Back to blogging!

Hello family and friends! I am so happy to be writing in this space again. Our little family has had a great spring, summer and now the beginning of fall! We wrapped up our spring with a furry addition to our family, Winnie! Winnie is a black standard schnauzer who is quickly becoming Owen’s new best friend. We picked her up in southern Virginia the weekend of Mother’s Day. It was quite the drive, but it was worth it. Winnie was born in November 2015, so when we picked her up she was about six months old. After breaking some bad habits, and some puppy chewing, Winnie has quickly become a good  family member. She stands a bit taller than Brook did and will be between 30-35lbs when she is fully mature. She has a mild temperament, loves other dogs and people…And flip flops, socks, crayons, bouncy balls… Best of all she doesn’t bark much. In fact, she barks so infrequently that when she does bark, she startles us! I think we had her home for about two weeks before we heard her bark for the first time! We are happy to have a dog back in the house after Brook passed. There’s nothing like a good doggy snuggle.

Winnie loves the beach too!

Back in May, a couple of weeks after we brought Winnie home, Owen graduated from his preschool class.  He spent the last two years making friends, learning classroom behavior, academics, handwriting, and crafts! He loved his preschool and his teachers. We can't say enough positive things about his experience there. We are so thankful.

Owen receiving his diploma

After school let out, the boys and I spent the summer running around, having playdates with their buddies, visiting the aquarium and children's museum, and last but not least, spending time at the beach!

Trying on hats at the aquarium

 

Horse riding with Memaw :)

We were very fortunate this year and we were able to get away to the beach more than we have in summers past. The boys love the beach: playing in the sand, running in the water, and new this year: boogie boarding. Owen is like a fish in the ocean and caught some good waves! On occasion, Greg joined Owen in the water and both of them would boogie board together. It was a lot of fun to watch. Jase loves the water too but only allows it to go up to his shin height before running back to shore. (Okay by me!) A few times we headed to the boardwalk and the boys had fun riding some rides and driving go-karts. Greg and I love the beach too and this year we enjoyed running on the beach. I have a new found love of running barefoot on the beach. It's a beautiful view with a nice breeze and you don’t have to worry about getting sand in your shoes! It's a great way to stay in shape when I am there. While we were at the beach, some of our cousins and friends came for visits and stayed with us a few days! We really had a great summer.
We are now getting back to the swing of things and settling down for the school year. Owen started kindergarten this past Monday. He is going to a local Christian school, and he is loving every minute of it! Every day they have specials…depending on the day, he's learning Spanish, computers, library, music and of course, gym  (a fast favorite already!) He goes for a full day of kindergarten and still comes home with energy! I don’t know how he does it!

Jase is really growing up and coming into his own. He speaks in full sentences now, runs, jumps, and bounces off the walls just like his brother. He and I are enjoying our one on one time now that Owen is in school all day. In a couple of weeks, Jase will start preschool at the school where Owen attended. He will only go twice a week for a few hours. He is looking forward to preschool and making new friends. I am looking forward to having 6 hours a week to myself! What will I do with ALL of that time?

Greg is busy preparing for another school year. This year is a big year for Greg as it is his tenure decision year. We will know by the end of spring if he has made tenure. Prayers for him please! He is working on research, his teaching, his service and of course, keeping his students and the dean happy. It's a tough and never ending job and he does it with a smile! We are thankful for how hard he works.  I am holding down the fort on the home front and fortunate to say that I am  still a full-time stay at home mom (Thanks be to God!) I hope to start the MOPS (mothers of preschoolers) program at church in a couple of weeks, maybe start a bible study blog, staying active with karate, and well, maybe read a book or two (yea..right!)  We don’t have much down time…we sure are busy but we are blessed!

Snow!

It’s February! I hope everyone had a wonderful January! We survived the snow storm well and things seem to be getting back to normal. Unfortunately, we lost our dear Brook on Monday, January 18th. She had been sick and not eating for about a week. She was very thin and weak, and she did not look well. We had blood work done and some imaging and her results came back with a grim prognosis. It was very hard to say good-bye, but we know that it was what was best for her. We miss her dearly and so does Owen. We are so thankful for the time we had with Brook but we feel like she was taken too soon. She was only 9 and we thought we had more time. I guess there’s never a good time to say good-bye. It’s been an interesting past few weeks as we all grieve her loss in our separate ways. We are blessed with love and support from our family and friends. We are also keeping our loss in perspective, we are very blessed to have a loving marriage and two healthy boys who are growing up to be good little disciples.
That’s enough sad stuff! The boys LOVED the snow storm, especially Owen. He had such a good time sledding, making snowballs, building snow structures and a snowman. Jase played a little in the snow but it was a little too cold for him so he didn’t last too long. The total snowfall in our area was about 31-33”. I tried to put a measuring stick in the yard but the wind was blowing so much that the measurement wasn’t accurate. It snowed from Friday at 2pm until Saturday at 9pm. Our local schools were closed the entire following week! Thankfully, Greg's classes were canceled. Baltimore city was a mess; the side streets were not plowed until the Thursday or Friday following the snow and public transportation was down for a while. It was a record snowfall for Baltimore, they got close to 30” as well.
We went duck bowling as a family last weekend and the kids enjoyed it so much! Duck bowling has smaller balls, about the size of a grapefruit, and smaller pins. It is perfect for the little ones. Jase got in on the action too! We had a special visitor with us, Greg's first cousin, which made it all the more fun!
There isn’t much on our agenda for February or March. We will be trying to survive the rest of the winter and we are looking forward to spring!

