Friday....

Jack and I hung out around the house all day today. It was too hot to go to the park or anything so we sat around pretty bored. Days like this drive us both crazy. I was sitting in the living room watching cartoons, which was where Jack SHOULD have been. He got really quite so I walked into the kitchen to see what he was doing and this is what I found. Lately he has been infatuated with my cookbooks(books in general, but these are easy for him to get to). I just thought this was cute and everyone would enjoy seeing it. He doesn't usualy go around in a diaper all day, but he had just figured out how to unscrew the lid to his sippy cup and had dumped juice all over him. He is definitely keeping me on my toes these days!

I hope everyone has a great Labor Day weekend! For those family and friends that are running from Gustav please be careful and keep us posted on where you are. We love you all!!

Girls Night Out

All of the girls got together last night to hang out with Ali before she headed back to San Fran. We have not been able to get everyone together at the same time all summer, so it was great all being together again like old times, before kids, and busy schedules. Lindsay and Missy were even able to come into town. The only person we lacked was Mindy and we missed her sooooo much. We are all counting down the days until the Strickland move back from Switzerland. It could not be soon enough. Despite the rain we all got dressed up and went to our favorite restaurant Thai Emerald for the best sushi and wine around! We hung out so long that they started closing the restaurant around us.
Whitney, Shea, and Leeann

Karen, Dannette, and Allison
Allison, Carey Martin, Lindsay, Barkley, and Missy

I really miss our girls nights spending quality time together. I just want to say that I love all of my girlfriends and feel so fortunate to have such wonderful friends in my life!

It's Raining It's Pouring

I'm sure most of you had rain all day yesterday like we did. We tried to make the most of it though. Our friend Allison was in from San Fran so we all went to lunch with her. It was chaotic with all of the people and kids but lots of fun. After that Jack and Brandon went home to nap(what do all men do on a rainy day:)) while I went out to get Jack some school shoes and church shoes. When I got home we tried them all on and had them model them for us. We were obviously bored out of our minds and trying to entertain a 1 year old that desperately wanted to go outside. All of the cute pictures were in the same pair of shoes.
He wasn't really sure what to think at first.
Then he got really excited! Check out the fro. This picture reminds me alot of pictures of my Dad when we were growing up. He had hair just like this. Sorry Dad, you know we love you!
He was just being silly here!
We left shortly after to get ice cream and then came back home for Mom to take a nap. Even though it rained we had a fun filled family afternoon.

Gymboree

Today my friend Lacey and I took Jack and Ian, who are 3 days apart to our first Gymboree class. They loved it. I think we are going to start classes in 2 weeks when Jack starts school.
Jack was mesmorized by the bubbles. These were the coolest bubbles. They don't pop instantly so the kids could play with them.
He was trying to eat them here.

Jack and Ian fighting over the ball. They each had one alike but only wanted the one that the other had. If you look close enough you can see that Jack is biting the ball right before he tried to bite Ian because he tried to take it away. I hope he doesn't get kicked out of school! Say prayers for me.
They weren't sure about this. They had to go down a slide to get down.
More bubble pictures
Precious Ian in teh bubbles

I hope everyone has a great weekend!

Our last summer vacation

We had our last trip to the beach for this summer last week and what an eventful week it was. We went with my Dad, Kim, and Chloe and Skylar(Kim's Grandaughters). Kim's son Ronnie was able to come for the beginning of the week and Brandon came the last half of the week. It rained the entire beginning of the week every day all day. Not just rain showers, but hurricane type storms. Needless to say we were stuck indoors with 3 kids under 5 for 3 days. In the midst of all of the rain Jack didn't want to sleep at all Monday night. He was up from 11:15-3:00. I put him in my bed a few times thinking that he would lay down and go to sleep, but no he wanted to play. At one point he was bouncing around on the bed in the dark and went to reach for me but instead put his fingers in my eye. At first I thought it was no big deal until I realized that I couldn't open my right eye without an awful pain. My Dad took me to the doctor first thing that next morning for me to find out that Jack had scratched my eye pretty bad. My first thought was PATCH! I just knew that I was going to have to wear a patch all week, but the doctor was great and was able to put a contack lense that was a bandage on my eye. I had to back each day for him to look at it and by Friday he was able to take the lense off. My trip was not ruined. The sun came out on Thursday and Friday, so we stayed on the beach all day those 2 days. Jack was not sure about it the first day but by the second he loved it.
This is Jack and Skylar at Baytowne Wharf one night dancing with the band. They had a blast and were so cute!

Jack on the beach.

Jack was really into the band!

...and really wanted to participate. This lady was great and had lots of patience because Jack was not the only kid wanting to participate. She would get down and interact with them and they loved it.

One of the rainy days inside. Jack and Skylar were hanging out in the kitchen. I have no idea why!
We took the kids to The Track one afternoon that the rain cleared up. Jack had a blast walking around while the girls had fun riding all of the rides. Jack was big enough to ride the carousel with Cookie and they were also able to ride the really slow train.
Jack loved to get in the water with his Daddy. We were very lucky to not have alot of jellyfish like last time so the kids were able to get in the water a good bit. I even ventured out for a little while.
Jack loved to sit at the edge of the ocean and let the water come over him while digging in the sand.
This was one of the first times he realized that he could stand up and walk in the sand. How cute!

Although it did rain the first half of the trip we had a great time hanging out with everyone. We, especially Jack is really upset to be home. He had a great time with Chloe and Skylar and I think he is trying to figure out why they aren't here with him.

Long Overdue...McWane Center

I know that I promised these a week and a half ago, sorry. I just got busy trying to pack for Destin and we were gone all last week. I promise to keep up better.

We got together with some friends about 2 weeks ago and took the kids to the McWane Center. For friends and family back home it is just like the Children's Museum. It has been so hot out we thought it would be nice to do something indoors. Everyone has been so busy this summer that we haven't had many opportunities to get together, so it was really nice to see everyone. The kids had a blast! Us Moms are ready for the fall so that things can slow down a little during the week and we can have some order in our lives.
This is Jack and Caroline. I'm not really sure what they were looking at but whatever it was it was really interesting!
This is Jack driving the train. He loved it. We used lots of hand sanitizer to try and keep from getting sick. We were lucky but some of our other friends were not.

Happy Birthday.......

to 2 special people in my life. The first is my Grandmother. Happy Birthday Grandma. We wish we could be with you on this special day. We love you!!

I also want to say Happy Birthday to one of my best friends Lindsay Mendes. Happy Birthday Linz!! We miss you and can't wait to see you in September. She has just started a new job this week so we also want to say Good Luck. You will be great!

I hope everyone is doing well. I will post some pictures of Jack from the McWane Center a little later.

Ashley