Celebrating Alex!

Yesterday my sweet class (and their momma's) showered me with all kinds of precious goodies for Alex!! These moms went above and beyond to make everything so cute and I could not feel more blessed. Having a 2nd baby is so much different than the first go round...I feel like when I was pregnant with Will it was all about Will...And it was!!! But this time, sometimes I forget I am even pregnant because we do have Will and are still so in love with him and he keeps us so busy that we don't focus nearly as much on this baby/pregnancy. So yesterday was nice for Alex to be the center of attention...even though Will got lots of love too. Here are a few pictures...I can't post most of what is on my camera because my sweet kids are in them, but you will get the general idea :)Some kids even brought a gift for Big Brother Will. We let him open one last night and he was so excited. All of Alex's gifts are laying in the floor of the nursery and Will will go in there randomly and pick something up and say "Baby Alex!" He certainly knows who all of this stuff is for...I just hope he likes Baby Alex as much as he likes Baby Alex's things :)

BIG Boy Room!

Will has been sleeping in his big boy room for over a month and it continues to go great! He goes down just as easily as he did in his crib, stays asleep all night, and I still hear "out please!" on the monitor when he is awake and ready to get up. We are so thankful for such an easy transition! Here are a few pictures of his big boy room. The glider will be moved back into the nursery this weekend and in its place is coming a pretty sweet surprise for Will...sort of a "I'm becoming a big brother kind of gift..."As you can see Bentley is a big fan of Will's big boy room...in particular the tiger pillow pet :)
The bed, bedding, train car toy box, train car book shelves, airplane lamp, train night light, and bulletin board all came from Pottery Barn Kids.

Have you ever wondered.....

what it is like to live with a 2 year old boy....???This was our entryway Saturday morning. In fact, this is our entryway most any time unless people are coming over. On Saturday, I counted 36 things with wheels scattered all over our floor. Will likes to race cars, crucks, and choo choos on this strip of our hallway. I can only imagine what our entryway will look like in about a year with 2 little boys wanting to "race."

Home At Last

We surprised Kiki and Pops at the airport tonight to pick them up. They thought my aunt was coming to get them, but instead Will met them at baggage claim with a bright pink welcome home sign! They were shocked and so excited!!

"These things always happen when you are away...."

When I was a baby, my dad traveled out of town for work on occasion. To say I was a mischievous child would be an understatement. My parents often tease me that they didn't know if I would make it past my 2nd birthday....I think it was just lack of supervision :) At any rate, my dad tells the story that each time he would call home, my brother (eight years older than me) would answer the phone and when dad asked how everyone was, he would reply "Dad, these things always happen when you are away..." Well I think I finally know what that means. My parents left for Italy and a Mediterranean cruise on April 26. When they return tomorrow that will make 19 days that they have been gone. Back in August, right after school started, they left for an Alaskan Cruise in which they were gone 17 days. I just knew Will would get sick and not be able to go to daycare and my Plan B (my parents) would be gone and I would have to take off work right at the beginning of school. As Murphy (as in Murphy's law) would have it, we went to the pediatrician a few days after my parents were gone only to be scheduled for Will to have tubes put in and his adnoids taken out the next week. Will had never had surgery at this point in his short little life, so it only made sense that when my parents left us, this would happen. We survived and I only ended up having to take off 3 days of work. I teased my parents when they planned this trip that I was going to go ahead and prepare myself for Will to need an appendectomy or something major! Well let's review what all has happened since my parents departure...
They left town on April 26...
-On April 27th F5 tornadoes ripped through our state...F2 tornadoes ripped through their neighborhood leaving my grandmother and uncle (who live in their basement with assisstance) without power on and off for several days. They were lucky and their house suffered no damage, just the loss of a few big trees.
-On April 28th Will threw up 20 minutes after I dropped him off at school. Luckily, John was going into work a little late this day and he hadn't left yet. He had no other choice but to pick him up and stay home with him. Will couldn't go to school Friday either, but thankfully John's sister Stephanie helped us out and kept him so I wouldn't have to take a day.
-On May 1st news broke that the terrorist we had been hunting down for 10 years had finally been caught and killed...the US citizen travel alert went up and of course my parents are on a cruise ship whose next stop was Turkey...great.....
-Will returned to school on May 2, only to throw up all over me as I was putting him to sleep on the night of May 3. At 8pm, I had to put in for a sub, run up to the school and make sub plans so something would be prepared for my kids the next day (it is days like that that having a desk job would be much easier!!) Don't get me wrong, I love the chance to spend a day loving on my little boy - it is just much trickier when we don't have my parents to fall back on.
TOMORROW at 6pm can't come soon enough! We have missed Kiki and Pops dearly!!

