New Nephew!

This is a picture of Joseph and Sarah when they came to visit Martin Luther King weekend with the boys. Isn't she cute pregnant?! My newest nephew was born March 18th- a Thursday just like Ford and Luke. He was early and ended up in the NICU in Montgomery. Needless to say this was very difficult on Joseph, Sarah, Ford and Luke. He was there for two and a half weeks and Sarah and Joseph spent a lot of time in the car driving back and forth.

Parker, Maryn and I went to spend a couple of days with them at the beginning of spring break- Emma was in Dothan- and I was lucky enough to get to go with Joseph to visit Duncan. He is precious!! Thankfully he is home now and they are enjoying him a ton. Check out Sarah's blog for more pictures.



Duncan obviously enjoys his fingers!

Discovery Place

Joseph and I grew up going to the Discovery Place in uptown Charlotte with Dad and Debbie. We always had fun and they still have a lot of the same activities. It didn't matter because we were too old to have enjoyed it, but they now have a room for preschool age kids and toddlers. Our kids had so much fun! One day when the kids were out of school we met Mark there- its right next to his office- and enjoyed a couple of hours of fun with Daddy! There is a huge water table- seen above- where kids can stand and play in the water. It's even short enough for Emma to enjoy plus it has a seat- kind of like a high chair with water around it- for babies! So fun!!

Parker is playing on the giant Lite Brite. And they have tons of other stuff for them to do and explore.

Parker Riding His Bike

Parker learned to ride his bike without training wheels this past weekend. Mark worked with him a lot on it. He was starting to get the hang of it on Saturday and by Sunday he was pretty much doing it on his own. Today Mark and Parker rode about 1/2 mile around the block.

Short video:


Longer version:

An Old Picture

aren't they cute?!

SNOW!

We finally got a really good snow! It started Friday afternoon around 4 and didn't really stop until some in the night. We woke up Saturday morning to sleet but it wasn't enough to keep us indoors. The paper said Huntersville got 6 inches. I don't think it got out of the 20's yesterday (Saturday) so there wasn't any melting. Church was canceled and I haven't been out of the house since Thursday! Yikes! It's warming up today so the snow is beginning to melt. I am hoping we have school tomorrow or at least that the roads are clear enough to get out of the house!

Today was so sunny that we needed sunglasses!



Parker eating snow.


Emma really enjoyed playing in the snow and stayed out longer than Parker and Maryn.


We don't have a sled so a piece of cardboard worked. Today we upgraded to a Rubbermaid lid to a storage bin. I think we may need to purchase a real sled.

Christmas with Papa and Dede

Papa and Dede came for a few days the weekend before Christmas. We had a great time reading books, eating good food, a little Christmas shopping, and wrapping presents.

This was so long ago I don't even remember what Maryn and Dede were cooking...


All of my children have been side sippers. They don't want to miss anything that's going on so they have to drink from the side.
























































Parker and Maryn dressed up as fire people when we had an unexpected visit from the fire department. Our carbon monoxide detector was going off which is attached to our alarm system. That automatically sends the fire department out. The kids were excited to see fire fighters and even got to go sit in their truck.





















A Christmas morning mess. It's just not Christmas without a picture like this!


Parker got the castle he had asked for.

Christmas with Grandma and Grandpops

Let's pretend that its December 30th rather than January 30th! Grandma and Grandpops had Christmas with us a few weeks early. The kids were really spoiled with presents from them, Mark's brother, sister, and brother-in-law, and Mark's aunts and uncles. Whew! I think Christmas would've been really overwhelming if we had not spread it out like we did. It gave me time to find room for new toys before the next overload came!

Emma really loved snuggling with Grandpops.




















Maryn's new favorite outfit from Grandma. I practically had to bribe her to get her to let me wash it.














Look at that expression! So cheesy.













Parker got a really cool dinosaur toy. He's been very into dinosaurs lately. More Christmas later...