Brook 

8/19/06-1/18/16

Trying to keep the kids busy inside!

The snow was up to our mailbox...with the help of the plow truck!

Happy New Year!

We had a blessed holiday season. We spent Christmas morning here with the boys and it was magical. They were so happy and excited to see the gifts under the tree. Owen was pleased with all of his gifts, especially his Hot Wheels garage toy that Santa left for him. Jase was excited because Owen was excited, but I don’t think he really understood what was happening. He didn’t know what to make of opening presents but by the end of the day he was getting it well. Owen was so sweet, he thanked us several times for his gifts, and he even shouted into the air, “Thank you, Santa!” It seemed that he was feeling quite grateful and that made us happy. Greg was very generous and gave me a Fitbit this year!! It tracks how many steps I’ve taken, what my heart rate is, the distance I’ve traveled, the calories I've burned and how many flights of stairs I’ve climbed! My main goal is to get 10,000 steps per day plus maintain a good resting heart rate. I wear the Fitbit on my wrist, and the particular model I have is a watch too! It's a very cool fitness tool. About once a day I sync my Fitbit with my iPad and it gives me my daily stats. I'm very competitive with myself so it helps me find ways to fit in a little exercise here and there! Way to go Greg, what a perfect gift for me this year!
We left Christmas afternoon to head up to see our family and we had a nice time. We got to see both sides of our family over the weekend and it was all very relaxed, which was nice. After that weekend, we came home and had a quiet next two weeks. We celebrated NYE in style, asleep in bed :) We recently celebrated our 7 year anniversary! Thankfully our neighbor was available and she watched the boys for us so we could have a little date. We went out to a local restaurant and had brunch. It was so good. The display of food was breathtaking! There was everything from homemade coffee cakes to raw oysters! We took our time eating, enjoyed talking to each other and reflected on our 7 years together. We feel very blessed to have spent the morning together. Last year on our anniversary, I had shingles, Jase had chicken pox and Owen had pink eye! What a difference a year makes!  A few days later we celebrated my birthday, and we had a sitter for that, too! Thank you  Grandmom and Grandpop! We had a nice time that night too; we went to dinner then went to an Irish pub called O’Lordan’s for Greg’s liquid dessert. (Guinness) The pub was so cozy. It was a cold night so it was the perfect place to go since they always have a roaring fire going in their fireplace.
We are settling into 2016 pretty well. Greg has started his semester prep, Owen is back in school and Jase and I are back into our day to day routine. Greg just had some papers accepted into a couple of conferences (yay!) He asked me to go along with him, we’ll see what we can work out for the boys! It will be fun to get away together even if it is just for a few days. Before I even knew about his conferences, I had  been getting the ‘travel bug’ ...an itch to get outta dodge. And with Southwest airlines having such cheap flights… Maybe we’ll travel to see friends and family soon, who knows!

May God grant you and yours many blessings in the coming year!

