Birthday Pie?

There are some birthdays that just seem to go unnoticed. Not because they're dreaded, but because they are obscure years, like 32, and they fall on a random weekday, like Tuesday. I'm not complaining because I was doing exactly what I wanted to; spending time with my family, eating delectable and dangerous sweets, and opening some very thoughtful cards and gifts. My mom was even able to make the trip down from Wisconsin to spend the week with us. After getting tons of QT in with John Thomas, I bet she felt like it was her birthday too! Watching my mom love every second with our babe just warmed my heart. He sure loves being showered with affection from his Gramma!

As all kids do, John Thomas has gone through many phases. Had I realized the abundance of goodnight kisses would soon give way to one or two kisses a week, I might have relished them even more (if that's possible). So we are not going to let his new phase of loving to crawl into our laps and read a book slip by without savoring every page! John Thomas must sense our weakness, because he's using the same strategy to delay bath time and bedtime. I think he convinced his daddy to read "Noisy Peekaboo" at least five times before we had to throw in the towel (so to speak) and start bath time.

You may notice an absence of glasses in the picture. Well, get used to it because Jason decided to give me the gift of perfect vision for my birthday. When I woke up Thursday, I needed glasses and after LASIK, I have 20/20 vision! Not going to lie, it was the scariest 15 minutes of my life. I'm still having to wear goggles to bed at night (very hot), and can't wear make-up for a few more days, but it was totally worth it!

Thanks to everyone who sent me cards, messages, texts, calls on my birthday...I love you all and I felt really special. This is my last week before I go back to work, so I'm going to be very busy soaking up every second of time with my honey bear that I can get!

Two Much Fun

This week, I had the opportunity to babysit for the first time in 15 years. It was so much fun having two sweet, yet mobile, babes all over the house. One would be headed to the kitchen, while the other wanted to go to the bedroom, and I just wanted to make sure that everyone had fun and didn't get hurt. After three hours of non-stop baby madness, I was blissfully exhausted. They jumped on the bed (pictured above), rolled on the couch, played in the dirt and tossed toys all over the living room. It gave me a much needed reality check of how much energy it's going to take whenever the next Kirkpatrick comes along. I also didn't appreciate how different it was to change a girl's diaper. I'm sure if we have a little girl one day, I'll have to really improve my girl diapering skills.

My friend, Cara, also came in for our annual summer luncheon this week. She brought her vivacious boys, Jackson (above) and Grayson (below). It was fun to be around some older boys and get a sense of what our house is going to be like in a few years. Jackson was busy climbing our tree, blowing bubbles and trying to make John Thomas laugh. While Grayson found good luck as he happened upon a four-leaf clover in our front yard. I'm so glad they could all make the trip and hopefully we'll see them again really soon.

I couldn't resist one more picture of the from Friday. Charlotte is not going to be the type of girl that is going to let anybody push her around, but she didn't mind John Thomas taking her for a spin in his shiny wagon. In fact, Charlotte will turn one on Tuesday so we all got together for her party last night at Norris Dam State Park. I think there were as many adults there as there were kids, and they loved it. Although, I'm going to blame the humidity for my hair in this picture. I know it's weird that it only affected my hair, but I promise it did not look like a wig when I left my house. Angelina (on the right) is going on a mission trip to Haiti this week, so if you're a prayerful person, please keep her in your prayers. And since it's becoming customary for me to send birthday wishes on the blog, Happy 1st Birthday Charlotte!

More Than Toddling

I have to confess that our babysitter, Kara, took more pictures of John Thomas this week than we did. With two doctors appointments and a day at the lake, he got to spend lots of quality time with his favorite and only babysitter. Don't let the photo above fool you, he loves having her around and she does a fantastic job. She even babysat Charlotte and John Thomas together on Wednesday so that the ladies/moms could spend a day at the lake.

Chester was in doggy heaven at snack time with these two cuties. They have both learned the sheer delight of dropping food to an ever-eager yellow dog. Although it seemed like a relatively quiet week, we had some major accomplishments around the Kirkpatrick house. One, our toddling/crawling baby boy decided to let go of Momma's finger and embark on the world on his own. He still crawls some, but walks all over whenever he wants. Already my favorite thing in the whole world is when John Thomas walks towards me with his arms open wide and a big smile on his face just wanting to be snuggled. I'm not sure it gets any better than that. The second point of interest is that I found out the Bible study I wrote is going to be published! I'm really nervous and very excited about the whole prospect. It's going to be several months before the finished product will be out, with editing, cover design, marketing..., but I can't wait!

This must be a new theme here at the Kirkpatrick's corner, John Thomas and Lo doing something really cute together. Since I know all the grandparents read the blog, I need to send out a few birthday wishes to Grandpa Danny and Papa. I hope you had or will have a great birthday and we love you.

Catch-Up

Sorry for keeping all of our faithful followers in the dark over the past two weeks. We've been having loads of fun jet-setting across the country. Before we left, I had to snap this shot. John Thomas has really starting taking advantage of the rest and relaxation summer promises to bring. In fact, he's even sleeping past seven on most days.

In the past two weeks we've gotten to spend tons of time with the McAffry girls. We've gotten in lots of walks, a trip to the Powell water park and even an excursion to the zoo. Charlotte and John Thomas are both learning and growing so fast. We are really trying to work on sharing these days. Charlotte graciously shares her mom's lap and John Thomas willingly shares his goldfish crackers. Isn't this one of the sweetest pictures ever?

After our week of fun around town, we readied for our cross-country flight to Denver. John Thomas did awesome on the flight. People even complemented us about how well he behaved. I was just relieved that we didn't get banned from the airline and arrived in one piece.

