Wedding Cakes, School, Just Hanging, Art Museum and Camping!

Stephen had a very cute surprise for me for our anniversary. I love wedding cake, love it, love it, love it. I also can eat butter cream frosting by the bucket full. Knowing this, my lovely husband ordered me a wedding cake and told the baker to put as much frosting as they could on my "wedding cake." So on our actual anniversary day, we were all home sick, all five of us. All of a sudden I heard the music I walked down the aisle to start playing. Then there is Luke and he says, "May I have your rings ma'am?" He took my wedding rings, put them in his pocket and then offered me his arm to walk down the aisle (our hallway). So I am already tearing up at this point because who gets the chance to have your three year old walk you down the aisle? And then there in the family room is Stephen and the girls. Amelia was holding a clipboard with our vows (see below). It was so sweet and cute. After the kids married us, they took me around the corner and I saw my wedding cake. Yum, that was a great anniversary present.

Luke's first day of school, albeit a few days late, due to the Boskovich influenza of 2009. He is so not into pictures lately so this was all I could get. Now that he goes to the Montessori school, no more Buzz Lightyear backpack, we have to use the organic cotton bag. The first of many changes with the new school!

Just hanging around.

Luke is squealing, "Daddy, I'm going to drop, I'm going to drop."

My cuties. Love that big gummy grin of Addison. I could just eat her up.

Addison was so serious about the grass that morning. We couldn't get her to look up at the camera at all.

Big girl with her sister and brother. They are all getting so big!

We went to the Walter Anderson Museum of Art this weekend and the kids each picked out their favorite art piece.

Even Addison had a favorite. The kids shocked Stephen and I again with their ability to retain information. The kids went to an art camp at the museum in the beginning of July and one of the camp days they came to tour the museum. Well, oh boy did they listen well. They told us all sorts of things about Walter Anderson that we didn't know. I had to check later by reading the pamphlet and they were right on. Even Luke, he pointed to a portrait and said, "See mom, that is Walter Anderson." Oh, I thought it was just some weather beaten guy.

The kids have been begging to go camping. We thought we better give it a test run before we do the real thing. Stephen was brave and decided to camp out in the backyard with Luke and Amelia. I however, thought it was a bit too muggy that night and Addison and I had a lovely evening in the air conditioning.

Here they are, ready to "rough it" in the tent. Well, I went to bed and around midnight I heard the troops head back in the house. Stephen said, "We are all laying there on top of our sleeping bags with our shirts off and we are still sweating." So they roughed it for a little bit. Stephen said, the kids did fall asleep but they were tossing and turning, I think Daddy got a little bit too steamy in there. Oh well, we'll try again in the fall.

Happy Anniversary!

Happy Anniversary my Stephen Michael! Wow, I married a hottie and you have only gotten finer with age. Well, it has been eight years, three apartments, two houses, four states, six cars and three kids and it seems we are on a pretty good path. I wouldn't have wanted to spend a minute of it without you in my life. I love you so much. Happy 8th Anniversary!

We Finally Tuckered Them Out

Mommy, I love prunes, yummy, yummy, yummy.

Addison isn't so innocent, see her pulling her big brother's hair? She is going to be a spunky one I tell you, mark my words.

Lucky for us Luke is super gentle and patient with Addison. He turned around and said, "No, no Addison, that hurts your big broder." Disclaimer, Luke is super gentle and patient with Addison, not with me.

This weekend we took the boat to a restaurant called, The Dock. It is about a half hour boat ride but so relaxing. We brought along our friends the Kahle's and Kristen's parents too. The kids asked me which restaurant we were going to and I told them the one with the big grass hill you run down. Yippee!

Daddy and Addison Kate hanging out at The Dock. We had absolutely amazing weather this weekend. Very, very low humidity and low 80's. It was beautiful and we spent every waking minute we could outside. We were sitting outside and I couldn't figure out what was so strange and then I realized, "Wait, I'm not sweating." How odd.

I thought I would throw this one in the mix. My kids don't take all great pictures, see. Thank goodness for digital cameras.

Bellies are full, time to ride home from the restaurant. We got to watch the sun setting as we drove the boat home, it was beautiful.

Amelia and Addison zonked out once again on the boat.

