Nana and Papaw's.

We spent a couple days at Nana and Papaw's house last week while J was out of town. The kids always have a blast out there. They can run for a mile and it would be fine... since they'd still be in sight, literally. They played with the pine cones, played on the swings and big slide, roasted marshmallows, watched entirely too much tv, ate nothing but Nilla Wafers, crackers, M&Ms...well, that was mostly Grey, played with Reagan and Sage, and visited Jon, Lee, and Ridge. They also made about 800 trips down the curb thing along Nana and Papaw's driveway and played in the eternal sink hole near the road.

An empty room.

Little Miss Priss has decided that her 5th year of life (she's almost a 4 year old...yikes!!) will be the most difficult. She has been really testing boundaries lately. So she now has no toys. Her room has been like this for a week...empty. She has earned VERY little back, if she does earn it back, it seems to get taken away again pretty quickly. She has actually become so much more thankful for the little things she gets. For instance, every night before the toy purge we'd read her three books that she gets to pick out herself before bed. For almost a week, she has gotten no books... at all. Sad, I know, but she loves her books. So since she loves them, they were one of the first things that had to go. She made some fairly good choices yesterday so I let her have ONE book. You should have seen the rejoicing that happened after that news. Before that, she'd complain about not getting the right book, whether the book was too long or too short, and she'd even complain if she stayed up too late and we decided to give her 2 books instead of 3. (It was usually like 10pm when we'd do that to her.) The funny thing about getting all these toys taken away is watching her find such joy in such small things. She's play with a popcorn kernal she found under her bed, for example, and would love every minute of it. It's amazing how kids find a way to be happiness and contentment in the little things no matter the circumstance. A life lesson for us all, I think.

Those boys.

Our good friend, Lindsey, came back home to visit from Houston. She had two cute boys named Sam and Will. Our other friends Elisabeth, Emily, and Erin met at a park and chatted and let the kids play. Emily also has two boys named Noah and Philip. I rarely take my camera to short outings like these, but this time, I'm glad I did. There is a little mist thing there at the park that the kids loved. The boys took their shirts off after getting a bit wet and Anna asked, "Mom, can I take my shirt off too?" Sorry girl... She stayed appropriately clothed (for a girl, at least). But she didn't care that her clothes got wet. Why would she? They had a great time playing together. Lindsey and Emily, I'll have all these pics for you soon. :)

Noah, Philip, Anna, and Will.

18 months...wow.

Grey had his 18 month doc appointment today. He did alright. He was doing his typical ignoring of anything I said, trying to put all kinds of random things in his mouth, climbing on the chairs to try to touch the fish that were hanging from the ceiling, tearing up the books, and speaking his gibberish the entire time. He is the polar opposite of Anna. Anna was trying to be mother the entire time and repeating everything I said and adding more discipline as she went, as well as talking me into not getting the nurses to give her a flu shot. She chose to get one on her birthday instead. Back to Grey... He was right at 29 pounds and was 34 inches tall. I added an inch since he had his belly sticking out and was arching his back which made him shorter than he really was. So if he did it right, he may have even been taller. But since he's a crazy man... :) He got one shot and Anna said she deserved a sticker for holding his hand and telling him that "it was ok." Yeah, SHE can talk, right? Miss "I'm gonna be brave on my birthday and get a shot, but not today." HA! We were in and out in no time. Here are a few of pics of Grey in his favorite attire...well, second favorite. His favorite doesn't include the diaper.

Play.

A normal occurrence.

Who is THAT kid?

Yeah, it's been like a month since the last blog... whatever. We're still here.

I was strolling thru the ol' hard drive and was looking at some shots of Grey for almost a year ago...and even some of his newborn pictures. It's so funny how completely different he looks. I don't think I would have ever imagined he'd look the way he does now back when I looked at him as a newborn. But they just change so much. I'd like to do a succession of shots of Grey soon, but not now. I'll do it soon, though. And if you haven't seen him in person recently, his hair is the best.

It's also funny to see the typical characteristics of birth order in our family. Anna. The typical girl with all her dresses, shoes, princess books and movies, babies, and jewelry. Anna is the absolute perfectionist and people pleaser. Not really a good thing to be as an adult. But she's also in control. Not overwhelmingly in control. She just knows what's up. She's the best.

Grey. The boy that if you give him a car, any kind of car, he's happy for days. Or some dirt and a shovel. That's all he needs. If he does something that seems to be funny to anyone, he goes back and does it again...and again...and again. It doesn't even matter if it hurts him, if he can get a laugh, he's there. And he's hilarious. Just ask him to dance for you. So he's the clown. Typical. And awesome.

The funniest thing...

...you've probably seen today:

Anna was not pushing him down the slide, it just looks like it... She just really wanted to and is holding her hands away from him.

I was ready to rip him out of the water as soon as he hit. He LOVED it and cried when it was time to go in. He really kept going back for more. And yes, we do own swim diapers and swim trunks, but he was already wet... We can save those things for when we're out in public. HA!

A look into the future.

I occasionally look at this one photographer's blog. She does lots of toddlers and babies... She has two kids, a boy that's about (maybe) 5 or 6, and a one year old girl. Wanna to see what Grey may look like when he's about 5 or 6? Check out this shot of him... You'll have to look at the whole post because the photographer has a lock on her photos so you can't post them elsewhere. But scroll down and you'll see a cute (of course!) kid in a green shirt with long, strawberry blonde hair with identical teeth as Grey. Ok, Grey may not look anything like this when he's really 5 or 6. But when I saw this shot of this kid on her blog, that was my first thought. I'm sure my husband will disagree with me...

One of the best.

This is one of the best shots I've ever gotten of Anna. I haven't gotten on in a long time where she has a genuine smile on her face and she's actually look AT me. This was July 4th at Nana and Papaw's house.

Popsicles.

Anna and Grey's favorite snacks are popsicles. Can you really consider them "snacks?" Not sure. But I figured that it would take Grey a while to figure the whole popsicle routine out. The first time he held the popsicle by the actual frozen part and not the stick. Then had green trails of sticky running down his arms and belly. The next time, he had it all figured out. I guess his hands were a little more comfortable with holding the warm stick at the bottom. These kids loooove their popsicles and Anna usually asks for one for breakfast.