one of those moments

have you ever had one of those moments that you wish you could just repeat over and over again? in jr high, our trip to DC was one of those moments for me. in high school? senior prom and the trip i took to europe over spring break are definitely stand out moments. college? sheesh, i'm sure there are plenty of moments that i should NEVER do over again. ha!

but as a grown up (well, an older adult who likes to pretend to be grown up)? my wedding and honeymoon were definitely that moment for me. until our children were born.

and friends? the moment we welcomed our first son into this world was a moment i will never, ever forget. i can still remember almost every detail of it perfectly... and that's going on a little over three years ago. it was a scheduled induction and couldn't have gone more smoothly. (except for that minor little incident with the epidural leaking. that? i could have done without.) those couple of days that we spent in the hospital, just the three of us, as a brand new family are still so perfect in my mind.

because everything went so smoothly with cayden's delivery, i was sure there was no way that sawyer's could go nearly as well. i was wrong. so, so wrong. with sawyer's first birthday coming up on friday, i thought back to the moment that our family of three became a family of four. and it was equally just as amazing as the day we welcomed cayden. again, another scheduled induction. the hospital stay was fabulous. and i probably had the best epidural of all time. the only thing i'd change about sawyer's stay if i could? that one nurse forcing formula on us. oh, i know all that lady wanted was for our son to be fed... but nevertheless, all was well and we came home with a second little boy.

i hope to do that day at least one more time. no worries, it won't be happening any time soon. have you guys imagined the cost of THREE in daycare? yeah, we'd have to move into a cardboard box somewhere. so we wait until cayden's in big boy school. and until then? we'll just picture another perfect moment to look forward to.

our big boy is three years, one month and four days old.
our little nugget is five days shy of his first birthday.
sigh.

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I was compensated for this post as a member of Clever Girls Collective. All the opinions expressed here are my own.

infectious giggles

there's some giggling. some yelling about bugs. jeremy getting hit in the stomach with the glider. and more giggling. the boys even ate dinner out there last night while mama had a girls night out. we're loving this swingset more and more each day. and my heart? it's so full these days watching all this going on in front of me. big sigh.

perfectly imperfect

i was finishing up this sock monkey last night, and while doing so, i looked up at jeremy and said, "ya know. i think making this monkey is good for me." he looked at me questioningly. and i followed up with, "it's adorable, but not perfect. there's no way for me to make this little fella perfect."

and that thought kind of stuck with me throughout the night and this morning... with everything i do in my day-to-day activities, i try to do it perfectly. not to please other people, but to just push myself. and it's pretty obvious that i'm not perfect – i mean, who is, other than the Lord above? not putting that kind of pressure on myself seems, well, awesome.

with that said, i'm definitely going to try to take it easier . i'm not going to get lazy or anything. (good grief, if i could possibly get any lazier there would be some big problems. mainly the size of my butt!) but for real, less pressure on myself to perform perfectly, and more focus on how things are being performed.

some changes are a-stirrin' in my heart. and i'm kind of excited about it. psshh, who am i kidding? i'm really excited about it.

at the playground

whew. that's all i can say. i mean, we read the reviews that this thing could take a good 7-10 hours to put together. but we're really good at putting things together, so surely that wouldn't apply to us. ha. haha. bahahaha. oh, it applied. and the beast that is this swingset? almost beat us down on saturday.

but it's done. we may have sunburns in the most unexpected places (um, hello. the back side of my knees?). we may have waited to finish it up completely this morning before church. but no matter. it's complete. except for a swing for sawyer. and we even tried to remedy that this afternoon, but the target we visited was out of infant/toddler swings. never fear, we'll get that swing sometime soon.

you guys? all the hard work was worth it. times a million. and we knew it would be. but we also knew that putting that thing together was going to be a little intimidating. maybe that's why it sat in the garage for close to three weeks in it's box? eh, either way, the excitement you can see in cayden's eyes when he asks to go to the playground is evident.

and can i just mention that i love that he calls it a playground? cause that's pretty awesome. and neither jeremy nor i care to correct him. you want to go to the playground? sure! let's go. and hey, we only have to go a few steps to the backyard. it's all sorts of awesome, y'all.

so if anyone is looking for us, we'll be in the backyard at the playground. it's probably pretty safe to say that as long as we're home, and the sun is up, we'll be out there. hello summer.

wordless wednesday: enjoying summer ice cream

eleven months old

we started your eleventh month off with a bang! we headed to the beach for a week and had a lovely time. you crawled all over our condo and the beach. most days you slept while we were down by the ocean, but when you were awake, you loved it all!

