack on. She's close to her Daddy already, and I'm so glad! I wish for her to have the same kind of relationship I've always had with my Dad.
I'm also thankful for my wonderful Father-in-law, Bob. I love this sweet picture of Crosby snuggled against him. Bob is a special father/father-in-law/grandfather (Bobba).

And here is a picture of my sweet Granddad the day he and my Grandmother came to meet Crosby.

Happy Father's Day to these special people in our lives!

**************

Since Crosby is almost three months old, we'll probably be moving out of the newborn care room at church soon and taking him to the nursery. :( I snapped a few pictures in the newborn room today so I could remember that phase. (I'm having a hard time "letting go" this time around. For example, C was really needing to move up to size 1 diapers several weeks ago, but I just couldn't make myself buy them. Once I put them in the grocery cart but put them back on the shelf and grabbed a package of newborn swaddlers instead. Lane was actually the first to buy the size 1s, which I guess made it a little easier. He was stopping at Walgreen's on his way home, so I reluctantly asked him to buy the bigger size! ) I suspect that every little milestone will be a little more emotional with my BABY of the three!

So here's Crosby in the chair that I've sat in at church every week since he was born.

He's slept through almost every sermon and has rarely cried during church. The view from my seat--the song service and sermon are shown on these screens.
And a big perk of the newborn care room that we will miss: the snacks! :) Once we take C to the nursery, I guess I'll have to factor in time to eat breakfast at home! We're spoiled to the muffins, granola bars and juice that they serve to the new parents!

The weekend

Crosby is now 12 weeks old! He received this outfit as a gift...the little shirt has his initials monogrammed on it. :)Here's Rhett with a "contraption", as he called it. He said he was going to see what he could catch in the trap . It consisted of a toy cash register propped up on its scanner with Bogart's leash attached to it so he could pull it if something walked under the trap (thankfully, no critters wandered through the living room).

R likes to play board games and card games. Here he is dealing the cards for our game of Crazy 8s.
Alexee loves stuffed animals, especially dogs. She carries these doggies around in the little bag that she made me for Mother's Day (on the couch behind her in the picture). She likes to line them up and look at them. I picked up one the other day and asked her, "What's this one's name?", and she told me it's name was "GrammyBobba".
Lane took his Step 1 exam on Friday after 6 long weeks of intense studying! Saturday night we went out to dinner to celebrate. Rhett took this photo before we left the house:
We went to Bonefish Grill--one of our favorite places! It was delicious as always!
We took this of ourselves while we were waiting for a table. I'm wearing the necklace that Rhett chose for me at the Pink Tomato Festival last weekend. I think he was really happy that I wore it. It will always be special to me!

Congratulations, Lane, on completing two years of medical school--we're proud of you!

Kelly's Tour: Playrooms

I happened to remember that Kelly's tour was featuring playrooms this week, so I snapped a few pictures of ours during the 30 seconds that it was clean! :) Come on in, grab a toy and play a while! :)

I like the sloped ceiling/odd-shaped room--I think it makes it seem cozy and fun. View from the hallway:

(Blurry) view from the other side of the room:Here are the kids having a snack:

Here's a drawing (tree with root system) that Rhett did last week in the playroom. I think it has a Wow! Wow! Wubbzy-ish feel to it.
One of the cute play room regulars:
These shelves were once used in our living room, but now they're great for toy storage. I have a favorite shelf...can you guess which one?
This one, because it has a theme: Blocks (and they stack nicely, unlike some of the other random toys)
Lane's parents bought this little table for Rhett when he was a toddler. It's been a great thing for the kids to use for coloring, playing restaurant, looking at books, playing grocery store, etc.

Thanks for stopping by! Have a great weekend!

Pool time

Rhett has been taking swim lessons since the beginning of April, and he's doing great. His little class is currently working on the backstroke. I'm so proud of him. Alexee started taking a weekly private lesson this month, so she's had three lessons. The first one did not go well. She hadn't had a nap that day, and she was in one of her (bad) moods. I don't think she liked the young guy who was teaching that day (he's very nice--I'm not sure what her problem was with him?). So I dreaded the second week, but decided to give it another try. A girl taught that day and Alexee had a good nap before lesson. She loved it! She smiled and reached for toys and seemed totally comfortable in the water. And today was even better. She had yet another teacher (I think this is supposed to be her actual teacher) and they got along great. She was actually R's teacher earlier in the summer, and she's so sweet with the kids. She said that Alexee pushed off from the wall and "glided" to her, and she came by me on this noodle, kicking her feet just like Ms. Diana told her! Ms. Diana said after class that she really thought Alexee would "get it" very quickly because she's not the least bit afraid of the water. I hope she's right!

*******

Yesterday afternoon my friend Darcy invited us over to swim at the pool that they've been going to this summer. Whew, two adults and six kids age 5 and under doesn't make for a super relaxing pool visit, but we had a good time. Rhett and Hudson Lee wore their life-jackets so that they could play in the big pool next to the kiddie pool. We tried to keep Alexee and Bostyn in the kiddie pool, but they soon figured out that the fun (and the cooler water) was over where the big kids were. Thankfully the baby boys were pretty easy. Camp is 4 months older than Crosby. It took a little while for Crosby to fall asleep, but he finally did after I took his outfit off and he got cool enough to rest in the stroller.

Don't they look sweet sleeping in their diapers!?

Crosby

Alexee

Taking a break in the shade to drink Sunny D

(I didn't get a picture of Rhett and Hudson Lee. I just snapped a few quick pics then put the camera back in the bag. It was way too hectic to try to take lots of photos!)