One Last Vacay

This past weekend we took Will to the beach for a last family vacation just the 3 of us. We all had a blast! For weeks we had been talking the beach up to Will to the point that he was so excited when we were finally loaded in the car that he didn't close his eyes the entire way there until we were about 10 minutes away from our condo!
He stayed asleep while John got his blow up bed all ready (we weren't going to have any broken collar bones this trip!), however he was up EARLY. This picture was taken at approximately 4:50 A.M. He awoke at 4:45 a.m. saying "go to beeeech go to beeeech...." When we told him it was too early, he decided to settle for a pop tart!A few hours later we had our gear on and were ready to "go to beeech..." :)Will loved the beach! We would just drop his toy bag on a spot in the sand and he would entertain himself for a good long while just going through and dumping them all out, building roads, driving his sand trucks along said roads, tearing down his daddy's sand castles (John was a total trooper-he is not fond of the sand at all! But now that he has a little buddy, he didn't mind laying all in it and getting covered just trying to make sure Will had a good time.The ocean was a hit too. He sat in the sand and let the waves roll over him and would giggle so loud each and every time!Gotta love his facial expressions!!We would head in around lunch time to eat and nap. John and I took advantage of not being at home where we always have a "to do list" and napped while Will napped! As soon as he woke up he would again say "go to beeech" and we were off again!If you have a boy, these sand trucks were from Target. They have several for $2 a piece. WELL worth it!
And sometimes we took a break for a little break dancing on the beach...The pool was a hit too! Will liked his turtle float until he sort of slid off the side and his head may or may not have gone under the water, which scared him a bit, so then he just took to pushing it around the pool and never got on it to ride again....We went out to dinner Saturday night, but on Sunday for Mother's Day John just went to my favorite restaurant and got take out. It was much more enjoyable just eating on our deck so when Will was finished he could just run around and play! I am so incredibly blessed to be Will's mom. It is the most fulfilling, exhausting, hilarious, never-a-dull-moment, enriching, heart-melting job I've ever had and I wouldn't give anything for it. It's funny how life changes when you are responsible for another human being. All of your decisions revolve around this tiny person. Being a mom has taught me so much about...life, responsibility, priorities, God, selflessness, and in the grand scheme of thing what is really important. I find myself praying A LOT more than I used to because I realize how much is out of my control. I know that Will is God's first and so that is my only comfort-to look to Jesus for healing and protection when I can't give it.We headed back home on Monday after lunch. Will slept until we got to Montgomery and then decided to act like he was 2 for just a little bit. We stopped off at Peach Park for a treat and to let all of us stretch his legs...Will was not pleased with this decision and took his spoon and flung ice cream all over me and screamed "GO HOME!" Poor little guy had had enough. Once he tasted what was on his spoon he calmed back down and found his way back to his sweet self. We arrived home about 5:30 with loads of laundry to do and already feeling behind on the week...but it was totally worth it!

Muffins for Mom

This morning Will's school hosted Muffins for Mom in each of the classrooms. Basically when you dropped off your child, you were invited to stay a little longer and eat breakfast. When I walked Will in, they had a precious card and handprint artwork, both laminated, waiting for the moms to arrive. They had also placed their hand print and a precious poem on a flower pot. Will carried this to me, beaming with pride. Will was sick on Wednesday and I immediately went to look on his school calendar on our fridge to see what he would miss. I'm not going to lie, I was so relieved to see that the hand print poem was being made on Thursday. I have been waiting all year for Mother's Day artwork :)
This is not the greatest picture, but I have very few of me with my little man. His teacher wasn't quite sure how to work my camera so I took what I could get and did the best job I could cropping and zooming in :)My precious hand print poem...We are headed to the beach this afternoon for a last little vacay just the three of us. Yesterday I went to the doctor and Alex's birth day has been set-June 1st! A mere 26 days away!! Will has filled our hearts to the brim...it is hard to imagine loving another little boy just as much-though I know we will!!!