VBS

Last week our church had VBS and Miller got to attend for the first time!  He went to the nursery the last two years while I taught, but this year he was able to be a part of the three year old class {even though he's a couple months shy of being three}.  I was sad not to teach this year, but sweet little Jacob needed me at home.  Miller had a rough time getting settled the first night, which was surprising because he very rarely gets upset when we leave him places and he LOVES going to church.  After he realized how much fun it was though, {and that he got to eat junk for dinner ;) } he was ready to go each afternoon.

Miller with one of his teachers, Sally.  We are so thankful for sweet Sally and Blake!

The last night was Family Night where we got a chance to see/hear some of the things the kids learned at VBS.  After dinner, it was time for some outdoor water play.  The little kids were supposed to stick to the little slides, but Miller and Daddy had other plans...

Miller had so much fun this year and I pray that seeds were planted in him!

House Update 3

We have windows folks!  We also met with the electrician on Thursday to do a walk-through of the house to see where every light, receptacle, cable outlet, phone outlet, and light switch will go.  It was exciting to know that this next phase of the building process is about to begin, but also very overwhelming to think through all of these details.  In the bedrooms he asked me where I was going to put the beds so that he could put the cable outlets on the wall opposite of each bed.  Um... yea, hadn't thought of furniture placement yet.  I was tempted to zone out and just tell him to do what he thought about halfway through the house, but reminded myself that something as little as having a light switch in an odd place or not having an outlet when you need one can be quite annoying when you really live in a house.  If we have the luxury of getting to meet with the electrician we should make good use of it.  For the walk-through, our builder had drawn all of kitchen cabinets/appliances on the floor so we could see where everything would be.  That was pretty fun.  Here's the view from the kitchen sink...

Minus the film and stickers on the windows, the trailers, the dirt pile, and the debris it won't be a bad place to wash dishes.

Here's the pantry/safe room for tornadoes and such. 

During the framing process, this little room had a lot of people curious.  We had several people ask us if we were putting in an elevator.  One person asked if it was a vault to which Bryant replied that we had stockpiles of gold to store.  One interesting observer alluded to war and hiding guns in the backyard.  Yea, we're really just prepping for tornadoes like James Spann taught us.

Here's the progress from the lakeside of the house.  This will be the screened in porch...

The other porches.  One part is covered and one part will be a sun-porch.  Don't tell my dermatologist.

Where's Waldo?  Can you spot our little helper?  Miller loves going to "the lot" and makes us a little nervous roaming the framed stairs and finding all the building goodies and scraps laying around.  Today we kept him busy with a tape measure and kept pointing to random things for him to measure.  According to his measurement system, everything in our house is "pwetty tall".

Can't wait to see what's next!

First Trip to Church

On Father's Day, we took Jacob to church for the first time.  He did great, but stayed with us the whole time.  The real test will come next week when I leave him in the nursery while I teach Sunday School.

We were also happy to celebrate the sweetest daddy around on Father's Day.  We gave him the afternoon off and he chose to spend it exploring hunting properties with Will.  It was a well deserved break that we were happy to give him after all he does for us!

Happy Father's Day, Bryant, Poppy, Pop, and Papa Frank!  We love all of you very much!

Jacob - One Month Old

Jacob turned one month old yesterday!  It's hard to believe that a month has already passed since this precious baby boy was born.  So far, Jacob has a very sweet disposition and is a very "good" baby.  The only time he gets really cranky is late afternoon/early evening and we have to just let him wear himself out and cry himself to sleep, but other than that he rarely cries.  He's on a fairly good three hour schedule and is making it until about 3:00/3:30 am at night and then sleeps until 6:30/7:00 most mornings.  I do feel like my children are conspiring against my quest for sleep though.  It seems that whenever Jacob has a really good night, Miller will wake up in the middle of the night for some reason {like say, taking off his pullup and wetting his bed :) }.  And of course it is never close to the time that Jacob wakes up so just as I fall back to sleep Jacob will wake up.  Whenever Miller sleeps all night, Jacob won't go right back to sleep after the middle of the night feeding.  Even naps seem that way.  I've tried many days during this first month to catch a nap when in the afternoon when both boys are down.  Thankfully they usually go to sleep about the same time, but Miller only sleeps about an hour and wakes up screaming "I ready to get out!!!" while Jacob almost always sleeps about three hours.  Today, Jacob wouldn't go to sleep {I finally resorted to the vibrating bouncy seat} and Miller took the longest nap of his life.  Seriously.  It lasted almost three hours.  So the moral of the story is... I may never sleep again :)

Here's the little cutie pie on his one month birthday...

