My brother is going to be famous

Tomorrow (Friday), my brother Kirk is going to be on the Today show! How's that for famous? They are doing a piece on the California coast and called him to take them sailing. He was happy to oblige since taking people sailing is his job. Cool gig if you can get it, right? If you are interested in sailing the San Francisco Bay, he's your guy.
It should be on between 7 and 9 a.m. so watch it if you can.

Score!

Do you know what this is?


Yep, it is a tall stack of blue jeans.

9 Pairs of blue jeans to be exact.

Why would I need 9 pairs of jeans, you ask?

1) Because last year Jackson went through all 3 pairs of jeans I bought him and wore through the knees. I am ok with that. Wearing out the knees means that he is playing a lot and playing is good.

2)Because you can't find boys jeans at consignment.

3)Because Jackson is thin and when you can find a pir of pant that fit, you buy several pairs.

But 9 pairs seems like a lot for one boy.

Well they aren't for one boy.

They are for 2 boys.

4 pairs for Jackson (because last year 3 was not enough).

4 pairs for Miller (he will be 3 one day, though it pains my uterus to think it)!

1 pair as a back up.

But why buy so many right now, when it is the middle of stinkin' hot July?

Because when you this kind of deal, you have to get while the gettin' is good.

See that?


It says $3.24

Yes, that is 75% off.

And did I mention that they fit?

Ahhhh. I only wish that they has other sizes other than 3T.

I would have bought them all.

Don't worry, if you live here in MD, there are still lots left at the Target at Rio.

But go, and go now, because now I know that this blog has at least 11 readers and they may go and grab them all.

No wait, all the readers are in Greenville.

Oh well, still go!

Winner, Winner, Chicken Dinner!

Thanks for commenting on the blog!
We picked the winner the official way!
I wrote all the names down.


I put them in a little bucket.


Jackson picked out the winner.

It's Kim T.


I'm so happy to have had my first giveaway. It couldn't go to a better person. Kim LOVES everything monogrammed and she has a baby that spits up! Sounds like she needs a dozen bibs!
Seriously Kim, let me know what you want and I'll send it to you this week!
Thanks to everyone who joined in on the fun. I hope that you enjoy reading as much as I love blogging!

100 Posts

This number 100 is making me feel generous! How about in honor of my 100th post we have a giveaway? If you read this post and make a comment, I will pick a random name and give away any item of your choice from my ETSY shop. Go ahead and take a look.

It's ok if you don't have a baby or child, they make terrific gifts, and someone is always having a baby!
Oh, and for those of you who read, but don't comment because you don't know how(MOM), go ahead and try it, it's pretty easy and you can post anonymously, but don't forget to write your name in your comment. How's THAT for a run on sentence?
Good luck!

It Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time

You may want to skip this post it will be long and it will ramble and there will be only a few pictures and they won't be too cute.
So, I have this friend named Lauren. We met over two years ago and hit it off right away. She has an adorable son, Aiden, who is 3 months younger than Jackson (and about a foot taller with beautiful eyes).
The first time I met her she got a phone call from her husband, who was working and living in Saudi Arabia at the time, telling her that their next assignment was going to be in Dubai. Yes, that is in the middle east. And Lauren was excited about it, because that is the kind of girl she is. Which is why we are friends. You can't NOT like Lauren. Sweet, fun, positive, that's how she is.
Lauren is my hero because she was a single mom for a very long time while her husband worked very far away. Well now she is back for the summer and she is staying with her parents, then flying back to Dubai with a two and half year old and a young baby. But that's not for a while yet, so bear with me.
Are you still reading?
We always had so much fun together because neither of us had to be at home for a husband in the evenings, so we could go off and play and shop and eat lunch or dinner at 4 in the afternoon. Jackson and her son were great playmates.
Eventually the sad day came when the movers showed up and packed up all their stuff and moved it across the globe. Since then Miller was born. When he was still a little butterbean we saw them during one visit. Then in April she had another beautiful child, this one a girl, named Mia.
Anyway, today we scheduled a little play date at her parents house. It was nice and lovely there at her parents house.


