Preschool

Holt started preschool last week. He has one of the teachers Pierce had at his age who I love and lots of fun friends in his class. He is very much into his book bag and asked me for a folder since Pierce brings his notebook home from school every day. Pierce school does colors for behavior as preschool does so Holt is excited about this too this year as I think it makes him feel like a big boy.

Cute story, when Pierce was little Jason told him to call his 'privates' his manhood (not sure why?) so now Holt has learned the concept of manhood. The other day they were all bathing together and Holt said, "Look, Camden is missing a piece of her manhood."

16 months going on 5 years old

I can climb out of my crib, pack and play, etc. Mommy bought me a tent. She thought these were a crazy idea but not after she saw me literally head dive out of the crib.

I like to sit at the stools with my brothers at the kitchen and scream if mommy puts me in my booster seat. I will not eat at my booster seat any more, but if mommy or daddy let me out I will eat out of a big chair.

I like to play with mommys iphone and phone and scream at top of my lungs if she takes it away.

I like to try to play the WII, the leapster, Pierce's camera, Pierces computer and the real computer.

I will not let mommy put a bow in my hair even though I finally have just enough hair to hang onto a small bow. Mommy did get my hair in a pony tail and this doesn't bother me quite as much as the bows.

I do not, I will , not I can not ride in the car without screaming, I can even scream for 2 hours straight, yes at the top of my lungs.

I stopped sucking my fingers after I took a spill and hurt them pretty bad. The first several days I would cry for a long time when I went down and then I would wake up at 4:30 and not go back down. One day I got up at 4:30 and didn't take a nap until 3 pm that day. Every day I cry a little less and even though my fingers are all better I have not put them back in. This should be a good thing because mommy won't have to break this habit later on, but it makes mommy a little sad because those fingers have been in my mouth since I was a baby and helped sooth me when I was fussy.


I LOVE the pat the bunny book, the animal book, and the books that make sounds. I can make lots of animal sounds. Mommy thinks maybe I’m smart and that’s how I can be sooooo manipulative.

So this is a little update on our baby girl. Oh we do love her so much but she is giving us on a run for it lately. I don't know if we forgot how hard this stage is or if she is just really hard. My perception of little girls has definitely changed. I think when you have all boys you think that little girls really just sit on the floor and play quietly all day. Not Camden, she climbs more than her brothers ever did and she's just a bit strong willed. Her favorite places to play lately are in the toilet, yes hands or head in, and in the cat's litter box. She keeps us busy but makes us laugh a lot and brings us more joy than tears :) and steals our hearts in every way possible.






My pony tail!
When I was taking this picture on the beach, I had the thought that I definitely look like a mom who had two boys first. I put these sunglasses on up at the house, thinking she would never wear them, but she loved them, I think they probably really are for 5 year olds as big as they are.

She put Holt's pack back on the other day and walked around with it forever, she is pretending that the race car is a phone that she's talking on.

The crib tent, I feel a little bit like I am putting an animal in a cage but it keeps her safe and allows us to get some sleep so its working.

We had a really fun last couple weeks of our summer. We got to spend ten days at the beach and have Mom Mom, Aunt Patricia, Uncle Bill, and Bill join us for a few nights. It was the first time Mom Mom has been able to come in several years and we loved having her. Have I said how amazing she is?! She is 85 years old and was on the beach with us, out on the boat a couple times, took Camden on walks, and stayed up with us till at least 11 most nights. We caught about 40 crabs while they were with us which was fun too. They boys love the crabbing grounds, the baby crabs we don’t keep get tortured by them but they have a blast. I wish I had pictures to share from the trip…but my camera had a casualty while were there, and it really wasn’t my fault, I know some of you were sure I dropped it after my phone record, so I just had to defend this one. So the Cannon will be out of commission for a bit.

When we got back it was Pierce’s last week before school started so he got to pick our agenda for the week. We went to the pool one day, Chuck-e-Cheese on Tuesday, and to Michaels to pick out crafts and Chick-fil-a on Wednesday. I learned a couple things from our adventures this week…skeeball is as much fun as an adult as it was when I was a child and if I would of known Michaels had crafts for thirty and forty cents at the beginning of the summer that would entertain them for 2 hours I would of made that trip in June. We had a really fun week together, although the anxiety and sadness got a little worse every day for mommy.

Thursday was his first day of school and it went GREAT. We didn’t have to wake him up that morning as the whole house decided to get up at 6am. He was really excited and walked right in with no problem. I held it together until I hugged him and then slipped out quickly so he didn’t see me cry. I actually was good by the time we got home and the day went much faster than I had thought it would. By lunch time Holt was asking every ten minutes when it was time to go get Pierce and we both couldn’t wait to see him when we picked him up. He was smiling ear to ear and said he loved it. He told me all about his day and as soon as we got home he asked me when it was going to be Monday so he could go back. He loved his teacher and is thrilled to have some friends in the class he knew. We were so excited when we saw that literally everyone we knew going to Smithfield ended up in this class. So tomorrow starts his first full week so hopefully he will continue to love it and we will all adjust to the new schedule and changes.