Luke was still ready to party. There is no where in the world Luke rather be than on the boat. Well, maybe that's not true. Probably on the boat, with a Star Wars movie playing, that would be Luke's nirvana.

Today we went out to Horn Island with a big group of friends. None of us could resist the good weather, so we ditched our laundry, lawns and other chores and off we went.

The kids caught lots of blue crab today on the island. For some reason I didn't get pictures of the whole crab, sorry. But I did get the beautiful claws of a couple of them. The colors are amazing. The Browns were going to have yummy crab cakes tonight ;)

A busy weekend out on the island. Apparently we weren't the only ones ditching our chores to come out to the island. Boats anchored along the island as far as the eye could see.

Well, we did it, we officially wore out our kids. On the boat ride home from the island, Addison slept in my arms and Luke and Amelia both slept on my lap, one facing each direction. I was covered in drool when we got back to the dock but I had three happy, sandy kids. Good weekend as far as I am concerned. We got home and bathed all the kiddos and Amelia and Luke each headed for a couch and passed out again until we had dinner ready.

Bad blogger, bad blogger, bad blogger

I have been a bad, bad blogger, only one post in all of August, disgusting. I am so sorry to all my faithful readers, that would be you Dad and you Barbara. Although we have done many fun blog-worthy things in August, I have failed to bring my camera. So let me fill you in, took the kids to a decorate your own cupcake place that opened here in Ocean Springs. Ridiculously cute, ridiculously priced cupcakes but pretty yummy. Luke decorated his cupcake with the candy Shockers, ugg, they are as gross as they sound. Shockers and licorice, so totally nasty. Amelia also choose licorice and I think Hersey bars. I had a wonderful lemon berry cupcake with fresh berries on top, I thought it was the healthy choice of cupcakes. Granted it had three inches of icing and stuffed with icing but whatever. Next thing I missed, took Luke to the water park and he had FUN, FUN, FUN! He loved going down the slides by himself and came up laughing and sputtering every time. After about two hours he was worn out and ready to go home, perfect because right then a thunderstorm hit and we got rain checks so two free tickets, bonus.
Okay, above is Amelia and Addison before Amelia left for school. She loves holding Addison before she leaves for school.Lukey and Amelia now have a few chores around the house. One of them is to make their bed each morning. This is Lukey's bed, yes this is after he made it. He is so proud of himself. It takes all my might and will not to remake it every day but I don't want to crush his little spirit. Funny enough he is holding up the "I love you" sign to me for the picture. Good to know because he wasn't so in to mommy yesterday. Amelia and Luke had been fighting like cats and dogs so I put them each in the corner in the family room to take a little break. Addison was playing in the middle of them. Amelia laid down and was quiet, Luke was rolling around the floor, screaming and crying. Addison kept looking over at him and squealing and laughing thinking it was a game he was playing. So I couldn't help it and I started laughing at the whole situation, Luke screamed even louder and shouted, "You are so mean!" I have never been called mean by my children before. I just looked at him in shock. I mean it is a "first" but not really baby book worthy so I thought I would post it here instead. Amelia has not even called me mean yet, she has thought it I am sure by the major eye rolling going on these days with that girl but she has never said it. I would have felt crushed and ran over and hugged him but about 10 seconds later, mid-scream he rolled over onto some random stick on the floor and stopped crying and said, "Hmmm, that is strange, where did this come from?" as he picked up the stick. Such drama for such a little boy.

Addison Kate hanging out in Luke's room.

Luke received some hand-me down boots from a church friend and he thinks they are AWESOME! And why not wear them with shorts and a Cubs jersey?

Ahh, another milestone, off with the training wheels. Anyone that knows Amelia would understand what an undertaking this is. Amelia believes in baby steps, very small baby steps. Poor Stephen has been running up and down our street with her for days now. Amelia is as happy as can be and tells everyone she has her training wheels off, although she makes her Dad promise every time that he won't let go. She is kind of missing the point of taking the training wheels off.

Bonfire on the beach, the kids all made this couch out of sand. Amelia and Luke are both in the back, Amelia in orange and Luke has sunglasses on.

Addison hanging out at the bonfire. Although no smores for her yet. She did eat a few cupfuls of sand though. Did you know sand comes out in the diaper the next day? Gross.