you have continued to pull up on everything and are seriously cruising on anything that will hold your weight. you've started standing for several seconds without support, but still seem very hesitant to take a step. again, we're ok with you not being able to full on run after brother quite yet.

speaking of your brother, you adore him. and also annoy him. but hey, isn't that what little brothers are for? you want to be doing whatever he is doing. and much to cayden's disappointment, that means that you're both "learning" to share. 

you love to squeal. really, really loudly. you also like to cry. you ::might:: be a little spoiled, so when you don't get your way immediately, you definitely let us know that you aren't happy about it. you have the most precious face when you get excited about something and make a pretty funny noise while doing it. your eyeballs open real wide, the corners of your mouth pull back and you make this "eeeeee-ing" noise while breathing in. it's mama's most favorite thing at the moment.

you love food. any food. i'm not sure that we've found anything that you've disliked yet. you've adjusted well to formula. which worked out as you slowly weaned yourself from nursing on your own. this mama's sad for that time to go, but also knows that you need to get out and explore things on your own. and i'm proud to see you do so.

at the end of this next month, we'll celebrate your first birthday. we can hardly believe that you're going to be a year old. this year has flown. and we've enjoyed each and every minute of it. happy eleven months, sweet boy.

sad baby is sad

sawyer is all sorts of sad right now. over the weekend he started running a fairly high fever (around 101). nothing really seemed to be bothering him. just tired and clingy. we kept an eye on the fever and it wouldn't come down below 100 for most of sunday. even with ibuprofen. poor kiddo.

when his nose started pouring and his diapers turned a little more um, fun?, we realized that it was most likely teething. i never remember having a problem with cayden, but for the life of me, sawyer does NOT want me looking around in his mouth. so i made him cry even more this morning while i did a little investigating.

currently, he has four teeth on top and two on the bottom. this morning? i discovered both his upper cuspids pretty much cut through (canines) AND i can see the shape of his upper one year molars pressing down on his gums. poor guy! funny thing? he still only has two teeth on the bottom. eight teeth looming on top, and two on bottom. um, that's strange, no? and when i tried to see if any little teefs were coming in down there, i couldn't find a sign of anything! i'm hoping all of them don't try to decide to come in at the same time. this making teeth stuff is hard, y'all.

you almost had it all...

... and now you'll have that song stuck in your head. but, BUT, isn't cayden probably the most talented car dancer you've ever seen? pretty sure he'll be auditioning for so you think you can dance in the fall. and please to forgive the wind noise floating around the background. a small price to pay with the top down on the jeep. but totally worth it to catch the awesome grooves of cayden, no?

thoughts of random

– i have been forever changed by the crowe family. you can read about their story here. and when you have about two hours free time, watch the memorial service that they held for noah. we wore red & Star Wars in honor of him as those were two of his favorite things. it was a beautiful service, heart-wrenching, but beautiful. it was an evening that held so many different emotions for everyone in that room that it's hard to begin to explain it to anyone. so for real, when you have a moment (or several), watch it. it'll change your life.

– i let cayden's birthday slip up on me this year, so i've decided that getting a head start on sawyer's would be a good idea. invites have been designed (and printed!). and i've ordered some other miscellaneous things for the party. he's going to be one year old in 28 days. 28 DAYS!

– we bought a new duvet for our master bedroom. we have plans to paint the room soon. and it will also mark the start of slowly repainting all the trim in our home. it's currently an off-white/cream which makes the colors on our walls look a little muddled. white to the rescue! time to "crisp" this place up and make it our own.

– we had a fabulous vacation about a month ago. what? you didn't know because you haven't seen the photos? yeah, i know. our photos live on our hard drive. which was connected to our laptop. but the laptop was getting so slow that we decided to finally upgrade to a new computer (an iMac!). and because our laptop was so old (and apparently our hard drive too), we don't have the correct cord to connect and we keep forgetting to grab a plain usb cord. we're challenged sometimes. but you'll see them soon. maybe.

– did you catch that? NEW iMAC! i've already broken it in doing some custom work for the etsy shop. i have an iMac at work and have loved it. having a new computer at home that doesn't give me the spinning wheel of death all the time is fabulous. and well, makes me a little more productive.

– we ordered the boys a swingset and are going to get it today. the reviews all say that it's a beast to put together and could take several days to do so. i'm excited and terrified all at the same time. i love assembling things... but hours to do it? yikes. in the end, i'm thrilled that cayden will have a "playground in the back yard."

– have any big weekend plans? we have three (yes, three) birthday parties to go to this weekend. popular time of the year for the itty bitties to be born, methinks. other than partying all weekend, we plan to start the swingset assembly party and do a little yard work. we'll be very glad to have some cooler weather to work with. low 80s counts as cooler, right?