 Just for comparison sake, here's Miller at one month old...

What do you think?  The only resemblance really see is the chubby cheeks.  Of course, a lot of babies have those so we may just have to wait and see how much they'll look alike.  

Happy one month birthday, Jacob!  You have been such a blessing to us these last few weeks and we look forward to many more memories with you!

Newborn Photos

When Jacob was twelve days old we drove to Birmingham to have Johanna Cosby take his newborn pictures.  She did an absolutely amazing job and I'd highly recommend her for any of your photography needs.  Miller was being a stinker that day so we didn't get many family shots or any of just the boys together as I had hoped.  I was impressed she even got any pictures with Miller in them and not crying.  I had to take a deep breath and remind myself that it was Jacob's day and to not let a two year old tantrum get us down.  Bryant and Miller left after a few minutes and Johanna worked her magic with Jacob.  These are a few of my favorites!

 

Visitors & Jacob's First Bath

Brad and Lauren stopped by on their way home from Huntsville on Sunday to meet Jacob.

We tried to get Lauren to get a picture of all of us.  Here's how it turned out...

Miller was being quite the stinker and kept saying, "I not wanna take a picture."  It seems to be a common phrase these days when we try to get him to "pose" for a picture.  Thanks for coming to see us, Brad and La La!

Later that afternoon we decided to give Jacob his first bath since his belly button is all healed up.  Considering how much he spits up, it felt long overdue.  It was so nice to have him all clean... for about five seconds and then he spit up everywhere.  Oh well.  At least we tried.  Miller was ready and waiting to help.

 His first reaction to the water...

 He warmed up to it a bit after the initial shock wore off.  He seemed to love it after that.

 Sweet, clean baby boy.

Brothers

Jacob - Three Weeks

Hello friends!  Time is flying and Jacob is three weeks old today.  He is waking up a bit more during the day.  I pray that it is just during the day and that his alertness doesn't kick in at night!!  

He has also settled down a little on the spit-up and tummy troubles.  He still spits up a good bit, but it isn't as violent and doesn't seem to bother him.  Until now he hasn't been awake long enough for me to feel ok about laying him on his back to play.  I still try to keep him upright for a few minutes after nursing, but since he's nursing faster and awake a little longer that leaves some time for awake time activities.  He seems to like his play mat, although he hasn't been there more than about ten minutes yet.

Big brother seems to like it too.

I forgot to mention that we had a sweet visitor last week.  Malley has been staying with Nana all week while Kate and Scott were in California while Alabama's golf team played for the National Championship.  They came over the play one afternoon and stayed for dinner.  I hate we didn't get to see her more, but we've been in newborn lock-down mode since my mom left :)

Jacob LOVES the new bouncy seat my girlfriends gave him.  If he ever wakes early from a nap I can put him in there and he is happy as can be.   He's spent many evenings pulled up to the dinner table with us.

In other news he finally lost his umbilical cord stump last night.  There's still a little piece hanging on, so we'll hold off on a real bath until that guy decides to move along.

We've been surviving without my mom, but we sure do miss her.  I especially miss her when I can't go back to sleep after feeding Jacob around 5:30.  Thankfully, I only had one day like that and then it was the weekend.  Bryant let me go back to sleep both mornings and it makes such a difference.  He even got Miller dressed and ready for Sunday School and Church all by himself while Jacob and I snoozed this morning.  I'm so thankful that my boys have a daddy who will be a leader and show them the importance of learning about God and worshiping Him.  It was nice to sleep until Jacob's mid-morning feeding and then to have a quiet house to get some things done.  I'm hoping to make it to church with them next week!

Miller starts his preschool's summer program Tuesday and we're all really looking forward to it.  I've been feeling pretty guilty about our lack of fun activities these past three weeks so I'm thankful he'll have some fun stimulation at least two mornings a week.  Plus it will give me some time to catch up on laundry and to tackle the grocery store with only one kid in tow :)