Zac and Jack

Zachariah had his friend Jack over to play today. We have had play dates at his house quite a few times, but because I am a slacker of a mom it is the first time in their year long friendship that I have had him over to play. Needless to say, Zachariah was VERY excited about the whole thing!

We had a great morning that was filled with playing and play-doh making and because of the rainy day, some movie watching. The movie of choice? How To Train Your Dragon. I think the boys bonded over their love for the movie. They had each seen it before, so it was cute to see/hear them telling each other about what was going to happen next. :)

I don't think they could have been any cuter.

So yeah. We had a fun little play date today! And if I am not mistaken, the boys have already planned for our next play date to take place at the zoo! :)

New Toy

For my OCD child, bubble wrap is the greatest form of entertainment in the whole entire world. Daniel gave him a piece of that pop-able goodness on Saturday and he did not so much as glance at his toys all day. He was on a mission. Every free moment he had (even while sitting on the toilet) was spent trying to pop every single bubble on that sheet.

Dear inventor of bubble wrap,

Thank you.

Sincerely,

A very happy stay at home mom.

A Name

As you probably know, I am currently pregnant with our second child. And as you probably know, we found out about a month ago that this second child is a sweet baby boy. The ONLY problem with that is that we cannot decide on a name!

I had a feeling this baby was a boy, so we had a few boy names picked out before we went to the ultra sound. But low and behold, I am just not satisfied. I LOVE the three names, but I am having doubts about it being the right name for our baby. I just don't have a peace about any of the names yet. I know that probably seems silly, but hear me out.

Daniel wanted to name our first son Nathaniel Alan. It is a name that he has loved for more than 10 years.Turns out, I don't like the name Nathaniel. Now, don't get me wrong, its a great name. But try as I might, I really could not see our baby having that name. And besides, if we name our child Nathaniel I want people to call him Nathaniel. Not Nate or Nathan, but Nathaniel. Most people don't care what your kids name is, if it can be shortened they will shorten it. Heck, they may even CHANGE the name all together! People call Zachariah "Zachary", which is a totally different name altogether. Its kinda our biggest pet peeve ever. Zac? Yes. You can call him that. In fact, sometimes he will call himself Zac. What about Z? Yes. You can call him that too. (I think my dad calls him Z more than he does Zachariah. Its a cute nickname and we use it a lot when I don't feel like typing out his whole name, so we are obviously fine with that.) Zachary? Absolutely not. That is in no way, shape or form his name.

Ok. Stepping off my soap box.

Anyway. All that to say, I was not digging the name Nathaniel for our baby. We didn't settle on a name until I was around 7 months pregnant. And when we talked about the name Zachariah I could totally see our kid having that name. I didnt have second thoughts a few weeks later, I didn't try to look through the baby books and find one that might work better for him. I was really at peace with that name for our son.

Why am I telling you all of this useless information? The answer is quite simple, really.

I need help naming my kid.

I seriously need some fresh name ideas. It is overwhelming going through a billion page baby book, in alphabetical order. I know everyone has favorite baby names, so I would LOVE, LOVE, LOVE it if you all would suggest a few names. At least three. But I would be even more thrilled with five. And even MORE thrilled with a 24 page book report from each of you.

Just kidding about that book report thing.

Two things to keep in mind:

1. We like unique names. Not weird and ridiculous names, but ones you don't hear everyday. Names like Joe, Sam, Bob and Billy are not something we are necessarily going for.

2. It does not have to be Biblical. While we love a good biblical name, it is not a must when naming our child. Just because our first born has a biblical name does not mean the rest of our kids will.

Ok, so shout out some suggestions! It can be a list of your favorite names, a list of your kids names (provided they are boys) or just a list of names you think we might like. I will keep you all posted on the naming process and let you know if we end up choosing one of your suggestions!

Oh, and because of my handy dandy blog counter I know how many people view my blog each day. I KNOW that even though I get 0-4 comments per post, there are 50-60 people view this blog on a regular basis. I am not expecting ALL of the lurkers to come out of hiding, but if I don't have a good number of comments I will be holding a grudge. :)

Oh The Joys

Miss me?

You better have. I have been absent for almost a week! I had two to three posts lined up for this week, one including some of Zachariah's three year old pictures, but I have had a few set backs. Ok, mainly one set back.

You see, Zachariah got sick. He had a pretty high fever and he was VERY clingy. So we pretty much laid around watching movies all day Tuesday. Later that afternoon I decided to try and blog while sitting on the couch with him.

THAT was a bad idea.

