Happy Anniversary

Happy NINE year anniversary, my hubs….

 

June 26, 2004

 

2005

 

2006

 

2007

 

2008

 

2009

 

2010

 

2011

 

2012

 

2013

 

Today I am counting my blessings.  God has shined His light on our family and has given us so much to be thankful for.  I am blessed to have you, and I fall more in love with you every day.

 

Happy Anniversary, my hubs.

 

Father’s Day

We had a great time celebrating Steve on Father’s Day last weekend.  The kids decided to take him to a special breakfast at the Flying Biscuit (yes, we cheated on the Waffle House but I don’t think we will be doing it again)!

The kids gave him his gifts when we got home- we updated his D.A.D. frame which we started last year:










They also made him a special card and a photo book filled with daddy quotes and daddy/son/daughter pictures.  He loved it and the kids were so excited.




We headed over to the country club for an afternoon full of swimming, sun, and a beer dive for the dads!  They threw a bunch of coke cans in the pool and the dads dove in and picked up as many as possible...these were traded in for cold Bud Lights.  Steve and Andrew Lorimer combined their winnings:




And of course we want to say a special thank you to our wonderful dads – your love and support means everything to us.  Happy Father’s Day!

Catelin at One Year

Every month I say the same thing and every month I really mean it … I cannot believe how fast this year has gone by.  I remember Steve saying “It’s a GIRL!” like it was yesterday…

And that little girl?  Well, she is the most precious little princess in the world.  The boys embraced her as part of our family instantly; it was as though she had been part of our lives forever. 



Our big girl has grown and grown and grown; here are her official one year stats…
Weight: just shy of 26 pounds  (25 lbs, 14 oz) – (97%)
Height: 32.25”  -(>>99%) 

 The girl can eat.  I find it hilarious that she won’t touch a fruit (even if it is green) but loves vegetables.  In fact, her favorite food is green beans.  She loves waffles, pancakes, raisin toast, grilled cheese, chicken fingers, etc.  She is mostly on table foods but occasionally I will give her a jar of baby food if she doesn’t rebel against the spoon.  Her ten teeth (including two molars) have made it much easier for her to eat all these new foods!



I cheated and switched her to whole milk a month ago because I just couldn’t stand the formula any more.  She had absolutely no problem with it and actually seems to prefer the milk.  I am going to try to wean her down to two bottles a day but right now she still gets three.  



She has always been a good sleeper (thanks to moms on call) and continues to sleep over 12 hours at night with 2 naps during the day (about 1.5-2 hours each). 

She really isn’t close to walking at this point.  She absolutely LOVES to boot-scoot (and apparently people love to watch it; any time someone sees her do it they stop, laugh and tell me how impressive it is!).  She will crawl just a little bit until she sits herself back up - she knows she can get there MUCH faster through the scoot than the crawl. 

Her favorite toys are her new laugh and learn kitchen, fisher price walker, and basically any toy(s) her brothers are playing with.



Catelin loves MJ and Ty – she is always looking around for them and gets upset if she can’t find them.  They are really very good about including her in play time…but they also love to tease her…

Catelin loves to dance and gets so excited when we turn music on for her.  She claps and shakes her little head and tush; it is hilarious.  She likes to play peek-a-boo and imitate the actions of others.  Her words include “mama”, “dada” and a whole bunch of other babbles – I’m sure she knows exactly what she is saying but I am still trying to figure it out.

 
We had her first birthday “party” at our house- it was really just a cookout with our families (we missed you  Ann, Jeff and baby Camden and Andrew, Leah and new baby Jaxson!) but it was just perfect. 








She loved everyone singing “Happy Birthday” to her but she didn’t really like the cake very much – she must not have inherited mommy’s sweet tooth (or maybe she just hasn’t developed it yet!).



Ms. Lisa tried her best to get a family picture but you know how that usually goes….




Happy one year my precious baby girl!

Amelia Island

The kids and I went with Steve to the GBWA convention at the Ritz Carlton in Amelia Island last week (Ms. Lisa also came along, which was a huge help!). The beach there is very pretty but has TONS of seashells (which makes it very hard to walk on).  We took the boys to the beach in the mornings while Catelin was napping – they really enjoyed it.
(Unfortunately I forgot my camera every time we went down there!)


The kids seemed to have much more fun in the pool than the ocean so we spent the majority of our time there.








The only family picture I got the whole time was (of course) in the pool!




The Ritz was surprisingly kid-friendly and had organized treasure hunts, shark tooth hunts, and other activities.  The last day MJ was so exhausted he took a nap in the lounge chair...




We spent Catelin’s actual birthday down there and took her to a cute little sports bar/restaurant in the hotel for dinner.  It was actually great because the people there did not care at all if she boot-scooted around in between bites of her meal – she was in heaven!







It was a wonderful little vacation- the kids were worn out the rest of the week!

It’s Time for Summer

MJ and Ty finished school a couple of weeks ago.  They both had such a great year…MJ is going over to the “big school” next year for Pre-K so this was a graduation for him of sorts – it was bittersweet to walk him to class on his last day.  He just loved the preschool (this was his third year there), but I know he is ready to move on. 

MJ’s class:


Ty’s class:


On the last day of school, they had a “Splash Day” and a petting zoo – Catelin even got to join in on all of the fun…

As you can imagine, now that school is out we are trying to pack in as many activities for the kids as possible!  MJ has quite a few day camps this summer – Ty will join him in a couple of them.  Here is what we’ve been up to…

Of course, the zoo:






My mom and Ms. Lisa took the kids to Stone Mountain where my dare-devil 2.5 year old insisted on doing the zip line by himself:








Trips to the park:






The Splash Pad:




On Memorial Day weekend, we cooked out with some friends at Steve’s parent’s pool.  It was chaos with all the little ones there, but everyone had a great time.  Since Steve had to work that Monday (as you can imagine that is a very busy day in the beer industry), I took the kiddos to the country club for a swim.  I have never seen it that crowded – and of course I was there by myself.  Thankfully a few of our friends showed up which made it much easier than I anticipated! 






The boys are currently doing there ISR refresher course, which is 2 weeks long.  Ty was NOT happy about it the first few days (he jumped out of the pool and the instructor had to chase him down one day!).  Thankfully he has settled in this week. 

We are enjoying summer thus far!