On the move

Well, we officially have a crawler now - John-Mark is on the move! He also just had his first two teeth come in. I looked back at James' baby book and they almost came in on the exact same day his did! John-Mark is also pulling up on everything and has taken a BIG interest in Charlie - which Charlie is none too happy about - now he has two boys to look out for.
James is growing and changing everyday and I know I've said it before but I am amazed everday at what he is aware of. He loves to look at photo albums with family in them. He will point out everyone - mommy, daddy, pa pa, mom-mom and more! It's a fun way to talk about daddy when he's at work all day :)
He has also recently developed the skill of puckering when he kisses. He used to just open his mouth as wide as he could and give you a big slobbery wet one but now he puckers and even makes the sound "mmm" - too sweet. He has really become quite my love bug lately. He will sit in your lap and let you read to him for quite a while or watch his sesame street videos (which he loves to "sing" along with). He is also interacting more with John-Mark which is really sweet. If JM is fussing and I'm in the middle of something I'll ask him to go talk to John-Mark and he'll go over and give him a kiss and even take him a toy sometimes - of course he also likes to take his toys away from time to time as well - aren't the best toys always to ones someone else is playing with. We're working on sharing :)
We always play this game of "I'm hungry and your feet look yummy!" and then we pretend to eat his toes. The other day we were all in the bed together and James started doing it to John-Mark - he would even make little noises like he was eating! Hysterical! We were all cracking up including John-Mark who was belly laughing!
I've blogged often about what a good eater James is and how much he LOVES to eat. One day we were driving down the road and we passed a big 18 wheeler that had pizza pictures on the side and back and as we drove by James said "yummmmm" - It took me a minute to realize what he was doing - I had to call Jeremy immediatly and have a good laugh - he keeps us in stitches!
Here's my big boy pulling up on thier little kitchen. He loves this thing! Thank goodness because James rarely plays with it - of course unless John-Mark is playing on it :)
I bought James this guitar at a consignment sale the other day and he loves it - as does John-Mark. In the above picture James is "gently" moving John-Mark's hands from the strings and in the picture below James has moved it to keep it out of his little brothers reach -
John-Mark thinking about heading behind James to play a little more guitar!

Here's my crawler!

Don't you just love a sleeping baby! He looked so sweet I had to snap a quick picture. Notice the one sock off his foot and laying next him. I guess that foot got hot! He can squirm his way out of any socks! Sunday when I picked him up from church and got him to the car I realized he no longer had either sock on! I know he probably crawled right out of them and there are two little socks left in random places in the nursery!

Spring is here!!

This past week we had absolutely beautiful weather and we were finally able to really get out and about and enjoy the sun! Early in the week I took the boys to a local park to meet up with all my pre-natal water aerobics friends and their babies. When I was pregnant with John-Mark I was able to go to water aerobics twice a week and LOVED it!! I got to meet some great ladies and we had our babies pretty close to each other so we try to get together every month or two and let the babies play. John-Mark had a great time. This is the only time he really gets to hang out with babies his own age instead of all his brothers friends. Here's the crew:
Later in the week two of James' buddies got to come over and play on the swing set and run up and down the drive way - they had the best time! On days like that I am reminded how blessed we are that Jeremy had the desire and drive to get this land and house for our family. It is going to be so fun for these boys as they get to grow and explore around here! Here the three of them are leaning out the window "talking" to the dog - how cute are they!!!
Yesterday Jeremy took James with him to the baseball field to "help" him teach a couple of pitching lessons. Here he is ready to go play with daddy-
Jeremy said he had a great time running around the field and "fetching" balls. When they got home he was COVERED in red dirt - I mean, fully, head to toe! The first of many, many, many times to come I am sure!
Lastly, here is a pic of James and John-Mark playing together (sort of). John-Mark is starting to crawl! So far he'll move his knees forward three or four times and then stop but he's getting the hang of it. I'm not looking forward to the "dirty knees" but I know he will be so happy to be able to actually get where he wants to go!!!

19 and 7 months

This past week my babies turned 19 and 7 months! Tonight after bath time Jeremy and I tried to get our "monthly" pic - here is what we were able to get:)

How hysterical are they? I can't imagine what this is going to be like in a couple more months when John-Mark can get up and go too! I love the one where you can see Jeremy's finger trying to keep James in place - looks like he's taking him really seriously:) The reason James has his mouth open in the last two is because we were telling him to kiss his brother but I couldn't get the money shot. Atleast in the last one James is kind of looking towards the camera :)

I forgot to post about the infamous stomach bug that finally found the way to our house a week and a half ago. I had heard about it from many friends and for that reason we had been laying kind of low until it "blew" over but somehow it found us anyway. It started with James throwing up. I didn't realize he was really sick because he acted fine - I thought maybe he had just gotten over heated after eating or something. Then the next night I felt it coming to get me - aahhh! The next day Jeremy got it (I later found out a babysitter we had a couple days before got it the same time I did - which she passed to her boyfriend!) The next day John-Mark had it. Then a friend of mine got it. Awful! The boys had the easiest bouts with it and outside of the icky diaper issue you would have never known they had it at all. What do families like the Duggers (18 kids and counting) do when something like this rips through their house - can you imagine!?!

