Happy birthday Bennett bear!

It's hard to believe our sweet little Bennett bear is almost 3. We celebrated his birthday this past weekend with family and had a blast. On the agenda was a visit to Build a Bear and then lunch at Kanki for my little chef.

I knew Build a Bear would be cool but it was really even much more adorable than I could have imagined. Above you see Bennett giving his animal a "heart" and picking out it's characteristics, and below is one of the first stations where the stuffys get fluffy.

Bennett picked out this cute pup, a dalmatian, and outfitted him for space in a super cool Buzz Lighthearted costume. Evan opted for the less traditional "Tootheless" the dragon and if I thought for a second we missed the build a bear boat with him, I was wrong. Both boys really enjoyed picking out their special animals, naming them, bathing them, giving them birth certificates and taking them home in their special boxes. Two thumbs up build a bear, and many thanks to Gigi and Poppy for treating!

 

After a quick stop into the Disney and Lego stores, we settled in for a show at Kanki for lunch. We were so happy to have Aunt Catherine and Uncle Kerrick join us there, and both boys really enjoyed the Teppankyi grill. It was entertaining and delicious!

At home we sang happy birthday over these dreamy cupcakes, and opened the rest of his gifts.

Grandma sent this cool blue set of new wheels, and at the rate he's going he'll be riding fast beside brother sooner than you can say "watch out for that gutter!"

Three years has flown by, and I've enjoyed every day with these special boys-even the ones where I feel like I've gone to the proverbial gutter myself! Happy birthday sweet B, I'm so thankful to see you blow out your candles for a third year in a row. You are a gift!

Lovies and the like

Otherwise titled "things I hope never to forget about my kiddos in these their sweet and precious childhood days."

Is there anything more adorable than a child with his/her special lovie? Hardly. For Evan, he has always shared a special connection with his green blanket. In fact we often called him Linus to see him drag it behind him as a toddling two something. I kick myself almost daily for not buying two of them. It's well loved. Seams loosed. Color faded. Torn edges. Absolutely irreplaceable.

Remember this?

 

And now...

More recently this big boy has taken on a more nurturing side and come very attached to this little pup whom he named "Beckett"

Beckett hails from the land of IKEA, and Evan is crazy about this dog. In fact he says likes him much better than our own real dog Piper and well, I can't say I blame him. ;-)

Bennett was a paci lover from the get go, and so for the past 3 years I'd say his special attachment item has been his collection of pacifiers. Now that's he's almost three and we're successfully phasing them out(knock on wood), I'll say that his special lovies(which tend to change from time to time) are his blue blanket and purple care bear. As an aside, he loves his blue striped blankey but has never really been a die hard blanket boy like brother. In fact we actually lost his special baby blanket at the state fair last year(we broke our own rule of never taking it out of the house-parent fail!). Thankfully, he never really noticed. Even after we replaced it with a similar but obviously different
one from Belk on the way home, he was never really phased. I will say that's he's grown to love his own blanket now-mostly I think because he wants to be just like big brother!

Bennett has always loved stuffed animals. Exhibit A...

His current favorite is share bear, the purple care bear. Every time I hear his tiny feet pit pattering down the hall after his nap, you better believe he's got his blanket in one hand and care bear in the other.

I can hardly believe how fast the time flies. It's crazy for me to think that Bennett will be turning three in a matter of weeks, and not long after I'll have a full blown Kindergarten on my hands. So in an effort to preserve these precious moments, I thought to myself I need to blog these lovies! No doubt I'll be perusing this very blog years down the road and smile at the memory of baby blankets and purple care bears.

Yes, these are special days.

Looking back at Christmas, and forward to the new year

Are you there blog? It's me, your writer!

Ok so I'm fully aware that I have fallen off of this whole blog wheel. But, Lord willing we have a lot of excited things slated for 2015, and I hope to jump back on the blog train to share them all. As our seasons change, I expect the taste of this blog will grow with us. Namely, one of the most exciting things I'm looking forward to in 2015 is starting Kindergarten with Evan-at home! The sail is set, adventures in HOMESCHOOLING await. If only capital letters could contain my excitement...can I get an exclamation point?! There you have it, one not so small change that will inevitably take over this blog should I be faithful to chronicle our journey-and I plan to. :-)

But before we jump into the new year, I just couldn't skip Christmas!

