Happy Birthday Pops!

The 30th is Pops' (brandon's dad) birthday!

We hope you have a great birthday Pops and eat lots of cake!

We love you.

(video note...at the end Eden says, "I watch see" because she wants to watch the video. She can't figure out which one she's supposed to say in certain situations, so she says both. :)

Sneaky

Do you see the little girl in that picture hiding between the crib and miniature kitchen set?

Yes. That's Eden. My daughter. My deceptive little toddler.

When all is quiet in her room (ie...no reading, screaming, dancing, jumping, or clanging of toys), we know she's gotten her NUK (pacifier) out of her crib.

We've successfully gotten her to only use it when she sleeps, but occasionally she'll reach between the slats and grab it out. She knows she's not supposed to have it when she's not sleeping, so she sits in the corner and sucks on it.

lil miss sneaky sneaky.

Texas, Our Texas!!

I know...us Texans often get accused of having a smidgen too much state pride.

But at least we're open and honest about it. Cuz, our state really is the coolest state.

:)

ok ok...I digress.

But really, lets discuss an interesting tidbit.

Are there versions of cars out there with other State editions? Is there an Ohio Minivan? Probably not. Who would buy one?

Wait! Don't go. I'm not being all down on your state. Promise.

I'm just fully Texan. And proud of it. I've got nothing against your state. :) Even if it's not shaped as cool as my state.

Yes this is a "My state is cooler than your state" blog post.

I digress......again.

So we spent the past week back in Texas with family and friends, letting them get well acquainted with Salem and catch up with Eden.

We took loads of pictures, which I'll soon post to our shutterfly link for you all to peruse through at whim...and to save us all the bother of looking through 37 pictures in one post.

So to make it snappy...

While in Texas...

...we ate some real Texas BBQ and loved every minute of it.

...we ate yummy Tex-Mex and filled our bellies with melted cheese.

(we saw family too, but we all know food is important in my life)

...we had Aunt Terri's mint brownies, which are absolutely heavenly.

(there, that one combined family and food!)

...we went swimming in Aunt Jeri's pool where Brandon cannonballed and got Gigi (April's grandmother) soaking wet. woops!

...Eden golfed 18 holes with Brandon and BonBon and Pops (brandon's parents).

...Salem experienced his first time of sleeping 5 and a half hours at night. woohoo!

...we saw loads of family (on both mine and Brandon's side) and were reminded again of how convenient it would be to live closer to them all one day. (sniff, sniff) We love you all!!!

...we visited the local zoo which was surprisingly cool! The best lion exhibit I've ever seen! Sadly, I was more enthralled than either of my children.

...had Donut Stop donuts twice. I could have had them a third time but the scale is not friendly to me in Texas. mmmm Donut Stop, I love you forever.

...we gained weight. :)

...Brandon preached his first Sunday morning sermon. He did fantastic! And only suffered mild retina damage from the blinding stage lights.

We arrived late yesterday evening, exhausted and thankful we don't have to fly again for several months. Turns out, Salem isn't so airplane savvy. He hated the descent, and wanted to let everyone on board know by screaming at the top of his lungs. And everyone around me chose to pass along their not-so-welcome advice and made snide remarks. oh well...I took it in stride. Because well, I had to, or I'd have gotten kicked off the plane if I'd responded the way I wanted to.

So we're back in NC (where there aren't any specially made state editions) :)

Brandon had his first day of class today for the Fall semester...just one year to go!

2 Months!

Sweet mini man, you are 2 months old today!

You are...

...very cuddly! You'd much rather sleep on mama and dada than in your bed.

...great at tolerating your sister's way of playing with you, even when it's playing dress up.

...smiling a precious little smile these days, even paired with a couple dimples!

...and handsome as ever as you're wiggling more and more these days!

Sweet Salem

Here's some of my favorite recent pics of Salem. :)

Experiencing his first "zerberts!"

Sesame Street vs My Conscience

In my mind, the TV has become the antithesis to any good kid activity.

I'm not saying that it is...but this is how my mind works. Go with me here.

Eden LOVES Elmo, Nemo, Bob & Larry, KaiLan, Syd the Science Kid, and I could go on. And it's pretty fun to watch her get excited about cute shows. And to give credit where credit is due, she now knows numbers 11 and 12 with no teaching or prompting from us and screams out "octagon!!!!" any time we pass a stop sign. Thank you Big Bird.

BUT for every hour she spends in tv land, I feel we have to counteract it with at least a couple hours of outside activity or reading or some type of imaginary play in her room.

I like letting her watch tv occasionally because she likes it so much, but something about it makes me feel like I'm letting her brain rot right before my eyes.

So to de-warp her after any tv time, I've been coming up with odd activities lately that get her engaged, but still allow me to snuggle with Salem and feed him when he's hungry.

Today's activity...tent making!

This is what she woke up to after nap-time:

A living-room sized tent! My past-time involves some serious tenting in my grandmother's basement including several that spanned the entire distance, but without my counterpart of cousin Jacob, I'm afraid this is all I could come up with.

aaaannnndddd....it turns out that Eden is still a little too young to appreciate tents. Her thoughts upon approaching the living room monstrosity? "HAMMOCK!" And of course, the hammock thought never left her because several times she tried to climb on top of the tent. oh well. Maybe some day the tent will be a big hit.

The other day she was absolutely hysterical to go outside. But since Salem was snoozing and it felt like 1,742 degrees outside, this is what we came up with:

Yes that's a bowl of water out on the balcony. I think she ended up drinking most of it with a 2/3 cup measuring spoon, but at least she was entertained for 30 minutes. She had fun giving her tricycle a bath.

And what does Salem think of all this activity?

what a cutie pie!

Worth a Thousand Words

Here's the happenings of the last few weeks...

An influx of family! My parents, brother, sister-in-law and neice and nephew, Brandon's parents, sister, and grandmother all came out to visit. Not at the same time! phew! But over the course of the last 5 weeks we've had a steady stream of visitors!

Eden with cousin Audrey enjoying Brandon's hammock:

Salem with cousin Judah:

4th of July with Matt and Jill and the kids by eating at Pei Wei (we're all about going where the crowd won't be!) and a non-stop action packed evening of sparklers! I love Eden's face in this picture!

Beach trip!

Brandon's parents, sis, and grandma treated us to a weekend at North Myrtle Beach! It was A LOT of fun but also pretty draining with 2 kiddos! We stayed right on the beach and LOVED being a hop skippy jump from the water. Eden loved the sand and even tolerated being buried in it! She tried digging herself a hole and putting herself in it a few times. :)

Brandon and I got to parasail with his sister and that was totally awesome...well, not the part where Renee's contact went flying out of her eye because of the thrilling banana boat ride pre-parasail...but other than that, really cool!!

Salem was there too, I promise. But the whole time he was down on the beach he just slept in his new handy dandy Phil and Ted's travel cot (LOVE that thing!) So we don't have any pics of him in his cute lil swimmin trunks! But I'll probably have more beach pictures once Brandon's mom sends her pics. I was kinda a slacker when it came to taking our camera out to the beach. Something about toting a baby, a toddler, beach gear, and a camera just was too much for me to handle. So...more to come on that event probably. :)