A Wedding Picture

First, I want to let you know that as soon as I have pictures, I will tell you all about Geoff and Jill's wedding weekend. Taking care of kids, I barely got time to snap any. But, fortunately a friend of Jill's and the photographer took tons during rehearsal and wedding and reception, so I can soon share some with you!

In the meantime, here is the only picture from the weekend of the two kids. A phone picture. Not great quality, but great subjects.

Friday Favorites: The British Royals

Due to traveling and company, I've missed a couple of Friday Favorites posts. But, today, I am going to come clean about one of my guilty pleasures: keeping up with the British Royal Family. I do not claim to know everything about the history of the royals, or even keep up with every outfit Kate wears or every place they are visiting when they visit. But, since we visited London in December 2010, I have been taken with them. Vic and I started watching The Tudors when we got back from London and I thought it was very fun. Then, we had a baby, and all planned TV watching became second priority. However, of course, as with everyone, Kate and Will are currently my favorites. I think Kate and William are just a classy, modern day couple that just happen to have fancy titles, wear crowns on occasion, and live in extraordinary homes. I mean I feel like, if given the chance, Vic and I could totally be friends with them. And our babies could play together. And we could attend BBQ's at one another's houses. And we could send each other Christmas cards. And we could even vacation together one day. Granted, our vacation site budget would be Port Aransas and theirs is probably Greece. But, I still have that random thought, when reading about some noble, or even just normal thing they are doing, via People.com, that one day we just might run into one another. You never know!!

I digress. But, truly, today I am excited because earlier this week, on July 22, William and Kate, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, gave birth to a BOY! I love that they chose to wait until the baby's arrival to learn the gender. I love that they did not tell anyone the name right away. I love that they kept the details to themselves, for now. I remember that the day after I was put on "house rest" and the day before I gave birth to Atticus in 2011, Kate and Will were married in Westminster Abbey in London. Westminster was my favorite place to visit during our London trip. And yes, I did record it on TV so that I could get up and leisurely watch the 6 or so hour coverage of the Royal Wedding on that Friday while Atticus stayed cozy inside my tummy, preparing to make his arrival the next day.

Also, I am just excited for Kate and Will (again - I am practically assuming they are my regular ole friends). What a special day Monday was as they welcomed that little boy into the world and held him for the first time. Although he is 3rd in line to the throne and has a future already setup for him in many ways, for now he is just a wee little baby who will be loved and tenderly cared for by his parents as all newborns should be cared for. I feel like Kate has joined this special club for moms and that she and I now share that overwhelming feeling of finally holding your own newborn baby, that you have cautiously carried for 9 months, in your arms. Mmmmm. It makes me happy. I should confess that I really wanted them to have a little girl first. This is mainly because I think Grace Caroline, after my own little Grace, sounds like a perfect princess name and I would have let them use it. But, boys are wonderful as well! George Alexander Louis is his name. Although I always stay a little confused about what the royals last names really are?

So, now, I can go back to my normal life and leave my fairy tale thoughts about the royal couple and royal baby. But, the Royal Family is one of my favorites to follow. I mean, what little girl grown woman doesn't love a good prince and princess story? And I will love looking for pictures of him and his parents and his future siblings and watching him grow up for years to come through our social media outlets. And, though, unless I truly run into them one day, they will never know this, but I wish them a world of happiness!

Grace: 4 months old

Grace is closer to 4 1/2 months now, but here are her stats:

• Weighs 15 lbs. 2 oz.
• Length is 24 1/2 inches long
• In 3-6 month clothes and size 2 diapers
• She can sit in her bumbo, and you can carry her on your hip now.
• As of July 5, she can roll over!! Front to back and back to front.
• As of July 11th, she can grab her toes when laying on her back.
• Though I have to protect her from Atticus when he is running around, she lays on the quilt on the ground a lot to roll and play.
• She is really starting to grab toys and focus on them. She can pull the cow down on her rocker to make it sing.
• Sleeping 10-11 hours a night with occasional nights of waking up once to be fed.
• Learning to take naps. Usually gets a little 30 minute one in the morning and if we are on a good schedule, gets a 3 hour one in the afternoon with sometimes a couple little cat naps before bedtime.
• She is still in the bassinet in our room. Yes, she has outgrown it. No, I don't want to give her up to her bed yet.
• She is still swaddled. I am working on breaking her of that.
• Still loves her paci.
• Eats every 3-4 hours when awake.
• Lots of drooling.
• Starting to play in the jumperoo.
• Except for baby tummy aches, she is a very happy and content baby! And has contagious smiles!

Little Moments: Grace

One of my favorite little moments that I want to cherish and remember forever involves Grace. She is such a happy, funny, little baby girl. But, one thing I love more than anything occurs when I'm nursing her. About the time she is finishing up, she will just look at me with those big blue eyes and start to grin. She is still latched and still eating, but the corners of that little mouth turn up and she just grins as if she is the happiest girl in the world. I LOVE these moments. She will do it over and over and then stop nursing altogether. Usually, it happens during her first feeding in the morning. It's just a sweet moment for Mama and Grace that cannot be shared with anyone else. I love her so much.

