Four Years

four awesome years I should say. 

this weekend we celebrated four years of marriage, and 7 years of love. I am so thankful for this man and I can't wait to spend 60 more anniversary's with him. Our parents each babysat d one night over the past 2 weeks and we've been out TWICE to celebrate. we are so lucky! (thanks to grandma and grampy and meme and pawpaw for that!!) also, kinda funny that we pretty much bought each other the same card. (and I'm wearing the same mustard cardi as last year, whateves).

twenty months

durham,

today you are twenty months. crazy. over dinner tonight we talked about how fast it is going by. how much we absolutely love and adore you. we talked about our favorite things you do. (our favorites far far outweigh our not.so.favorites like throwing a tantrum in the middle of chick-fil-a, and peeing on the floor right after you said you didn't need to go.) yeah we pretty much love everything else about you.

twenty months is kinda toddler-ish. yeah. I said the t-word. You have an opinion (and aren't afraid to share it), you are on the go all day, and you are doing way more big boy things than baby things these days. You now sit in a booster seat instead of your highchair for meals, you no longer get a sippy before nap, we had to buy you a bigger pair of crocs, you totally get how timeout works and we started potty training. you are so vocal. you can say around 50 words, but my favorites are 'helicopter',  'yes mam', and 'all better' after we kiss a boo-boo. you just started saying your version of 'i love you' which sounds more like ya-yuv-you but I'll take it any way you wanna say it. daddy loves how you say 'yeah' to anything we ask you. (you wanna eat rocks for dinner? yeah. are you a sassy baby? yeah.) your favorite show is bubble guppies, and your favorite toys are trains (choo-choo's) and things that stack like blocks and cubes. your favorite foods are peas, chicken, mango, and cheese-its.

you love to help in the kitchen and ride on the lawnmower with daddy. you love cole so much! he is the first person you ask for when you wake up in the morning and the first one you look for when we get home. lucky dog. daddy taught you to put your hands up to catch a ball. it is the cutest thing ever. you get a mini-m&m if you tee-tee or poo-poo in the potty. you don't ever let us forget about it either. it has been such an amazing summer with you, my sweet boy. I just don't want it to end.

I know I say this every month. but twenty months is by far my favorite age. we love you times a million. xoxoxo momma & dada

the beach 2013

we are lucky. chris's parents own a condo in Panama City Beach and they let us stay there every summer. I blogged about last years beach trip here, when d was just 6 months old. this years trip was a BLAST! we had so much fun and made some amazing memories as a family.

we had a great car ride down to florida. we bought d a dvd player for the car and downloaded a bunch of his favorite shows on a thumb drive. I sat in the back with him to keep him entertained and we played with flashcards and stickers and ate snacks. it went surprisingly smooth on the way there and the way back. the week we went down there were some awful storms. in fact, it rained on our entire drive down and that night. but every day after that we had nothing but sunshine.

we kept d on a similar routine. they are an hour behind us so we pushed bedtime later so he wouldn't be up so early. it worked. we would get up around 8am, eat breakfast at the condo, pack our cooler and beach supplies and walk down to the sand. d loved the water, the sand, the birds, everything! he especially loved snacks. I was worried with how active he was being that he wasn't getting enough to eat/drink so anytime he asked for something I jumped at the chance to fuel him. we hung out at the beach each day till after lunch, then came back to the condo to clean up and take a nap. sometimes we went out to the pool after nap time, and a couple of times we went out. we went to the big dog track, we walked the huge pier, went shopping and went out to eat. back home for bed around 8/8:30 every night. 

one of my favorite things was when chris took us to an arcade that he went to as a kid. his parents bought the condo when he was 8 years old, so he has a ton of memories 'growing up' at the beach in the summers. it was so sweet watching him try to show d how to play skeeball. hahahaha!

after our week at the condo, we headed to visit our friends in st. pete. I wont post a ton of pictures of their sweet baby girl since I didn't ask them if I could but let me tell you... she is the sweetest little thing! d loved her and kept trying to give her hugs and show us where her 'eyes' were. the guys played golf and the girls hung out with the babies all morning. swapping mommy stories and sharing advice. it was a much needed time with great friends.