We had planned a day/night away with just Pierce before he started school. It ended up being this Saturday and Jason and I got to take him to Carowinds for the day all by himself. This is the first time he has spent an entire day with just us since Holt was born. At first he didn’t know what to do not having Holt and having us all to himself, but I think he enjoyed the time with us and being spoiled for the day. We rode tons of rides and roller coasters and Jason and I both realized we are getting old and can’t handle what we could when we were young. He got to pick where we went to dinner so we ended up at Hawthorne’s for pizza. Even though we only had one we were all pretty exhausted after our big day ,but it was really special to have the one on one time with Pierce, thanks mom and for watching Camden and Holt and playing nurse all day!





This was his favorite ride at Carowinds, the gliders.

1st Day of School

Durham/Raleigh

Our first date and one of our favorite place to get pizza in Raleigh, it hasn't changed a bit.

All the boys were intrigued with Pierce's new Star Wars book that Mom Mom and Pop Pop gave him, this book has not left his sight since he got it.

Jason and I took off around lunch time and headed to Raleigh for the night away to celebrate our 9th anniversary. We haven’t been back to Raleigh in 6+ years and we had an incredible time. We met my freshman year in college so it was really fun to walk down memory lane. We drove by every place we both lived, down fraternity court, walked through campus, went to the school store, had lunch where we had our very first date, and ran Lake Johnson (we use to go out to lunch and run here every Friday in college our last couple years in Raleigh). Everything had changed so much on campus, but it still felt like yesterday that we were there. It reminded us how much we loved State and what a great experience we both had in college. We stayed at a great hotel at North Hills, got to walk around the shops, and had an amazing dinner out at 511, one of our favorite special occasion date places in college.
Sunday we got to have lunch and some play time with Corie and Daniel and Aidan and Brody before we headed back to Charlotte.
Ann and Dan thank you so much for giving us the night away and taking such good care of the kids!!

Durham and Raleigh

We went to Durham a couple a weekends ago and took the boys to The Museum of Life and Science (www.ncmls.org )with Pop Pop on Saturday morning. This place is only about ten minutes from Jason's parents house and is AMAZING! We had no idea how great this place was and all that they had there. The boys favorite part was the dinosaur trail and digging for fossils. The dinosaurs are life size and you get to take home the fossils you find. We also saw bears, lemurs, and wolves. They steered radio controlled sail boats. They went on a train ride with Pop Pop and checked out the butterflies and insects. This place is definitely worth a trip if you are ever in the area or up for a road trip. They have more exhibits outside and a ton inside we didn't even make it to this time.

End of Summer

I had to put a tennis racket in her hand with this outfit on.

She definately has brown eyes and is busy, busy, busy!!

We started bathing all three together this past month. We haven't starting noticing body differences yet, or at least discussing them so we are taking advantage of one bath time while we can.

Where has the summer gone? Crazy that its already August and even crazier that my baby will be starting kindergarten two weeks from tomorrow. We have had a great summer. I feel torn right now as our summer winds down. I love the lack of schedule, getting to do fun outings, pool days, and staying in our pjs till almost lunch time some days. However, I'm tired of the heat, the sunscreen, the mosquitoes, and sometimes (ok a lot of times) 12 hours a day with all of us home together can be pretty exhausting. So I do look forward to a sense of schedule again, some one on one time with each of them, starting bible study and seeing adults on a daily basis at school. I am pretty, well extremely sad about Pierce starting school. I can cry if I try to talk about it and can't even let myself go fully there. I'm sad that he will be gone 5 days a week, sad that he will be there 7 hours a day, scared of him losing his innocence, sad that Holt is going to miss him nearly as bad as I will, oh and sad that I will have to be up shortly after 6 each day. But I am trying/learning to trust, trying to let him go, and know that he is so ready and it will be good for him. So pray for me as the day approaches, I hoping that the anticipation is worse than the reality. All that to say here is some recent pictures from our summer and a couple more funny things Pierce has said lately.

We were leaving the pool one day with the Pays and all three of her boys were upset in the car as they were pulling off. Pierce said, "Mommy, its rough having three children." Yes, Pierce it can be some days but we wouldn't trade it for the world!

One day when Jason got home from work Pierce said, "Daddy the frog died but we got some really good pictures of it on mommy's phone. (that is the dead frog). You want to see?"

We have hundreds of baby toads in our yard and Holt especially loves finding the frogs. We go outside to look for frogs all day long. Sometimes as soon as he finishes breakfast we are outside looking for frogs. I think he would do it all day long if it let him. He saw a snake in the back yard last week as we were frog hunting so I haven't been quite as encouraging of this activity this week.

Cute Sayings

Here are a couple cute things the boys said this week...

We were at the pool one day and Holt said, "Mommy, watch me do a Camden ball." I didn't have the heart to tell him it was a cannon ball, its top cute to change, so I'll just let him figure it out.

Pierce was getting out of the bathtub tonight and said, "Mommy, I'm not going to go to college." Jason and I just looked at each other, thinking where did that come from. And then I remembered when he followed it with, "I'm not getting rid of my toys." My mom and I took the boys to see 'Toy Story 3' today. I tried to tell him he could give his toys away to someone who would love them, like Andy did. But he decided he is going to keep all his legos, he doesn't want to give those away.