Books of the Week: Sort of

So, I haven't posted any posts about our books of the week lately, although, Atticus does have a few current favorites. However, instead I have a sort of sad post. Atticus has started tearing his books up. It hurts my heart to think about. But, a few weeks ago, instead of napping, he stayed in his room for 3 hours playing and reading books in his bed. After reminding him twice to take a nap, I realized that if he wants to play quietly, then that was ok. In fact, I was proud that he could entertain himself for awhile quietly. Well, little did I know that later that evening, I would learn that he entertained himself all right...he tore two of his beloved books to shreds. They were both flap books and he had ripped each flap completely off the page. What is worse is that he was the one that showed me the results. He came in grinning like it was a funny thing that he had done. It hurt my heart so much as I had to discipline him and make him pick up each and every piece of paper to throw in the trash. I blamed myself because he is just a 2 year old who had plenty of time on his hands and a lot of curiosity. I decided it was a one time thing; he loves his books and has not been one to just destroy them for no reason. However, about a week ago, he did it to another little flap book. We went through the same discipline process and threw the book away. Well, yesterday he tore up a book that didn't have any flaps. In fact, it was one of his current favorites: Clifford the Big Red Dog. Page by page was ripped out of the book. Ugh. My heart seriously hurt again. He just doesn't understand that these books are GONE and ruined. So, Vic and I finally took the hint and took out every book that was not a board book from his room. We will give him some time and slowly start to introduce them back.

Lesson learned. For us and Atticus. Now, onto the next child-rearing lesson-learning day!

Grace: Sheepskin pictures

As I said in the "mini vacation" post, sheepskin pictures are a little tradition. When we took them with Atticus, he was only about 2 1/2 months old and was not yet holding himself up very well yet, when on his tummy. But, Grace is older and loves being on her tummy, so we took a few to commemorate the tradition. Here are some of my favorites! (P.S. Pop was making her smile! I think she might have him wrapped around her finger.)

Mini Summer Vacation

I will call this a mini summer vacation because without Vic, it's not a big summer vacation. But, the day after the boys completed the fence, Atticus, Grace, Pop and I drove back to Sanger for a few days. Actually, we ended up staying 9 days! We stayed at Grandma and Pop's house for 6 nights and then Melbo, Pa & GG's for 2 nights. And our days were filled with fun! A few of the highlights:

• Trip to the Frank Buck Zoo in Gainesville where Atticus discovered flamingos, stuck his head through every fence to see every animal, and then cried his eyes out during the train ride with Pop (apparently he thought I should be on the train too....sometimes being with mama 24 hours a days makes his expectations specific). We even saw our former Ag extension agent to visit; she is in charge of part of the zoo.
• Attended the Denton Water Park where both Grace and Atticus floated the Lazy River and Atticus played on the Splash Pad with Molly and Pop. Our only downfall there was when sunscreen got into his eyes twice (Note to self: no longer using Coppertone for Kids spray sunscreen).
• More pool time with Adley, Stormy, and Tabatha plus seeing their wienie dogs. Atticus is getting better around animals and not being scared of them.
• Celebrated July Birthdays of Grandma, GG, and Molly with a family trip to our friend Jan's house and swimming pool. This is where Atticus learned to jump (aka fall forward into someone's arms into the pool). He was not scared at all (but I was!!)
• Went to Gattitown in Frisco for pizza and arcade games. Atticus loved the bowling and whack-a-shark games.
• We also visited GG's friend, Rita, where we got to see two other dogs and play in another kids playroom with ALL NEW TOYS. Atticus, however, is still learning to play and sometimes just dumps out bucket after bucket of toys.
• Atticus and Grace met their second cousin Caitlin when she came down to visit the Vickery's and Memaw.
• Grace took her traditional, special, sheepskin photos. These are photos that Mom and Dad took of us three kiddos when we were babies (on sheepskin in the saddle shop) and I have continued the tradition with Atticus and now Grace.

But, by far, the BIGGEST highlight of Atticus' trip were the "doats, dontey, palf, tows, horses, bubbatat (Bubba the Cat), Sthip dog (Sam the dog), gashoppas, bo doat (bo is a goats name), foot pass (free pass is a goats name), and yoki doat (Yoki is another goat's name). It took a couple hours the first evening, but after that Atticus was not happier than when he was convincing one of us to go out to look at the am-mulls. From the second he woke up in the morning, his first words were "doats, dontey, alf, tows" and he would immediately leave the bedroom and head into the living room to poke his head through the curtains and look out into the pasture to see the animals. Then, once we went out to the pens and pasture, he couldn't get enough of them. He would pet any that would let him and we'd walk the entire pasture to get to them. He played in the round bale of hay, looked for grasshoppers and checked the water. He'd say their names over and over and ask questions over and over. He couldn't get enough. When we would go to Melbo and Pa's throughout the week, we would have to go to the pasture or barn to see the horses and the new heifers. And, in the house, where Bubba the Cat usually curls up to sleep all day, Atticus would walk over to pet him. In the past, although Atticus was obsessed with needing to know where Bubbatat was, he would not touch him. It is by far, one of my favorite memories.

It was just a wonderful, relaxing week of family (sadly minus Vic), animals, country life, playing with old farm toys and trucks, playing on the Ipad, eating lots of fruit snacks (lots of any kid snacks actually), going in and out to the hot outside to look at animals, few naps, fun baths in new tubs, new movie (Despicable Me - pretty cute!), and new adventures.

And, while Grace was a great little girl and Atticus had so much fun with new things, and it truly was relaxing, I have to brag on myself a little. Until this trip, I don't think I have ever been so organized. It is amazing how much stuff you have to bring for two little ones plus backup everywhere you go. And we went somewhere every day! Diaper bag, extra clothes, swim clothes, towels, sunscreen, gas drops (you never know - and yes they are for the kids!), boppy, carseats, stroller, extra shoes, specific toys, cameras, etc. Sometimes it would take me 10-20 minutes just to check and double-check my stuff and load the car with stuff and kids. And, honestly, I had plenty of help around me to get it done. But, if I can handle this past week of organizing for day trips, surely I can handle any trip with kids, right?

The week in pictures (I took over 500 but here are just a few of them):