Without further adieu, I present the parade of Christmas 2014...

We celebrated this Christmas over several different family gatherings, and so it went on and on and on! Man, January has been a let down... :-) First we enjoyed time with Chris' family in Raleigh and then with us here in Wilson. It was a special treat to share some extended time with Grandma and Aunt Paige. We spent Christmas Eve in Raleigh with them opening presents, eating at Panera and outrunning power outages before a special church service.

On Christmas day it was just the four of us. It was the perfect cozy day, starting with cinnamon rolls and a Christmas story and ending with  a special happy birthday Jesus dinner and cake, followed by a nighttime pajama ride to check out Christmas lights.

 

My parents spent the week of Christmas in Florida this year, so we had our Christmas on New Years. As always we had a great time and are still enjoying our presents. I got a much needed new coat, which was absolutely perfect because, to top off our holiday celebrations, Chris' sweet aunt and uncle invited us up to Boone the following weekend for a wonderful mountain getaway.

Our Christmas on New Years in Goldsberry with Gigi and Poppy...

 

Yes, this is me hugging my new set of lamps-it's amazing how much you appreciate home decor as you get older! We hope to totally makeover our master bedroom this year, and Christmas brought us two big steps closer with a fabric headboard from Chris' mom and these beautiful lamps from Gigi.

Boone bound...

And while this is random, I couldn't help but sprinkle it in-Evan's preschool Christmas program was just too adorable not to post!

A Confetti of Summer

Let's start this game of catch up in sunny Florida...

At the end of June I went with a few lovely women from our church to TGC's(The Gospel Coalition) National Women's Conference. It was a nice change of scenery to exercise and dust off that mental muscle of mine, and so encouraging to be in a crowd of such diverse and like minded ladies. And, I can't say enough about how much I enjoyed hearing Keith and Kristin Getty in concert! The road trip was a breeze-thanks to our fearless driver, and lack of toddling companions no doubt. Whew, it is nice not to have to worry about buckling carseats for a change.

 

 

I love these ladies, so thankful to walk alongside and be encouraged by them!

Now, moving on to the fourth of July....

For the second year in a row the fireworks were rained out, but we were able to have a nice family day and sport our red, white and blues in true patriotic show. At this stage of life with a 4 and 2 year old, I'm okay with passing on the late night fireworks. But, give us a few more years and we'll be there with lawn chairs!

 

That weekend we were able to grab hold of the good weather and take a long anticipated day trip to the beach. Since we had aquarium tickets burning in our pockets thanks to Groupon, we had been trying to go but the weather foiled our plans Saturday after Saturday. So, when we saw a clear forecast we decided to pack it up and head out. It was as good a day as you could ask for at the beach. Slightly overcast, breezy, warm, waves...you get the picture.

 

 Of course, introduce two little ones into the picture and the beach trip of your daydreaming is well, a thing of day dreams. The boys actually did great, but it's just plain hard to do the beach with toddlers in tow. So much effort, so much sand....in fact two weeks has passed and we still carry the crumbs of the Atlantic in the backseats of our car. Again, this is just one of those things to file under "give it a few years." :-)

Courtesy of instagram, here's a few other things we've been up to over the past few weeks...

Building Hiccup the dragon at our local Lowes Saturday morning build and grow. That afternoon Chris and Evan enjoyed a boys afternoon out to the movies to see "How to train your dragon 2."

Exploring the secret garden-a little known Wilson treasure!

  

One from the aquarium...

 

Matching brother shirts, who can resist?

 Learning about, crafting with and mostly eating juicy watermelons at Deans Farm.

 Annual Cow Appreciateion Day at our Chic Fil A-free food all around!

Evan enjoyed his second year at Vacation Bible School...one down, one to go!

The boys have been hard at work growing their fins this summer...

This last one is from this morning at our Wednesday farmers market. We try to hit up storytime at the library before hand on these days. Busy mornings = best naps ever. Win win.

While the summer has been good to us so far(I won't mention our unfortunate string of summer sicknesses), I confess I'm starting to feel the itch of order that Fall magically brings. Plus, I'm done with mosquitoes and sauna like weather by 10am. But oh, how I'll savor these last lazy mornings of August. Who knows, maybe I'll take some time to blog more frequently. ;-)