We have a KINDERGARTENER!!

I love Liberty Park Elementary School's sweet tradition for upcoming Kindergarteners. To invite them to Kindergarten orientation they place a giant blow up crayon on their mailbox. I'm pretty sure I was way more excited about this because I have known about this tradition since before Will was born and now it was finally his turn to get a crayon. I can't believe Will will come with me to school next year! So fun and bittersweet at the same time...he is growing up!

Cousin Easter Egg Hunt

On Easter, for lunch we headed to the Jebeles' house. After lunch, a huge egg hunt takes place. This year, the ages ranged from 2 years to 20 years old :) And the competition is fierce. There are 3 golden eggs with varying amounts of money in them that the kids go crazy trying to find! Will and Alex were pretty content just finding the pastel eggs hidden or not so hidden in very obvious places :)

Preschool Easter Egg Hunt

We had our fair share of egg hunts this year! I always take a half day off work for the one that Brookwood Baptist puts on for the preschool because it is so adorable! This year was no different. The boys had a blast hunting for eggs and celebrating with their friends!

Ready to go! The boys were pumped about the days festivities!

Will's hunt was first. To make it last a little longer this year, the kids had to find the eggs with their name on them....not just any egg laying around! It was cute watching them read their classmates names and trying to help them out by telling them they had spotted one of their eggs! I am sure you can imagine how excited Will was that the first egg he found with his name on it was a Ninja turtle egg :)

 Kiki and Pops came to the hunt. Kiki helped Will get started on finding his eggs!

 Sweet Friends!

 And his very sweet teacher, Mrs. Beth

 Next, it was Alex's turn. His egg hunt was on the playground! He knew what to do and was ready to go!

 Sweet angel!

 It was fun having Kiki and Pops there this year!

 My boys...Will looks STOKED to be taking a picture ;) This was because I made him leave his cupcake to come and take a picture with me. Sad SAD knowing he will not be at this precious school next year!

Last Vacay as a Family of Four!

At the end of March, over spring break, John and I took the boys to Orange Beach. Will had been begging to go to the beach and we thought it might be fun to do one more trip just the four of us. The weather was not ideal (that is being very positive), but we caught the sun for a bit here and there! Alex still was not crazy about the sand, but was okay with it by the last day we were there. We enjoyed a laid back couple of days with lots of snacks, lots of indoor pool time, and yummy seafood dinners. The next time we head to the beach will be with my whole family in July and I have a feeling it won't be as laid back once we add the caboose into the mix!
The day we got there we went straight to the indoor pool to burn off some energy!

The next morning it was in the 50s. We were the first out on the beach and the boys just wore their pajamas and jackets to bundle up until it warmed up a bit.

Alex decided he liked his socks on because that way the sand wouldn't touch his feet!

Finally the sun was fully out and it was warm enough to shed some layers, eat some snacks, and dig some holes!

Friday was basically a monsoon and the entire day was spent inside. After watching as many movies as we could handle, the boys decided to improvise to keep from getting bored :)

 Saturday was of course the most beautiful day....and the day that we were leaving. We decided to stay on the beach for as long as we wanted and just deal with a late start back home. Alex dressed himself for the beach and made John a pretty proud daddy!

 Beach naps are best! I love that Alex will sleep anywhere! And how could you not nap great with the sounds of the waves as background noise!

"My wugey and my pass"

