Saturday, December 2, 2017

Happy Fall Y'all!

We had such a wonderful fall. Full of firsts! Our first fall in Jacksonville, the boys are able to experience and enjoy events (which is better than pushing them in the stroller everywhere we go), and because Abram is in kindergarten, we had more firsts to enjoy.

The fall started with the Dual Language Program and First Nine Weeks Honors Assembly. Abram goes to a school that speaks Spanish in the morning and English in the afternoon. It's amazing and he is learning so much. For his program, his class sang three songs in Spanish. And, Abe is doing excellent in school. We are so very proud of him. We loved hearing his name called so many times, not just for academics, but for his behavior.



Jack and Luke absolutely loved buying pumpkins for the season. They loved picking out ones that were there size and every day we went outside they would say "hi" to their pumpkins! We also finally started painting with them. I was super nervous, but they did great and they love to paint!! So fun to watch their exciting faces as the paint went on the paper. 



This year instead of making all three have a theme costume, we decided Abram was old enough to pick his own. He of course went with Lego Batman and the boys were trains. They love "choo-choos" these days. They weren't thrilled to wear their costumes but as soon as Abram told them they couldn't get candy unless they had their costume on, they quickly cooperated!


We found a super fun pumpkin patch and corn maze to take the boys to one weekend. They loved it! There was so much to do! Swings, a corn pit, tons of activities to do with Papa and of course they loved picking out their special pumpkin. When Abe saw the white ones he said, "I've just got to go home with a white pumpkin." Too funny!




I love Jack's hands in his lap!

Abe with his white pumpkin. 

My favorite picture from the fall!

Abram also had a Thanksgiving feast at his school where the boys and I joined him for lunch. He was so happy to have us there! I felt like he was such a big kid.



His turkey picture he draw at the table.

And finally, our Thanksgiving! Our grandma was here to celebrate with us. Chris' had an emergency at work so he wasn't able to be home a lot but we managed to have our feast when he came home that night.  Because of the emergency, we realized how very much we have to be thankful for.

Our spread

I had fun with our pumpkin centerpiece this year!



Sunday, November 5, 2017

Abram's Sixth Birthday!

This October we celebrated Abram's sixth birthday! I can't believe he is six and in kindergarten. Two things about our family.  
1. We do birthday's big. That is YOUR day. We don't do Christmas big, but birthdays, yes! In fact, we have a birthday week. 
2. We do parties every other year. This doesn't mean we don't celebrate every year, it just means we don't have a big party.

Some of our traditions during the week are: a surprise every day, you get to pick our meals for the entire day, your room is filled with balloons when you wake up (Abe still wonders where they come from every year.  So cute!), and of course the house is decorated all week long. :)



The first day of birthday week. Popsicles for everyone at our local popsicle shop, The Hypoo. So good!

Abram's most favorite breakfast: green eggs and ham, raspberries, and juice. He's in heaven!


On our way to school. He wanted to wear his birthday pin and shirt!! 

Abram's birthday dinner this year consisted of hot dogs, macaroni and cheese and watermelon. He has made friends with two brothers from our church and he nicely asked if they could come over and play and eat dinner with us. Of course, yes! It was so easy and fun and Abe was thrilled! Thanking the Lord Abram made sweet friends in time to celebrate his birthday with.


I  love his smile while looking at the cake!

Since this was our off year, our birthday celebration entailed surprising him with a weekend trip to Legoland.  We picked him up from school with the car loaded and headed on our way. He was so surprised. Chris and I have had this trip planned since May, it has been so very hard to keep the surprise!

We got there at night, but the boys still had fun exploring.

The bungalows we stayed in. So cute! Everything was Lego themed. They thought of everything.

Chris and I decided this was our most favorite place to eat with our family, ever! No only was the entire place Legos, but EVERY table had kids which meant it was so loud. We fit right in!

Saturday morning we started our day at Legoland! Abram couldn't wait and Jack and Luke were pretty excited, too!

The first Legos we saw and Abe was thrilled. They are characters from the Lego Movie!

