Family Pictures 2014

A sweet friend took our family pictures this year. She's a fabulous photographer in the Chattanooga area and I just love her work. Thank the Lord for sweet little photogenic babies. And by sweet....I mean begging and bribing them to be still for 10 seconds. Lauren wants to model. Seriously. She loves taking pictures but she can be quite silly and will just run around. Connor thinks being still is lame and for the birds. I was sweating bullets at the end of our 30 minute session. Like dripping sweat. Glamorous.

 



My Itty Bitty Baby is 3

 My sweet little love is now 3. That's just crazy. You can read all about his sweet birth HERE. It truly feels like yesterday that our sweet Connor joined us. I still can't believe I have a boy sometimes. I just always thought we'd be a girl only family. I feel so lucky that I have one of each. It's so fun getting to experience the boy things with him. I never knew anything about cars and trucks and boy is it fun to learn.

 

I asked him lots of times what kind of cake he wanted. He kept saying cars but I really don't think he truly understood. After saying cars at least 50 times, I think he really did get it. Smart little boy. I put an ambulance on top for Todd's dad who died in 1997. He worked on the ambulance and we want Connor and Lauren to understand who he was and what he was like.

 

We had a little family party at my parent's house. We usually always celebrate Thanksgiving week because of family being in town (his birthday is Dec 2). 

Connor loves flap books.  He sat with my dad and my sister's husband, Jim, for a long time looking at his new books.

He loved his new Spiderman costume. Lauren is always dressing him up in Princess outfits so sweet boy needed some boy dress up clothes. 

On his actual birthday, I took him shopping at Toys R Us. We walked down every single aisle while Lauren was at school. He immediately went to this fire truck. Good thing he already got that for his birthday from Todd's mom :) He ended up picking out a car. It was so fun shopping with him. I've gotten where I like taking the kids shopping on their birthdays so they can pick out exactly what they want.  

We went out to dinner at Cracker Barrel on his birthday. I picked that because both kids love their pancakes. We pulled up and sweet Connor was completely sacked out. 

Lauren was so excited he was turning 3. She did tell me earlier that there was no way he was 3 because he didn't look any older ;)  

We then went to see some Christmas lights that evening after dinner. Connor loved taking us! 

This big sister loves looking at fun lights. 

After seeing the lights, we went to the little holiday house type thing. The kids made reindeer food for Christmas Eve night. 

I tried to get a picture of them in their matching shirts. I love Connor's little fake smile. It's like a half smile because he's way too busy and on the move 100% of the time.  

We ended the evening with a visit with Santa. Connor was so precious. He was so bashful. Lauren just ate it up. After getting off of his lap, Connor kept saying "Ho Ho Ho, Merry Christmas." He's so stinkin cute. 

Mailing her wish list off to the North Pole. 

 

Connor's 3 year old stats:

26 pounds

36 inches

Size 2T in clothes

Itty bitty just like his Sissy and so so so precious 

He's Baaaaack

 Our sweet little elf is back. This elf made me get out of bed at 1am this morning because I forgot to move him. He just sits in random places every single day and "watches" the kiddos. Lauren loves it. She thinks it's so much fun to find him every single morning. It's a good thing I remembered as I was falling asleep ;)

  

Chippy left the kiddos some gifts. Lauren was so excited and she just screamed in excitement that Chippy went to the North Pole to get her something special. I love this magical age. It's too cute.

Chippy got the kiddos Santa cups from a precious boutique on Signal Mountain. The kids love them. 

Let's Do A Little Catch Up

Ok so let's do some back tracking. First, I will never get this far behind again. I don't fill out baby books or any of that fun stuff so I need this for my records.

June 2014

We continued on with living a fun fun life and took the kids on another Disney cruise. We truly enjoy Disney cruises. We feel like it's such a great cruise for both adults and kids. When you want to attend the adult activities, you just send the kids to the amazing Kids Club area. It's truly unbelievable and Disney has thought of it all.

We took Lauren on a fun dolphin adventure in the Bahamas (C man wasn't old enough)

 She still talks about the dolphin adventure. Dolphins have always been my favorite animal and I think they are hers too.

 This is what Connor did during our dolphin adventure. 

 My Mom & Dad got to go on the cruise with us!

 Beautiful Castaway Cay, Disney's own island. I could live there. Seriously.

 We don't get to do many vacations with my family as our schedules usually conflict with jobs, etc. This was such an extra surprise because we just rented a condo in Florida for a week only 2 months prior to this. Fun Fun!

 They have such a fun Papa who plays with them!

 Getting her hair braided. Girlfriend has this down pat. She loves it.

 Thank the Lord I married someone who is fun. I would go nutso if we just stayed put all the time. I thrive when we get to visit fun and new places. I want our kids to grow up with lots of experiences under their belt.

 Pirate Night!

 My sweet boy with the cutest sun kissed cheeks. He went to the nursery every night after eating dinner to play with friends. He thrives in social interactions and has never bat an eye when being dropped off anywhere. Minnie even came for a visit.

 Fireworks night. It's so amazing how Disney has a full fireworks show from the boat.

 How Connor feels about fireworks. He got so scared of the loud noises.

 Lauren gets afraid of loud noises too....

 Let's be honest....bedtime was a pain in the rear. 

 Lauren could live in a hot tub. She loves it. We finally just parked a chair in front of it.

 Lauren's favorite has always been Ariel. She gets so shy when she sees her though. She literally does not say a word and is in awe.

 Last night....booooo!

 Connor was over pictures clearly.

 And go figure, just like last time, Lauren picked up strep. She was a sick girl that last night.

 Going away party!

 Connor was blowing kisses to the characters. Sweet sweet boy.

So that was just part of our June but the best part :) The kids are currently counting down until our next Disney trip.....3 weeks to go!