We had settled in, the children were playing and we were chatting, when I asked Lauren how big her Aiden's foot is. She told me and then said he is wearing size 5T clothes! Um, he is two and a half people! So I said, you should go buy all the summer clothes that are on sale in the stores now. She agreed and said she hoped to go that afternoon. To which I said, well let's go now! She said, sure. Lauren is a so fun! So she said can we all fit in the minivan? I said sure! Because I'm like that, I always assume I can make it work. We will just shift some stuff around.
So in our minds (obviously feeble because any one with two brain cells can see the obvious problems with this plan) we thought we would all just hop in the minivan and cruise over to the mall, real quick like. Get a bite of lunch, shop for some good deals and then let the kids snooze a little afterwards.
So it takes me a bit of time to take the bags of pool toys and stroller and kites assorted plastic crap out of the back, put up the 3rd row seat, remove the center of the second row seat so there is an aisle of sorts, and attempt to install her children's 2 car seats. Why not leave them in her parent's car where they were installed, perfectly well at the time? Well let's see, because that would be too easy and would make sense and wouldn't be any fun! So I get the first one in and it is loose. So Lauren gets in there to do it, and she has the same results. On to car seat #2. We spend about seven and a half minutes trying to install the infant car seat before either of us decided that maybe we should get the base. You, know the part that holds thae car seat down.
During this time it does occur to us that we might not have our thinking caps on securely, but you know, we are both really positive, so we just keep on with this stellar plan!
Eventually we get them all loaded up and strapped in and we head to the mall. One place that Lauren and I used to frequent was California Pizza Kitchen. They are yummy, and have a pretty good kids menu. So we get a great parking place, unpack all 46 kids, strollers, sippy cups, purses, diaper bags and bottles and continue our adventure. Amazingly at 12:30 California Pizza Kitchen has a wait for a table. We decided to zip on over to Nordstrom's cafe. Well for whatever reason, they are packed too, but we secure a table, order our food and let the rodeo begin. After approximately 81 seconds Lauren says, "I think we may need to go straight home after lunch."
Why would she say that? Would it be because her son hit his head on the table? Would it be because when she got ice from the waitress for his head, he insisted on holding it on her head instead of his? Would it be because we had two two year olds approaching meltdowns with no food in sight? Or would it be because Jackson was demonstrating his skills as a professional booth jumper? I don't know, but I think she kind of lost her positive energy for a minute there.
We each eat about 4 bites of our lunch. Her son eats more than Jackson has eaten in a month and Jackson eats exactly one potato chip. Then we head for the exit. She is carrying her 42 pound baby, pushing a stroller with a real baby and sees that her big baby leaked through his pull up and her shirt is wet. NICE! So we head to the bathroom, which is in the kids shoe department, that conveniently has a big salt water tank in it. So Jackson, Miller and baby Mia hang out there for a few minutes while Lauren changes Aiden's pull up.
During our tour of the children's shoe department, I see some shoes that I had really wanted to get for Jackson were on sale. We have to try them on. Lauren gets Aiden's feet measured and he has grown a whole size and a half since she got here 3 weeks ago(I am not kidding), so she buys him a couple of pairs too. But not before Jackson falls and gets hurt and Aiden attempts to make a break for the door while Lauren is paying.
After we got those boys their shoes we ran and I do mean RAN out of there to get in the car.
After we loaded all 4 children back into the car, and packed up strollers, diaper bags purses, shoes and sippy cups we high tailed it back to her parents house where we dropped them off and bid our goodbyes.
Next time we see each other we might do it a little differently. It seemed like a good idea at the time, taking out 4 children under the age of 3 right before lunch, and shortly before nap time. Now I am know better. Next time we will start at 10!
Here is Jackson supervising the installation of Aiden into his car seat--from the trunk!
This is Lauren. See how positive she is! This is after our jaunt to the mall!

This is Aiden. See how happy he is after our fun time at the mall?

The Best Family Vacation Ever!

Since this was our first family vacation, it was of course, the best. But seriously we had a major good time. Despite the fact that it is a lot of work to get two squirmy little boys all slathered with suncreen and suited up twice a day to go to the beach, it was so worth it! They literally loved every minute of it.
The beach we went to, Sandbridge, is very quiet and family orineted, so it was perfect for us. We hope to return next year.
Miller is quite the beach bum who eats anything, including sand! He has the diaper rash (beach bum)to prove it. I know my jokes are lame, but hey, that's me!





Jackson was in hog heaven, he could dig and splash until his heart was content.





They even played together.





One evening we did a quick photo shoot on the beach. I am so pleased with how the pictures turned out. They may even be Christmas Card worthy. We will see what the coming months bring in terms of photos, but in my humble opinion, these might be hard to top. I have to say, having good equipment makes all the difference.





Here is a picture of Jackson's eye the day after his run in with the dining room table. It did get a little blue, but never turned into a full on black eye and it has healed perfectly. It helps that the cut was right on the crease of the eyelid. If you are going to slice your eyelid open, that is the best place to do it!

Unfortunately that didn't give us the urgent care pass that we were hoping for. We ended up going to another urgent care place at the beach with Jackson when he had a really bad cough. We were concerned, but then when he declined a cupcake at lunch we KNEW he was sick. Pretty painless and we were back on the beach the next day. Oh, and he is fine...a little antibiotics and he is back in fine form!

We're Back!

We had a wonderful time!
There was lots of smiles, sunshine, splashing and swimming. Too bad there wasn't more snoring and sleeping! But snoring is just what I plan on doing right now, so enjoy a couple of quick shots before I do a real blog about this trip!

It Wouldn't Be a Vacation

It just wouldn't be a vacation without a trip to an Urgent Care Clinic! We are ready to roll out. Dog is boarded, bags are packed, coolers ready and then Jackson was running through the dining room and whacked his eye on the edge of the table. So since no vacation is complete without a trip to Urgent Care we went ahead and checked that one off the list!
We are fortunate that they opened a new facility near us! Hooray for that. They were fast, competent and did I mention fast! No stitches, just cleaned it out and said that since it is in the crease of his eyelid (OUCH!) they didn't need to do anything at all.
Oh and by the way, he was fine about 3 minutes after it happened. Me, it would ruin my month. Him, it ruined his 10 minutes! Love that boy!
See you when we come back!

Beach Bound

It is time for a much needed vaction. We'll be back soon with lots to share!
Here are a couple of pics from last year. He looks so little and cuddly!