Splish Splash and First Day of School

Our cute little girls. Our cute little boy was in a mood and did not want his picture taken.

This was Addison's first time in the big girl bath tub.

Amelia Grace's first day of school! Amelia attends first grade this year at Pecan Park. She has a very sweet teacher and Amelia was super excited to come home and tell us all about her first grade adventures. Topping the list was the class pet, a hamster. The children got to vote for their favorite name, the contenders were Butterscotch (1 vote), Lucky (8 votes) and the winner, Junior (10 votes). Luke asked if Amelia could bring Junior home in her backpack. Uhh, no thank you.

Mom and Luke time

The big guy and I had some fun alone time this afternoon. Big sister at sleepover, check. Little sister taking a nap, check. Time for mommy and Luke to hang. First on the agenda, a game of Disney memory. Luke sufficiently kicked my bootie like he always does. That kid is dynamite at memory, he cannot be beat. Next on the agenda, make some chocolate chip cookies.

Luke thought it was awesome he got to add all the ingredients himself instead of taking turns with Amelia. He even got to crack the eggs! He was cracking me up though during baking time, I just had to share it. While we were gathering the ingredients out of the pantry, he was so excited he was running in circles and he ran up behind me and said, "Hello, mom, you SO get an extra kiss for this." Then he ran in the pantry where I got a double sign language, "I love you." Pretty good for just making some cookies. Anyhow, so we started mixing everything and before we added the eggs I let him taste some of the dough. He couldn't believe I kept letting him have more tastes and he said, "I just can't stop eating this dough mom!" Me: "Me neither Luke, it is so good. " Luke :"Okay mom, okay, that's enough, you have to save some for the cookies." Yeah, yeah, I guess. After they baked his verdict on the cookies he made himself, "Awesome, good, you have to try these mom." I would have tried the cookies but I was too busy ducking behind the island licking out the cookie dough bowl. Because although I will not expose my children to salamonella, I will certainly risk my own body for yummy raw cookie dough. Afterall, my mom says I should be immune because I was raised on it, right mom?

Luke is whole-heartily obsessed with Star Wars these days. He loves, loves, loves it. Often he is talking to me and I feel like it is a foreign language because he his talking about droid poppers, Ashoka, Annakin and Darth Mal. You can actually see the question mark over my head. Today he retold me this whole story about Darth Mal and burning these droids and all these dreadful things (yes, I realize he is not yet four and maybe Star Wars is inappropriate, please direct any and all complaints to his father) and I said to Luke, "Luke, that sounds horrible." He said with such annoyance in his voice, "Moooooom, that is just how it is in Star Wars world." Well, excuse me.

Ride 'em Cowgirl!

Amelia was given a horseback riding experience for her 6th birthday from her Grandma Joan. She and I went to the stables yesterday and oh boy was she excited to ride a horse for the first time!

I took this picture right after her instructor put her on the horse and that smile never left her face for the two hours we were there. Amelia did really great with her horse Bullseye, a 30 year old sweetheart of a horse. She learned how to make him stop and go and turn each direction by using her reins. She did better than I did with my horse Levi. Levi did not quite agree with my leading him where I wanted to go, let's just say he had his own agenda.

Off we were on the trail. I have to admit, I had a slight panic attack when we first started and I watched my first born baby trot (okay, that is an exaggeration, more like meander) on a 900 pound animal away from me. Once we got going though I relaxed and we both had a great time.

Amelia leading Bullseye to the pond for a drink. It was really special to watch Amelia's enjoyment throughout the whole ride. She had such a fantastic time, what a neat birthday present. Of course Amelia is already asking when we can go again, let's just say, we have to wait until mommy doesn't need to be sitting on a pillow anymore and wincing, ow, ow , ow every time she sits down.

Addison Kate is Six Months old and Kids Theatre

Say it isn't so, Addison turned six months old! Our little baby is getting bigger by the second. Addison has so much personality now and just loves to laugh and squeal at Amelia and Luke. As evidenced by the picture, she is now sitting up on her own. She loves to sit and play with her toys and eat her books. We are hoping she will eventually turn a new leaf and enjoy reading the books but we will see, after all she was born in Mississippi. (Kidding, kidding).