He ended up projectile puking all over me, the computer, the couch and himself. My computer immediately shut down (I assumed out of self defense.) and hasn't turned on since. So if I want to use a computer I have to wait till late at night when my husband is done working on his. Luckily I am able to access my email and facebook on my phone or I would be cut off from the outside world!

Anyway. All that to say, my computer is dead and I will have to wait until it is fixed/I get a new one to blog anything of substance. All of my pictures are on the barf-y computer.

Stay tuned. I will keep you posted on my computer situation and when you can expect to see cute pictures of my kid! :)

Chicken Roll Ups

I am not gonna lie. This week has been crazy-go-nuts busy around here. For the normal super mom our week may seem like a piece of cake, but for a pregnant lazy mom who usually doesn't get our of her pajamas until 10 and gets back in them at 2, this has been a crazy week. Don't get me wrong, its been a good week... but definitely a busy one!

We have started potty training (which is going remarkably well this time), started our first week of homeschooling (using this term loosely. I will talk about this more in a future post), Z has officially given up his nap (which makes for more errand running, believe it or not) and we ventured out to take part two of Z's three year old pictures. Not to mention our usual errands and library runs and play dates. I am running around so much during the day, that by the time I get to sit down this little baby inside of me starts kicking up a storm! I swear he starts running a marathon as soon as my butt hits the couch. There was a time I thought he was seriously going to jump right out of my stomach!

Anyway. Enough about babies jumping. Lets talk about food!

Since it has been about 23 million years since my last recipe post I decided now would be a good time to throw one at ya.

Back when I was super pregnant with Zachariah, our friends Matt and Jamie had us over for dinner. Jamie made chicken roll ups and they were a huge hit with me and Daniel. Turns out Daniel had these when he was growing up, but I think that was a first for me! The chicken roll ups require a total of four ingredients and it is a pretty tasty meal! Anyway, all that to say, I added this meal to our menu a couple years ago and I thought I would share it with you! :)

Here is what you will need:

Two to three chicken breasts (These are cooked. I kinda forgot to take a picture before I cooked them. My bad.)

A heaping amount of shredded cheese (About two to three cups. Depending on how much cheese you like. I am kinda a cheese-a-holic, so I tend to use a lot!)

One can of cream of chicken soup

And a can of crescent rolls.

Put the chicken in a pot and cover completely with water and boil for 30 minutes. (If they are frozen boil for an hour.) After the chicken is no longer in its raw state, shred it. There is no fancy way of shredding chicken. I wait for it to cool down a bit and then just tear into it with my hands. Its quicker that way.

Now pop open that can of crescent rolls and break one off. Put a little shredded cheese on it, then pile on some chicken.

Then add some more cheese!

Oh how I love cheese.

Starting at the wide end of the crescent roll, roll it up!

Now, keep in mind you do NOT have to stuff your roll this full. Daniel dropped several hints that I did not stuff them full enough for his liking a while back, so I over-stuff them now. I started out just wanting to be a butt and see how full I could get them, therefore showing him that I NEEDED to stuff them lightly. But that backfired, because I actually enjoyed the over-stuffed version. Ha! All that to say, you may go a little lighter on the chicken and the cheese if you would like.

Repeat with each crescent roll, and then line them up in a 9x13 baking dish.

FYI: I sprayed the dish with cooking spray first. Not sure if it is always necessary, but I ALWAYS spray things with cooking spray. Unless of course the recipe calls for buttering the dish, then I butter it. But I am very hesitant about putting things in the oven without spraying it down first. Call me crazy, but I just don't like caked on residue.

Now this is where your cream of chicken comes in. I dump the can into a measuring cup and then fill it with half a cup of water. Sometimes I use 3/4 cup of water. It all depends on my mood. Once you decide how much water to use, mix the cream of chicken and water together with a fork.

I feel like I should tell you that the recipe I got from Jamie says to heat the cream of chicken soup and the water on the stove in order to get it all mixed together. And I'm not gonna lie... if I did that it would probably mix together a bit better. But I am lazy and I didn't feel like using a pot. So I took the easy way out. It obviously turns out just fine the way I do it, but please feel free to follow the rules and heat it on the stove. I just happen to be a lazy rebel. :)

Now take the cream of chicken soup and water mixture and pour it all over the chicken roll ups. As you drizzle it over the tops it will fill in between each roll up and all down the center.

Obviously, the more water you add to the soup, the more mixture you will have. If you want more mixture in the bottom of your pan, increase the amount of water. And vise versa.

Now, plop it into your oven (that was preheated to 375 degrees) for 20-25 minutes, or until the crescent rolls are nice and golden.

Here is what they look like! As you can see, I could have left it in for another few minutes to make sure ALL the rolls got that nice golden look, but I was hungry. And my boys were hungry. So I opted to take the lazy way out and go ahead and take it out.

