Sweet Moment

So, last night Logan and I decided to watch a movie...but didn't start until after 10pm.  I only lasted about a half hour, and then I was fast asleep, nice 'n comfy on the couch...

When I woke up, I found that Logan had cleaned the entire kitchen, and even started the diswasher! It all looked so beautiful!  It was nice to just crawl into bed and not have to worry about putting away the green bean casserole.

I love my husband.  He's a keeper :-)

Thanksgiving!

Happy post-Thanksgiving, everyone!

Ours was pretty fun.  We spent Wed-Saturday in the Outer Banks of North Carolina, in my Aunt Kathy's beach house.  It's a good sized house, and luckily there was already a room decked out with a crib, twin bed AND queen-sized bed, so our cute little family was able to bunk together.

Mom went down on Sunday with my brother Seth and his girls (they flew in from Oregon), but since Logan was working some extra shifts for security we couldn't leave until after 11pm on Tuesday.  Since we have little kids, we thought, "Hey! Let's travel at NIGHT, so the kids will be asleep!  That way we won't have screaming babies!"  Good idea, except for one flaw: Logan and I both prefer to sleep at night, and driving in the dark doesn't really motivate us to stay awake.  It was a struggle, believe me.  And the kids both woke up for the last hour of the trip, so we got the "screaming baby" thing anyway (Tommy was actually mad for the first 15 minutes of the car ride, because he wanted us to put him back in his bed. He kept screaming "Nap! Nap!")  Ironically, the trip home on Saturday (during the day) was pretty peaceful.

The trip was really fun.  We went to the wild horse museum, climbed a light house (at least Tommy, Logan, Abrianna, Mercedes, and Papa did), went to the ocean, walked around the cutsy shops in the area, ate locally made fudge, toured the Wright Brothers monument in Kill Devil Hills, and stopped at Virginia Beach and Williamsburg (briefly) on the way home.  Lots of stuff to see and do!

While at the beach I bought a new swimsuit, which was an experience.  Finding a non-bikini swimsuit is nigh unto impossible these days.  But, I didn't budge on my standards, and after tons of stores I finally found one! (as you can probably imagine, most of the swimsuits were on sale due to the lateness of the season, so I got a pretty good deal).

Going on vacation with Tommy was interesting, because I didn't realize how "toddler-proof" our house was until we went someplace that wasn't.  For the first day I was constantly moving objects up to higher shelves, and trying to dissuade him from going places I didn't want him to go. Next time I go on vacation, I'm taking my toddler-proof door handles with me!  Overall he did pretty well, though, and he loved spending time with his cousins!

Tommy at the top of the light house we visited. He "climbed" with Daddy, Papa, Abrianna and Mercedes.

Mercedes on the staircase of the light house.

Tommy's first trip to the Atlantic Ocean! (Not the most flattering picture, but we only got a few)

Sadly, the only picture we have the proves Jack was at the beach...

Tommy adored Mercedes, and followed her around a lot.  He liked saying "Cedes!"

Abrianna and Mercedes painting a horse at the wild horse museum.

WooHOO!!

I'm going on vacation! I'm going on vacation!

(I'm very excited that we'll be at the Outer Banks this weekend.  It's a real vacation--no one has work that has to be done, and we'll just get to sit, relax, and have fun...at least as much as our kids allow us to...)

Logan and I are historically very bad at vacations.  The July before Tommy was born we decided to take a few days off to have an early anniversary before I got uncomfortably large.  Logan was then offered some extra hours at work, and since I usually encouraged him to take the extra shifts he jumped at the chance...shortening our "vacation" by several days.  So, I decided to pick up extra shifts at Franks, too, so we spent our "days off" working.  But this time--no sir! We're taking Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, AND Saturday, and we're just chillin'.  And driving (down side).  But mostly chillin'.

WooHOO!!!!!

Photos

We've been much more remiss in taking pictures of Jack than we were with Tommy, but we took some lately that I thought I'd share (and a picture of Tommy, too).  Enjoy!

Such a cute smile!

A good sleeper

We took a picture in July of all three of us "expecting". This picture was when we were saying goodbye to Carolina and Jon (they moved to Wichita this week....very sad...)

Rub a dub, dub, two boys in a tub...

Precious Memories

Today Tommy "helped" me make cookies, and it was so cute! We put a little apron on him, and he helped count the eggs, and poured them in (I did the cracking), and he dumped the chocolate chips in after he "helped" me mix the batter.  As a reward, he got to lick the beater, so he was happy as a clam!  It took twice as long to make them, but I think they'll taste even better for the effort :-)

Jack is growing up so fast!  He had his 2 month check-up yesterday, and when they weighed and measured him he was in the 95th percentile for height and weight (90th for head circumference).  He's a big boy, all right! He's getting pretty good at holding his head up, too.  Such strength!

Jack sure looks like his brother! I took some picures of him the other day using the same chair with the same blankie that I took pictures of Tommy with, and when I showed them to Logan he originally thought they were of Tommy!  I have some examples below.  Which are Tommy, and which are Jack?  Take a guess! Hint:  There are 3 pictures of each.  Good luck!

Picture A

Picture B

Picture C

Picture D

Picture E

 Picture F

Almost Professional

Last February I was enrolled in an online class for digital design, and one of our assignments was to contact a real graphics design company to find out about pricing.  It just so happens that Buena Vista has a graphics design firm (go figure), so I contacted them to find out how they come up with their price.  I ended up having a great conversation with the head guy, and he told me that any time I wanted to show him my portfolio he'd be happy to take a look.

Well, at that point I was just gearing up to have Jack and was trying to keep my head above water.  I thought a lot about the offer, but didn't feel the timing was right. After Jack was born I started to think that maybe I should act...so I did.

I took my portfolio by his office about two weeks ago, and was very pleased with the result.  He's offered to pay me on a project basis, and has already given me my first project!  I turned in five rough designs for him today, and he thinks one of them is right for the job! He's even passed it on to the client for feedback.  I'm still reeling a bit about it.  Logan was laughing at me yesterday because I was stressing so much about my designs, but I want to make sure I'm putting my best foot forward in this kind of situation. He said "They're good designs," and my answer was "But I don't want good! I need amazing, creative designs!"  He just shrugged it off. He had to hold back the "I told you so" when I got the feedback from the client.

I'm so excited!  I'm almost a professional!

Family Photos

It's been a while, and I have several things I need to write about, but while time is short I'll first post our new family photos! These were taken by Brinn Willis, the same photographer that took our family photos when Tommy was 6 months old.  We took them on Tuesday morning, when it was very pretty but very cold outside.  I'm glad we have some good pictures of the kids!

And many, many more!