Abram's most favorite part of Legoland was trading mini figures. He could trade with all the workers and every couple of hours this booth opened and he could trade his mini figures one at a time.

This was my favorite part... the HUGE figures made entirely out of legos. They were everywhere. I told Chris I want to know the number of Legos in the park-- I know its crazy!

Love this picture! Of course when Abram saw it he said, "You know thats not a happy smile, it actually hurt when I was laying in the lego pit. Thats why I'm making that face." 

Drivers License! 

All legos...

This one, too...

And him!

This pirate was walking around while we were eating dinner. Abe loved him. The boys, not so much!

Another favorite part of the park was these toddler play places. They had them across from every roller coaster ride which meant they could play while we waited and not just sit in their stroller. Genius! 

Jack and Luke equally had a good time. There was plenty for them to do! Boats, fire trucks, cars, tractors, trains!






Jack was the only one who wanted to ride the carousel. He was so excited!!

Okay, so I saved our favorite pictures for last. We bought a pass so we could have a digital copy of all the pictures that were taken on the rides and we are so glad we did. Just look at Abe's faces! He looks petrified but the best part is after each ride he asked to go again!





Happy Birthday to our sweet boy! You can stop growing up at any time! We are so very proud of you and we think you are a pretty amazing kiddo! We couldn't be more blessed than to be your parents. 






Tuesday, September 19, 2017

Hurricane Irma



So, after being in Florida for a whole month, we had our first hurricane and boy was it a big one! When Chris came home from work about two weeks before and said, "there's a big hurricane coming, we need to get prepared," I knew it was a big deal. We spent those two weeks making evacuation plans (for just me and the boys since Chris is the meteorologist at the Navy base), loading up on non-perishable food and plenty of water, clearing everything out of our back yard, filling up our bath tub, moving Chris' car to a near by parking garage, and even buying a generator.  We were ready, or as ready as we could be.

Chris and I decided it would be best if the boys and I didn't leave. We knew the traffic would be terrible and Chris thought it would be more dangerous for us to be on the road. So glad we made that decision.  The bad weather started on Sunday, the hurricane came Sunday night and Monday morning.  We got outside every chance we could when there was a break in the weather (hence the first picture) because I knew we would be stuck inside soon.  We lost electricity on Sunday night and it came back on until Tuesday morning.  So glad we had a generator because we didn't lose any of our food.  And, we have a gas stove which was wonderful! 


Playing in the puddles on Sunday when there was a break in the rain!

Getting out and enjoying ice cream at one of the few places still open on Sunday.... it was a ghost town!

Thankfully the only damage we suffered was a broken window. A branch flew into it in the middle of the night.  There was glass everywhere! It broke in our dining room (where we eat every meal) and Chris and I immediately knew what a huge miracle it was that it broke at night when no one was in there. The only thing we had inside was a cardboard box and a sunshade for the car.  We used a whole roll of duck tape and nailed the sunshade to the window. Thankfully, it stopped the rain from coming in and the wind from doing any more damage. It was a mess, but we are extremely grateful thats all we had to clean up.


The boys did great! I thought they would go crazy, but they enjoyed playing with the flashlights, painting, doing play dough and of course eating all of our hurricane snacks!


Helping Papa get the generator set up. 

Our make shift light... Abram loved reading books with the boys at the table with our lantern. :)

Our town, Riverside, is along the huge St. John's River. Even though we didn't suffer much damage, we can't say the same for our town. Some families that live along the river lost everything. There were huge trees down everywhere and on of our beautiful parks completely flooded. It is still very sad to drive around our little area and see the devastation.

A picture of Riverside, where the river flooded homes and businesses. 

Huge tress are down everywhere! 
These are pictures of Memorial Park which is right along the river. The whole area was under water and severely damaged.



Before the storm...

After...
The waves crashing during the hurricane. So sad. 

Even though the hurricane was a disaster on so many levels, we can definitely see how God protected our family, our house and even our city.  We are praying this is the last hurricane of the season, and hopefully the last one we will see while we are in Florida.