Sunday night we were over at John's parents house for dinner. With Will and Alex being their only grandchildren, the den is sort of a shrine to them...pictures everywhere. There are two small albums that I made for John's parents when each of our sons were born-one for Will and one for Alex. They boys just discovered these and LOVED looking through them. It was at that moment Sunday night when I realized that without me even meaning to, or even realizing it, Will's birth and childhood has been so much more documented than Alex's. The proof was in those albums. Will's album was basically every picture we took in the hospital. From his very first picture, to his first bath, to every visitor he had while we were in the hospital. Alex's album was about 10 pictures from his newborn photo shoot, and two of those 10 had Will in them! Even in looking at the blog, it pains me to see how each and every little milestone of Will's was documented with pictures, blog posts, and videos. Will's baby book is filled out through year two, completely, with hair from his first hair cut and everything! Alex's baby book was ordered and came shortly after he was born but was never even taken out of the FedEx box until last summer and then I never wrote anything in it. This makes me quite nervous to bring baby boy #3 into this world....will we even know where his birth certificate is in a year or two?? People told me I would get busy and it would be harder to keep the blog up. I vowed that I wouldn't let it slide....and guess what....it did. It is hard to be motivated to sit down at the end of a long day or on the weekend and update the blog in my free time. Laundry and dishes and just pure exhaustion totally have gotten in the way. I am not a scrapbooker, so I rely on this little blog to help keep these sweet, special memories so when our babies are not babies anymore, we can go back and remember fun little details about when they were.

Alex will turn two just days before we welcome a third son into our family (assuming he stays put until he is scheduled to come out). He is my heart. He is such a fun loving, laid back, hysterically funny kid who was born to be a middle child :) He has this toothy grin that makes it so hard to discipline him. Just the other day he was throwing a FIT! I put him in his room where he continued to throw a fit and then about 2 minutes later it got very quiet and I heard, "Worry Mommy, I not mean to." He is perfect and precious in every way.

Since he was born he has been attached to his lovey and paci. In recent months, the obsession has gotten worse and I really am nervous to wean him off. I don't mind the lovey, but the paci needs to go. He used to call his paci and lovey "mine." They went together and if he had one, he wanted the other as well. A few months ago he started calling his lovey "wugey" and his paci "pass." To hear him say it makes me smile and I hope I never forget the sound of that little voice.

Most days Alex can be found with wards (swords) in his hands "fighting da bad guys." He loves tagging after Will and likes for them to play ninja turtles (Alex always chooses Weonardo). He calls Will "Wool" and that makes me smile too. "Come on, Wool!"
Alex loves any sport. He loves having a ball in his hand and playing catch with daddy or basketball...or soccer....or baseball.....

He is often heard telling us "just a minute" or if he wants a snack just before dinner he will try to be convincing by saying "just one mommy and thats it!" Little stinker!

We love this little boy! His carefree spirit reminds us that life is short and these days are fleeting. I try to soak it all in. I am incredibly thankful for Alex. I hope that one day he will look back at his childhood and have sweet, precious, special memories...even if they weren't all documented :)

Sunday Afternoon Adventure

After all of this cold, dreary weather, we knew that the sunshine on Sunday and warmer temps were going to warrant some kind of outdoor activity. Will wanted to go on an "adventure" so we loaded the boys up with snacks and their binoculars and set out for Oak Mountain State Park! We have never taken either of the boys, but after the fun we had on Sunday, I am sure there will be lots of return trips in our future!

 "I did it!"

 Love my boys!

