Starting Back Up Again

Let's just gloss right over the fact that I haven't blogged in five months, shall we?  

These are a little out of order, but I'm starting from current events and hoping to work my way backwards to cover at least Halloween and Christmas.  :)

We have a beautiful white crane who loves to hang in our yard and the creek behind our house.  The boys love him.

Went to our across-the-street neighbors' house for dinner the other night and not only had homemade pasta, but this absolutely amazing ice cream for dessert.  You would never think it would be as good as it was!

Visited our former squadron commander, Blood, and his wife Kelly at their beach house in Mexico Beach a few weeks back.  It was such a nice visit.  They live in Minnesota now but come back here once a year and we love visiting with them when they do.

Waiting with the littles at the park on the Navy base for the big boys to get done with swim.  I can NOT get a good pic of D these days.  He's either always moving or won't look at the camera.  Ugh!

Reid's 5th birthday was a few weeks ago!  I was feeling major mom guilt for not throwing him a party, but he never asked for one and I think he had a pretty awesome day.  We started the day by meeting some friends at a park to play for a few hours (and eat donuts).

And continued the day with lots of playing outside with the big boys (and his absolutely beloved Kylo Ren saber-sword, which was the only thing he wanted for his birthday and the thing he had been bugging us about non stop for weeks!  He was THRILLED to get it, to say the least).

And ended the day with a by-request chocolate cake with mint icing with all of his best buds.  :)

This little boy is by far our most challenging, but has a truly special place in my heart.  He is so determined and creative and smart and loving.  So full of life and such a blessing to all of us.

Backing up to Valentine's Day... We celebrated with a little class party at our homeschool group, but I didn't really plan much for the boys for the actual day and then felt bad the night before so I whipped up some little things.  They weren't too overly excited about it (standard boys, I guess), but I think they at least liked it a little.  

Heart pancakes are hard to make!  Or maybe I'm just doing it wrong.  At least I tried! :)

I included this one just because of Davis's crossed eyes.  Ha!!

Post-church Instagram shot...

Davis is spellbound by Frozen (for the moment)...

Took the boys over to Seaside on President's Day morning.  A fun little morning out.

Eating their $6-a-piece snowcones.  YIKES!  We almost died at the price but then I was too embarrassed to walk away.  I guess if you're rich, though, $6 for ice and syrup isn't that bad. Notice J over on the wall by himself.  He marches to the beat of his own drummer.  :)

We said "Happy 3rd Birthday" to Davis at the beginning of February.  How has it been three years already since my baby was born???

Again with the photographic difficulties...

This is what I got when I said "Smile like this..." and attempted to show him how to smile normally.

"Davis... look at the camera!  Davis... look at me!  Davis... say cheese and look at Mommy!"

Nope.  Lol!

Money!!! Everyone was excited about that!

Lots of help opening presents...

We went out to the Mellow Mushroom for some delicious pizza, which we decided we should have done way more often this past fall and winter since it's about to be impossible to eat there for the next 5 months due to vacationers and spring breakers.

And back for cake with his bros.  :)

Davis is our little class clown.  He is so funny and loves to make people laugh.  We just totally crack up at the random dance moves and motions he does and faces he makes.  He is so smart and loving and I am so thankful God blessed our family with him!  I'll never forget the feeling I had after Reid when I thought I was done having babies but really, strongly felt like I wanted another.  I cannot imagine our family without Davis!  My special, sweet baby boy.  :)

Now I need to seriously hop to it with potty training.  UGH!  I've been dragging my feet about that but I know it's time.  I need to revisit some old blog posts about that because I seem to forget the previous potty training steps I took every time I need to do it!