We spent five days with the Vernon family in Denver, Colorado. Stella, Liz and Zach were the perfect hosts! They showed us lots of beautiful sites, grilled out yummy food and opened their home to our family. Thank you so much for an awesome weekend!

Thank goodness Liz's car has three rows of seats, because we were able to ride together all weekend long. Most of the time this was a great thing, but on our way home from hiking we had two incredibly tired irritable babies (mostly ours) who didn't want to take a nap. He actually went the whole day without a nap. I hope that doesn't happen again anytime in the near future.

We went to Boulder one day for browsing and dinner. Boulder is a very cool city. Neat shops, yummy restaurants and interesting street performers. This guy is actually wearing mirrors. Please notice the Windex and paper towels. I wonder how many times he's cut himself just putting his work clothes on. We ate at the Rio while we were there and it was fantastic Mexican cuisine.As you can tell from the picture, John Thomas loved it all - especially the black beans.This was the sunset we came home to after our evening in Boulder. It's like they live in a postcard everyday. Although a picture never does it justice, God's artistry was breathtaking.

We spent one day in the mountains. We were at nearly 10,000 feet above sea level. On our drive we saw elk and mule deer. There was even snow on the ground all around the hiking trail. What a beautiful place.

We capped off our stay with the Vernons with their annual fourth of July block party. There were tons of families, all the burgers and dogs you could eat and one of the best fireworks displays I've ever seen. Unfortunately John Thomas couldn't stay awake for the show, considering the two hour time difference. Maybe next year. We literally went out with a bang and couldn't have had a better visit.

When we got home, we had all sorts of garden goodies waiting on us. We have learned that John Thomas is a fan of fresh garden veggies. He eats a cucumber everyday and this was our first tomato. I was letting him hold it and the next thing I knew, he was stuffing it in his cheeks.

We ended our two week hiatus with a trip to the zoo with my girlfriends and their babes. All the kids did great. John Thomas loved the whole trip except for the up close encounter with the gorilla and the merry-go-round. Since "dog" is one of his favorite words, he called every animal at the zoo a "dog" no matter the shape or size. I can't wait to see what adventures we have waiting for us over the rest of the summer!

Unplugged, But Not By Choice

This week we had not one, not two, but three different days of violently stormy weather. All three days we lost power for several hours at a time, and for a few days we were actually without cable or internet access. There were over twenty trees and several power lines strewn about the neighborhood by the end of the week. Thankfully we just lost one vinyl shutter. Even though the weather was scary, our garden and yard are very happy. In fact this week we picked our first cucumbers and another full-sized squash!

We had to get creative around the house to keep ourselves (meaning our little curious 14 month old babe) occupied. John Thomas discovered he could take all the old t-shirts out of this drawer and he was just the right size. I also organized our attic and garage and plan on making a trip to Goodwill in the next day or so. I love getting rid of clutter. In spite of the volatile weather, Friday John Thomas and I headed up to Lake Norris to spend some time with Nana Gay at her houseboat. As you can gather from the picture, we all had a really nice time. Next week we are flying to Colorado to spend time with Zach, Liz and Stella. I'm anxious about the flight but excited about the visit. To my faithful readers (Mom and Molly), the blog might be late --so don't get worried.

A Hallmark Weekend

We had lots to celebrate this weekend! It was a crazy busy week, between VBS and Jason's first week back after vacation, we were all cylinders go all week long. It was nice to have a relaxing weekend of grilling out and spending some much needed down time. We even spent some time watching John Thomas toddle about the house (only a few steps at a time --here or there!). We also gathered our first harvest of squash!

There was only one itsy bitsy tiny problem. Literally.

 I hope that both our dads have had great days too. Happy Father's Day Dad and Danny! As much as I love a day set aside for hard working dads, I think it's even more exciting that on this day seven years ago, Jason and I got married. I found some old pics in the Kirkpatrick archives to help commemorate the occasion.

Almost Paradise

When I started packing for our beach vacation on Thursday, John Thomas was made sure that he didn't get left behind. Unfortunately we had to leave one Kirkpatrick at home, but Chester was in great hands at the Reed's. Thank you for being such great doggy sitters! The trip down was eerily smooth. We took one lengthy pit stop at a church playground, and still made it to Charleston in about six and a half hours.

Of course we had to forgo the unpacking and hit the beach. John Thomas loved it! He loved the sand, sea shells, ocean and especially the pelicans and sea gulls. Not a bird, kite or parasailor went unnoticed! The hardest part of the whole trip was getting our little sun beam to sit still for what I now call "sun scream." It's like Chester and baths, he hates getting one but loves being clean. John Thomas hates getting slathered down in sun scream but loves getting to play on the beach and in the pool.

Of course I made the customary purchase of beach paraphernalia (pails, shovels, rakes...) and in regular JT fashion, he preferred Mother Nature's toys. Thankfully both sets of grand parents were able to join us this week. I'm not sure who enjoyed it more, the grandparents or the babe! 

The grand parents were such a help, including making sure that our little beach bunny never missed a snack. What could be better than coming in from an afternoon at the pool to be hand fed a juicy ripe pear?

Although unplanned, one night Papa and John Thomas were dressed exactly alike. Aren't they both so handsome?

This is the only picture of all three of us together where no one is in a bathing suit. In the best interest of the public (and all three blog readers) I have decided to spare you the image of those pictures. I will say, we had an amazing week! Thanks grandparents for being so much fun and so helpful. If I'm being totally honest, the ride home left something to be desired. He slept for the first leg, but was awake and generally miserable for the second half of the trip.

All in all, I'd say the second annual Charleston Kirkpatrick family vacation was a raving success!