Had to get a picture of her cute, little hiney. We are in the south we monogram everything, including hineys. Is it hineys or hinies, or hineys'? Anyone?

I took Amelia and Luke to Sleeping Beauty and The Beast which was a cute children's theatre production downtown. It was a comedy of all sorts of different fairy tales intertwined and the kids got a big kick out of it. We had a very grown up night with our friends, Mckenzie and Hayden, going out to dinner and then to the theatre. Yes, Amelia is wearing a sweater, in Mississippi, in July. I think it was a chilly 80 degrees that night, crazy girl.

Beach Trip and Amelia's 6th Birthday!

We were lucky enough to head over to Ft. Walton, Florida this past weekend to celebrate Amelia's 6th birthday. We went with our great friends the Neff's and had such a fun time. I love this picture of the kids swimming, their faces show how much fun they had this weekend. They were pretty much in the water from sun-up to sun-down everyday.

Tubing with Amelia.

Tubing with Luke. Luke loved to go fast and constantly was giving the boat a thumbs up to indicate faster, I was like whoa buddy, slow down. At one point, we hit a wave, accidentally and went flying up in the air like three feet. I screamed at the top of my lungs and Luke just said, "Woo hoo, I love going over those big waves man."

The early birds. These girlies were the only ones up in the house at 7am so they had a grand ole time swinging on the porch swing and trying to catch some minnows down by the water.

The kids LOVED having Stephen throw them in the water. Anytime he was near, he had four kids screaming at him, "throw me, throw me!" Look at that air on Amelia, yikes!

Out on the boat, heading out to the rope swing.

Amelia swinging like a monkey. I couldn't get a good picture of Luke (sorry big guy) because I was holding Addison and the video camera and the digital camera and an aggressive little crab kept biting my foot. The things I go through for this blog :)

In Destin at our favorite restaurant, The Back Porch.

The big kids.

After we ate, it was time to surf some waves. The kids love riding the waves but not as much as their daddy. I think Stephen was smiling and laughing more than any of the kids. I hardly have any pictures of Amelia and Daddy at this beach because they kept running out to more waves. Amelia kept asking Daddy to take her to the "big waves." Luke was more content to stay by me, nice and close by. And Addison spent most of the time asleep.

Mckenzie, Amelia and Hayden, our bathing beauties.

Cynthia and I, what a fun time we had.

Our manly men.

My big guy Luke.

Addison woke up!

Cutie patootie, sitting in the sand.

Addison is almost six months old already, such a little beach baby.

Our three that keep us laughing.

The kids were all about fishing on this trip. The dads couldn't keep up with four kids trying to keep their poles baited up. Here is the first fish Amelia caught on this trip, a little pin fish (it's hard to see, it's between Stephen's shoes).

Luke's first fish, he didn't want to hold it. Apparently, I do not know too much about fishing in salt water. I wondered, "Where are the worms?" We fished with worms when we were kids but my kids are learning to fish with shrimp and squid! After Luke caught this little pin fish, Stephen put it back on the line and tossed it back out. All of a sudden, Luke's bobber went, WHOOSH, way under water. Stephen yelled, "Reel it in Luke, reel it in!" Luke was trying but saying he couldn't so Stephen grabbed the rod and pulled and pulled. All that came up was half of this fish with a huge bite taken out of it! Some big fish put up a fight but then just ate the fish and swam away, ahhh, the big one that got away.

Amelia got an early birthday present, snorkel and mask. She couldn't get enough snorkeling and loved it. Even Luke learned too and they spent hours face down in the water, only coming up to yell what they saw.

Addison, just chillin'.

Finally, the big day arrived, July 19th! Our Amelia Grace turned six years old!

Amelia said to us that day, "Mom, my birthday couldn't have been any funner. I got to fish, snorkel, go tubing and my best friends are here." It just melted my heart. I agree with her though, I would like to spend my birthday there too!

Happy Birthday Amelia Grace, we love you so much!

Us and the Neff's, finally we got a picture of the four adults, thanks for taking it Amelia.

Birthday cake time, the birthday cake had dolphins on it which was very fitting for a beach birthday. We saw lots and lots of dolphins on the trip, Amelia and Luke even saw a baby and a mommy dolphin.

What a great vacation!