Just hangin' out

I'm posting lots of fun pics from our past week. As my title states, we're really just "hangin' out" but having the best time. Nothing out of the ordinary going on in our lives right now - just enjoying where we are and watching these precious boys grow every day! John-Mark is now fully sitting up on his own and he appears to be really close to crawling. He gets up on his hands and knees and rocks back and forth and he can even "scoot" a bit. Yesterday he pushed himself up from his hands and knees to sitting on his bottom! He's starting to get tired of his toys that keep him "stationary" and you can tell he just wants to get up and go - Lord help us :)
James is talking more and more and we are becoming more aware everyday that he understands EVERYTHING that is going on around him. He's been cutting a couple new teeth and he's been a bit "fragile" we like to call it. (side note - we think John-Mark is starting to cut his first teeth as well - another thing about having them so close together I never considered - they teeth at the same time which makes for a lot of whining at times!) James can get really upset over little things when he's teething. Tonight we were eating dinner and he was being very impatient and whining and Jeremy said, "do need to go sit in the green chair?" (which I wasn't sure he really KNEW what that was, but oh, he does!) He looked at me and then started sobbing! We both started dying laughing! Poor baby - no sympathy.
He constantly goes and stands and the fridge and does the sign for "more" while saying "mo, mo" - he's finally started saying please as well - he was quite stubborn on that one!
Since the weather has been nice we have been taking long walks down our drive way to the mailbox (it's about 1000 ft long) and James has a wonderful time exploring every stick and rock along the way. He's started putting his hand up and saying "hand" when he wants to hold hands - too sweet :) He is also in a very "mommy" phase right now. He loves to say my name all the time and even cries when I leave sometimes - which makes me sad but it's also kind of sweet - I know it won't be too long when he'll run off and leave me in the dust!
Okay - enough with the stories here are some pics:
Last week we went to Huntsville for a few days and stayed with my mom. First we went to Red Robin for lunch and when we walked in and James saw all the balloons he was so excited "boons boons!" He actually cared very little about eating and just wanted to play with the balloons. Then when we got home we set up the air mattress and boy did they have fun with that! Between the balloons and the air mattress it made for a great day!

The boys got so hot bouncing on the mattress we had to strip down to our diapers :)

Pooped after a long day of play - "Calgon - take me away!""Look at me mom, I can dunk!"

Good Morning John-Mark!

Daddy and James taking a walk - look at my little man (sniff, sniff)

I decided to take John-Mark's 6 month pics myself - here are a few of my fave's:

John-Mark's dedication and a little snow :)

Sunday, March 1st John-Mark was "officially" dedicated to the Lord at our church. Of course from the moment he was conceived we have known that he is a gift from God and that he really isn't ours, but His and we just get the wonderful honor of being his mommy and daddy. While believing that is so comforting it can also be hard at times to remember that and truly live out our lives that way. Thankfully we are a part of a wonderful church that is committed to helping us as we raise our little world changers!
This picture was taken just before Pastor Chris gave Jeremy the mic - only we heard it but James gave out a big man burp! Jeremy and I both looked at him and cracked up and both of our first thought was "thank goodness it's just a burp" because the day before he had thrown up! Wouldn't that have been lovely on stage!

How handsome are these two?

When we woke up Sunday morning, much to my surprise our trees and yard were COVERED with snow! I couldn't believe it. We had atleast 3 inches on the ground! Had it not been for John-Mark's dedication we may have skipped church but we got up and got everyone ready. It was like the twilight zone at church - I've never seen so few cars in the parking lot for a 9:30 service - it made for a very quaint little church service. When we came out of church it was snowing even harder than when we got there! But then, as quickly as it came the sun came out and everything started melting away. I have no pics of the boys playing in the snow because they both passed out when we got home from church and by the time they got up it was starting to melt:( James got to enjoy it last year - hopefully this won't be their last chance to see snow for a while - but you never know what's going to happen here in the south!

The playset covered!This is part of our drive way - we have a really long drive and I wish this picture could do it justice - it was really beautiful (although a bit treacherous) with all the limbs hanging down, covered in snow!