Christmas preparations

We've certainly been busy, I can't believe that Christmas is just around the corner! We have had our Christmas tree up since the beginning of the month and it has been quite the task keeping the boys away from the ornaments. They are better now, but when the tree first went up Jase (and Owen!) couldn't keep their hands off of them! Thankfully, we bought all shatterproof (aka plastic) ornaments last year so at least the kids were safe when they were playing soccer with them. My friend showed me the cutest ornament idea. You stuff a large clear glass ornament (find at a craft store) with your baby's newborn hat and their ankle tag and hang it on the tree. I love how ours came out! I now have two favorite ornaments!
Greg is finishing up with his final grading, we are all looking forward to some down time with daddy after he completes his work. He's had a very busy semester. From teaching three different classes, doing his research, being an advisor to over 50 students, planning and executing a few events, going to several meetings per week to being a husband and a father, I just don’t know how he did it. Thank goodness this semester is almost behind us. He’s such a hard worker and we are proud of him.
Owen is doing very well in pre-school, and he asks just about every day when he is going to kindergarten. He's very excited to ride the school bus. He has a Christmas concert on Monday at school and then he has a little break until the new year. Jase is doing well; he's sleeping slightly better and he is using more and more words every day. I can't believe that he'll be 21 months on the 1st. I've been taking him to story time at the library every Monday morning while Owen is at school. He is really starting to come out of his shell. It's funny how different he is when Owen isn't around.
As for me, I've been doing my best with the boys. I'm really trying to put them first, instead of all of the things I want to get done around the house. I find that when I can successfully put them first we all have a better day: less frustration, less tantrums and less time outs. There's always time to do one load of laundry here and some dishes there. I'm learning that getting house work done with kids around isn't all or nothing; every little bit counts!
I've been getting to karate a lot more in the past few months and it really feels good to be back in the swing of things. We have a few events coming up in the near future so I am preparing for those and trying to get a women’s team pulled together from our club. I am hopeful that we will be competitive for the spring tournament.
We're looking forward to Christmas and the excitement that it brings. Owen is so excited for Santa to come, and Greg and I are equally excited to see the boys on Christmas morning. We are so very blessed and thankful to have each other and our boys. Merry Christmas to all of our friends and family. May God bless you and your family in 2016!

Merry Christmas!

Thanksgiving

We had a busy past few weeks! It’s hard to believe that today is December 1st! Around the 15th of November we travelled back to PA to visit my brother, sister and mom to have a pre-thanksgiving dinner. We all had a great time. Mom came up to visit from South Carolina so we were all happy to have a turkey dinner with her before she had to head back home. After she visited with my brother and sister and their families, she came down to see us in MD. The highlight of her visit with us was taking a day trip to the aquarium! We all love it there. The favorite of the day was seeing the Dolphins exercising (doing jumps and flips and of course splashing the audience) in their pool. Mom stayed for a few days then headed back home. It was nice to have her here! After she left, we started prepping for Thanksgiving! We hosted it here. We had my dad and his wife as well as my brother and his family come down. The little boys had a blast playing with each other. The weather was perfect, about 60 and sunny so they even got to play outside! Greg prepped and took care of the turkey this year, and my brother handled most of the other cooking. I sure got lucky this year :) Our dinner was delicious and we all had a great day.  After Thanksgiving, we headed up to New Jersey to celebrate a little cousin’s birthday. It was a lot of driving for one day, but it was worth it to have the boys see their cousins, aunts and uncles and grandma and grandpa. We were pretty pooped after Thanksgiving and the travel on Friday that we didn’t do much over the weekend. Now we’re looking forward to Christmas!
Here are some pictures of our recent adventures!

Fun in the leaves!

Shark bait with Memaw

Fruit Turkey courtesy of Grandma Sandy

Yum!

On a prayer

Listen, my son, and be wise,
 and set your heart on the right path.
Proverbs 23:19

Weekend fun!

We had a great weekend! Saturday, of course was Halloween and we had a fun day! We went to our neighbor's house in the afternoon for a little Halloween party that they hosted for their nephew who is in elementary school. Owen loved watching all the big boys play in their costumes. They went bobbing for apples, played a white elephant gift exchange game, and then bingo with candy corn pieces. All of the boys had tons of fun! We went home for a quick dinner and then the boys and Greg went trick or treating around the neighborhood. Owen walked along side Greg as Greg pulled Jase in the red wagon! It worked out well. We have such a great neighborhood, everyone was excited to see the boys. Owen typically doesn't do well for trick or treat. He doesn't like scary masks or anything 'spooky' so he only makes it to about 4-5 houses before he wants to come home. This year was different! He did so well! They started at about 6pm and were back around 6:45pm with lots of goodies. Our neighbors welcomed us back to their place to hand out candy together on their driveway. They had a fire in their fire-pit in the driveway and we circled it with our camping chairs. Once the boys got restless, we headed to the little church across the street from our neighborhood. They had a Harvest party from 6-9pm with food, games, candy and a bouncy house! The boys had a great time and the people there were so nice and welcoming. All in all we had a great time on Saturday. We are so thankful for our wonderful neighbors and community.
We were also thankful for daylight savings coming to an end- it gave us the much needed extra time in the morning to get the family up and to church. After church we came home and Greg worked on the house. He sanded and painted the garage and water proofed the roof on our sun room. The garage door's paint was in dire need of a face lift and the roof in the sun room has been leaking. The last big rainstorm we had was terrible- water was everywhere in the newly renovated room. It was a little heartbreaking. We are hoping that what he did this past weekend has fixed the problem..fingers crossed!
Here are some pictures of our adventures:

Before

During...

After!