The Storm

Monday night we had a horrible storm that came through. I was about to put the kids to bed when the lightening and thunder got pretty bad. Johnny loves storms so it was all I could do to keep him out of the sun room and away from the windows. You could hear the wind howling and thud of tree limbs hitting the roof of the house. We have a lot of trees in our yard so even a little storm causes plenty of debris. We also had two dead pine trees not far from our house that needed to be cut down. We figured if they didn't fall during the Mother's Day storm they wouldn't be falling anytime soon. Well we were wrong. Johnny had just spotted one that fell and had crushed our fence in the back. Right when I walked in the sun room to check it out the other one fell on our shed. It is a horrible looking shed that we have yet to redo, so now I guess we will have to redo it. It crushed the tin roof and knocked off pieces of wood. It was actually sort of neat to see it happen, but scary since it is about 6 feet or so from our house. We are just glad that nothing hit the house itself. We have a huge Oak tree next to the house in the front and some of its limbs knocked our gutters off, but I am sure one day it will do more damage if we don't have it removed. We are not sure if it is worth claiming on insurance, but I know Walon and Dean are tired of hearing from us! Here are some pictures I took after the storm stopped.

The Jealous Seed

Gracie has finally started getting a bit jealous of Ash. I think being home all summer has worn on her. She doesn't come first all the time. Since his cry is louder he normally gets fed and taken care of before she does, which she is NOT used to. Because she is one of few girls in her class at school and she is so small she gets more attention than the other kids. Her teachers have spoiled her rotten, and I am sure that Johnny and I didn't help any before Aiden as born. I thought I would take a few pictures of them on our bed today. It started out fine until I started talking to Aiden to get him to smile. Gracie's head kept moving more and more into his space until finally it seemed like he never existed, but he was still there.

They both start school Monday, so I am curious how that is going to go. Gracie misses her friends. Most of them go to our church, but because of Gracie's size she hasn't been moved up to the two year old room yet (even though she is potty trained and most of them are not.) Aiden has gotten used to being held all the time. I am sure his teachers won't mind the first few days since they have't seen him al summer, but I am sure it will get old quick.

Changes

I was looking back on pictures of our house when we first moved in. I guess I just forgot how much it has changed and how much we have done. I was a bit bummed yesterday because our 3 year remodeling project on the master bath just seems to be dragging out. I will be so thankful when it is finished, but I really need to be thankful for what we have already gotten done. I thought I would share some before and after pictures of our house that will be forever a work in progress. I don't how many people know this, but the house we live in was Johnny's grandparents house. Johnny's dad, grandfather, and greatgrandfather built the house the year that Johnny was born.

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AFTER:

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We have an eater!!!

I know you aren't suppose to start giving babies cereal until they are 4 months old, but my big man is HUNGRY!!! He recently started this thing where he will only sleep 2 hours at night and wants to eat. I was so tired of waking up every 2 hours, it was worse than when he was first born. So, I thought I would feed him cereal at night before he goes to bed. He LOVES it!!! When we first started feeding Gracie she just looked at the food and spit it out, he literally chews the food smacks it around. I guess we don't have a picky eater here, you can just look at him and tell he loves to eat. He is huge!!! I think Gracie was 5 months old when she was this size, lol.

I think your tractor is sexy!

Johnny finally bought him a tractor. He has been begging and begging, and things finally worked out. I can't keep him inside now, he has to go out and "play" with his new toy. Hopefully his playing will result in work done around the house. We have so much yard work to do and this tractor will make it so much easier. Gracie loves her daddy's new tractor. She now begs to wear her John Deere shirts and can't wait for daddy to get home and ride her around.

Life with Gracie as a Big Sister

Since Ash has nothing to do with a pacifer, he will just sit back and blow bubbles and make gurgly noises to entertain himself. He was just a talking to me and gurggling, until I asked him about his big sister. Let's just say he can't wait until he can pull some hair and fight back.

Happy Birthday America!!

We had a blast celebrating the fourth. The night before we took Gracie bowling. This is the first time she has actually bowled. She had a blast the first game, so we decide to play a second game. She didn't think it was as fun the second time around. Gracie loved the ball return. She would wait for everyone's ball to pop up and alert us that it was there. Bowling was also a great opportunity to teach turn taking. Boy did she keep up with everyone's turn. We had so much fun watching her bowl. She fouled so many times because her ball was moving so slow through the sensor. Johnny would just sit with her at the end of the lane and wait for the ball to finally get to the end. The monitor had ball speeds posted and most of ours were in the 20mph range, and hers were less than 1mph.

Gracie pouting because she didn't hit that many pins.

The forever wait for the ball to reach the pins.

On the fourth we went to my parents house to celebrate the fourth with them. Uncle David, Aunt Pat, and their two kids Jana and Scott were able to be there also. It was great to see everyone again! While the guys were cooking it started to storm and hail. We thought the night was going to be ruined, but after we ate it slowly stopped. Gracie, and Garrett, and Brandon were able to go swimming (even though the water was freezing) and the guys were able to let off fireworks. I really enjoy every minute we have to spend with family!

Beach Videos

I finally got the beach videos downloaded onto my regular computer. I first want to appolgize for the wind blowing in the camera speakers. It was very windy the week we were at the beach. The first video is of Gracie when she first hit the beach. If you notice she runs back to shore about the third time she gets hit by a wave. She had gum in her mouth and the ocean took it out. She was a bit concerned about what happened to her bubble gum. The second video she was trying to bury herself in the sand. You can tell she was so into moving sand that she would barely carry on a conversation with Johnny.