Uncle Dustin

Is one cool guy! 

Mother's Day

Will brought this gift home from school for me for Mother's Day.  I love this little pic!  He can be so precious.  Love this kid.

 Tried to get a few pics of the kiddos on Mother's Day.  Got one decent one.

 But honestly this pic sums up motherhood sometimes.  It is tough!  It is amazing and wonderful and I wouldn't trade it for the world.  But let's be honest, it isn't always picture perfect! Mother's Day ended up being a little rough that afternoon, but Kevin made a point to make me feel special and is really good at getting Will to do the same. I am so thankful to be a mommy to these 2!

Around the house...

Cheese!!  I'm cute even with my bumps and bruises everywhere!

 Pretty sure this one is already a daddy's girl...

 Would someone please get this kid a haircut??  Oh yeah, that's my job.

Bath time fun!

So admittedly I was way better about taking pics of Will with my real camera when he was a baby.  The poor 2nd child.  We actually got the camera out the other night because she was being really cute and having a blast in the bath.  Thought I would add these.  You can finally see her 2 teeth!

No denying it...

Think they are siblings??  Never thought much of them looking alike, but lately have been seeing a lot of resemblance between them!  A bath pic at about the same age.

Celebrating Ally!

We recently celebrated Allyson's birthday and Mother's Day with her.  We were a little late on the birthday and a tad early on Mother's Day.  We took her to dinner and we had some yummy cake balls for dessert.  Will helped pick them out and loved them.  There were good!  We are so thankful to have such a wonderful woman in our lives!  She is one amazing Ally to our kids.  We hope you know how special you are to us, Ally!  Here's to many more happy years!!!

Tball Rollercoaster

I have thought about whether I should blog about how Will's first Tball game really went or whether I should just let it be.  But I believe in "keeping it real" so here's how it really went down.  Rollercoaster.  Yep - that's a good description.  You have to understand that Will loves baseball.  He loves it.  He plays with Kevin in our living room all the time.  He likes watching it on tv and Kevin actually pitches the wiffle ball to him and he hits it really well.  It is no secret that Will has a temper.  He is also competitive and he is also sensitive.  I have always slightly dreaded team sports.  I feared the tears and meltdowns.  I wasn't planning on signing him up, but one of his friends was putting a team together and I hated for him not to play with the kids from his class.  So, I signed him up.  He was so excited and the first practice went really well.  The first game - not so much.

The game was at 12:30 - in hindsight this was probably not a great time for 3 year olds to play.  Also, all of our family came to watch him.  We are so blessed so many people cared enough to come.  The kid is loved. But that probably also lead to some anxiety.  The team pic below is right before the game.  He is in the middle with the fingers in his mouth.  This is the first sign of trouble.  This means he is way out of his comfort zone and anxious.  We were the home team so we were in the field first.  Every kid gets to bat.  It is super laid back.  I mean - they are 3.  Parents can go in the field with the kids.  Honestly, it gets boring.  Will played right field the first inning and I was out there with him.  I got bored, too.  Not many 3 year olds hit it out our way.  Then it was our turn to bat.  Will was supposed to bat last.  Another problem.  More time to get anxious.  Long story short - something set him off and we had one heck of a meltdown.  It was something so silly, so trivial that sent him over the edge.  It wasn't just a little fit.  There were several kids that had those.  This was a running/screaming fit where nothing would calm him down.  I tried tough love, I tried coddling.  Nothing was working.  He missed his turn to bat.  He then was about to calm down and said he wanted to bat - but it was too late.  And then the screaming began again.  So after about 10 min of this, we quickly realized it was time to leave.  

The honest truth is I was mortified.  Completely embarrassed.  After thinking about it some, I realize I wasn't a great parent in that situation.  Not that his behavior was acceptable, because it most definitely wasn't but I could have tried to be more understanding and handled it better.  I surely didn't help it.  I was so spent after the game.  So was Kevin.  We hurried out and left our confused family there and went home.  We put him to bed immediately and Kevin and I tried to decompress.  Things had been good for so long.  We hadn't had an "episode" in months and months.  And then it all blew up.  I cried, a lot.  And we both just wanted to crawl in bed with him and tell him it was going to be ok.  We love that kid so much.  He is such an amazing kid.  It breaks my heart when he can't handle his emotions and they escalate in such a big way.  The bummer is that he had a 2nd episode the next day - on Mother's Day.  Ugh.  I don't know what happened.  

These pics are from the 2nd game.  It was luckily only a few days later on Tues.  He did great.  He had a blast.  It was exactly what we expected from the beginning.  Hallelujah.  There is hope.  We don't have to quit!  (Yes, that thought immediately crossed my mind - we're not ready for this!).  We have had a 3rd game and he did great again.  I guess the first game was a fluke.  We're hoping, anyway.  Their team is named The Great Bambinos.  So fun!  The stinker sure is a cute little tball player! Pray this passes and it was just one really bad weekend!

8 month pics

Wanted to post the pics we had taken awhile back.  They turned out ok.  Got a few cute ones of Kendall.  Her older brother was not cooperating that day.  We got one.  Yes one.  And it wasn’t great.  :)  Oh well. The pink and white dress was Kendall’s Easter dress!

Rainbow Dog

So Will came home from school with a drawing he did of our family. I think we have a budding artist, no? Maybe not. Anyway, you can see 4 people to the left which makes sense. Then I pointed to the right and asked him what that large thing was. It is our dog, Mommy! But Will, we don't have a dog. He says no, but we will buy one! A rainbow dog, he exclaims! A what? Yes, a rainbow dog, Mommy! Where do you get one of these rainbow dogs, Will? At the pet store. Oh, of course. I say, have you ever seen a rainbow dog? He says (with a crinkled nose and very serious) no, I never seen it. Ha! I got quite a kick out of it!

Shopped out!

Kendall went to the store with me yesterday. We had just taken Will to school and I knew we would be pushing into her morning nap. She seemed ok so I probably took my time a little more than I should have. She started getting a little fussy so I tried to hurry. Then she had her feet up pushed against the basket and she seemed pretty relaxed. Then the head started dropping. And then she was out! Will doesn't sleep in random places so this was new for me! She was too pretty not to take pics of. Good thing I had her strapped in!!

First T-ball practice!

So it happened. We officially started team sports! I am not sure I am ready, but here it is! He is playing with a bunch of kids from his class so that makes it really fun. And it gives me a reason to hang out with the moms, which is a bonus for me. Will did great at practice. It was pretty evident that his daddy had been practicing with him a lot. He knew what to do! Daddy was proud. First game is Sat. We'll see how that goes! Oh and the last pic is him and his cute friend Marley being silly after practice. Love them!

Beach pic photo dump

I thought I had more pics. I guess I took more than I realized on the iPad. Here are some more. Yes, I had Kendall completely covered. I was scared she would burn and didn't want the sand to irritate her skin. She wasn't sure at first about the sand but quickly decided she was ok with it. I wish I had a pic of her crawling down the beach. It was so funny. She just took off and crawled pretty far. Funny sight! After today's cold weather, I Amos confused. Take me back to the sunny beach!