The Dusting of 2014

We survived the dusting! HA! What a crazy few weeks of weather we have had! As I type, I am home from school again on an "inclement weather day" because of the threat of ice. No complaints here! My laundry pile is definitely benefiting from these unexpected days home! 2 weeks ago, I was at school when it started to snow. I took my students out to run around in it and stick their tongues out because I was just sure that it would be short lived and this might be the only chance they got. I figured it would be well over by the time school got out. Shortly after it started to snow, I looked out the window and it was really coming down hard. I remember texting John that it was "legit snow" and I wondered if it would stick. Within 10 minutes, I got a call from the boys school that they would be closing at 11:30, and then our school system announced we would close at 10:30 as well. As you can imagine, pandemonium struck at that moment. It was 10:50 and I was making arrangements to leave my class about 11:10 so I could grab the boys and get home to play in the snow! I was so excited to get to pick them up so we could play. I even told Shealy that if Clayton wasn't coming home from work they should just come over to our house and play! A few hours later, that statement proved to be very ironic. Shealy and I set out in our own cars following each other to get to our kiddos. Liberty Parkway was already a backed up nightmare. It was about 5 minutes after I was in my car that I realized this might be a very, very bad situation. We turned around and went back through a back way through the neighborhood to try and get out on a back road to get to the interstate to loop back around to get to their school. On the way out the neighborhood, my car completely lost control on a small hill and would not do anything. I couldn't get it to go up the hill, to brake.....it was like it just shut off. I rolled all the way back down the hill. By the grace of God, there was a man behind me that knew what he was doing and he threw his car in reverse and managed to get out of my way and kept others from turning in my direction. I couldn't steer...I was literally helpless and just praying to run into a mailbox or something so my car would just stop and no one would get hurt. At the bottom of the hill my car stopped sliding and I just got out. I did not want to get back in! The sweet man who was able to get out of my way got out of his car and got in mine and got it parked on the side of the street so I would be out of everyone's way. I called John and told him I was getting in the car with Shealy and we were going to try and get to the kids and that he needed to leave work. Shealy and I proceeded to try 2 other routes....both were a mess and she ended up getting a flat tire so we just parked her car and walked back to the school. By this time, it was about 12:45 or so. So in an hour and a half, we had gotten no where. John was going 10 mph on the interstate and I knew he would never make it to the boys before dark. After sitting at school for about an hour trying to figure out what in the world to do, I called my dad and asked if he could come and get us in his truck and try and get us to the kids. A few minutes later we were in his car and driving down Liberty Parkway completely on sidewalks and the grass. Cars were wrecked and abandoned all down the parkway. I have never seen anything like it. The weather became crippling almost as soon as it began. It took us a little while, but we made it to get the kids and we crammed them all in the backseat of Pops truck!

 Shealy and I shared the front and we made our way to Overton to pick up Clayon who had left his truck at work, walked to their house to pack a bag, and had started walking/sledding our way to meet up with his family.

Pops entertained the kiddos while we waited by bringing some snow into the truck for them to touch! Shocker-Alex was not a fan!

He made it to Overton Road and we were starting the trek back to our house. Back on the Parkway we picked up our old neighbor's little girl who was at MDO at Liberty Park Baptist Church and they couldn't get anywhere near her. So with Clayton in the bed of the truck, Will, Alex, Ann Clayton, and Kate in the backseat, and Shealy and I in the front seat with Ally, we headed to my house and finally made it home about 4:00.

 The whole crew-5 kiddos 5 and under-if you only knew the snacks that were consumed in less than 24 hours ;)

I was so thankful to just be home and now my focus shifted to getting John home. He ended up being on 459 for 6 hours! He made it off the Liberty Parkway exit and drove as far as he could until abandoned cars kept him from making it any further and my parents picked him up and brought him home. Sleepover at the Vakakes' ensued and the kiddos thought it was the most fun thing ever!

 While waiting on our daddy to get home, Clayton entertained the big kids who were dying to get out and play!

John and Alex made a fort upstairs, Will and Kate slept in the boys' twin beds, AC slept in the crib, Shealy and Clayton slept on our pull out couch, and Ally and I slept in my bed. It was comical to look around at the stuff everywhere and the sleeping arrangements, but everyone did fine!

Obviously school was cancelled Wednesday (and would later be cancelled the rest of the week!) By about noon, Ally's dad had borrowed a 4WD vehicle and came to rescue her. John and Clayton were bored and antsy so they decided to embark on an adventure. They walked from our house to Shealy's car, changed her tire, and then drove on a SPARE down Sicard Hollow Road to get her some gas! That road is dangerous when it is sunny and 85 degrees!! I could not believe that they drove it in a car with no 4WD and that had a spare tire. Once they were back (bearing caffeine and candy bars!!!!!), the McKinnons quickly packed up and were going to make a run for it to try and get home before the sun went down and the roads completely froze up again! It took them 2 hours to get home (normally it would take them about 20) but at least they made it! The next day was fun! The snow was still here and pretty but it wasn't nearly as cold so we could get out and enjoy it. 

Now that we've had some snow, I could not be more ready for flip flop season!!! I don't know that I will ever complain about the hot summer months again!