Don't be like me.

Serve one (or two) of these suckers with some rice, potatoes, or as we did the other night, noodles! They go with a ton of stuff!

There you have it. Chicken roll ups! Nothing fancy, but an easy/yummy meal to serve that will please even the pickiest of eaters! My three year old DEVOURS this meal, so I give it two thumbs up. :)

Here is the recipe without all of the pictures and ramblings.

Chicken Roll Ups

Ingredients:

2-3 chicken breasts

1 tube of crescent rolls

1 can cream of chicken soup

Shredded cheddar cheese

Directions:

Boil chicken breasts for half an hour (if frozen for an hour). Shred chicken

Preheat oven to 375

Roll up shredded cheddar cheese and chicken into each crescent roll and place in a 9x13 baking dish.

Mix 1/2 cup of water with cream of chicken soup and pour over the roll ups

Cook for 20-25 minutes or until golden brown.

Happy Friday!!!

Just One...

More will be coming soon(ish) to a blog near you!

The New Playroom

Zachariah's playroom was previously located in the last available bedroom in the house. We will obviously need that for a nursery in a few months, so we decided to turn our closed in carport (aka: our miscellaneous room) into a playroom! Since it used to be a carport, the room is pretty spacious. Which makes for a perfect playroom! Click here to see Zachariah's old playroom (which will become the new nursery here in a month or so).

It made for a nice playroom. It really did. But I am VERY glad that we were able to move it into a bigger space. I LOVE that everything is less cramped and there is room for lots and lots of play in this new play room!

Wanna see? Because of the largeness of the room and the lens I had on my camera, I was not able to get a full shot of the room, so I have several pictures. You will just have to piece it together in your mind. :)

Looking in from the kitchen, this is half of the room.

And this is the other half of the room. Just in case you were wondering this is my favorite corner of the room. The papasan chair is where I plop in the mornings to eat my breakfast/try to fall back asleep while Z is playing. :)

To the left of that brick step is the back door. And if you walk up that step you will be walking into our kitchen. It is GREAT to be able to keep an eye on/interact with Z while I am cooking.

This toy organizer is my new favorite thing. It doesn't hold all of his toys, but it sure holds a lot of them. Every toy has its place and Zachariah is OCD enough to want to keep it all neat and tidy. Fabulous!

And this is our school/art corner. Those containers hold everything from school workbooks to play-doh. I LOVE having everything all in one place!!

Anyway, that is the quick tour of the new playroom. I am beyond thrilled with the space. I know kids don't need a playroom, and I doubt our kids will always have one... but while we have one I am enjoying the heck out of it!

Tis The Season

...for eating pumpkin!

Love for pumpkin knows no bounds in this house, especially when it is homemade! Our three favorite homemade pumpkin treats are pumpkin pie, pumpkin bread and swirled pumpkin cream cheese bars. I was in the mood to bake yesterday and I have been DYING for some of the bars, but since I didn't have any cream cheese in the fridge (and didn't want to run to the store) I settled for making some bread.

It's a rough life, let me tell ya!

When Zachariah got up from his "quiet time" (which is another name for toddler-who-is-skipping-nap) we set out on our bread making adventure! While I have had the pleasure of my toddler helping me make several things (broccoli casserole, pancakes, scrambled eggs, baked ravioli, muffins... just to name a few) I have never braved the bread making experience with him. But because of my prep work and a VERY easy recipe (no kneading required!) he did a great job helping and I kept most of my sanity. Which is a pretty big accomplishment.

His main job is stirring. Not because that is all I trust him with, but because that is all he wants to do. These days he just does not have time to put the spoon down to dump the flour in the bowl! Oh, and right when we were getting started he asked if I could "find his chef hat so he could be a cook". And then right at the time this picture was taken he started singing a song that he composed right there on the spot about being a chef.

Talent. My kid has it.

:)

Here is one bread pan right before it went in the oven! And the reason the hat is no longer on his head is because he was done stirring. Which, in his mind, means he was no longer a chef, so he couldn't wear the hat any longer.

And yes, he does crack me up on an hourly basis.

So! While we waited for the bread to bake Zachariah decided it was time for a bath. Well, I decided and he thought it was a good idea. It worked out wonderfully, because by the time his fingers were all prune-like the bread was just about ready to come out of the oven!

And here we are. Zachariah with his two loaves of bread!

And yes. That is a pink cat tattooed on his arm. And yes, he is completely naked. Sorry, but he smelled the bread as soon as he hopped out of the tub and seriously could not wait five seconds for me to clothe his naked butt before he drooled all over it.

Be still my heart. This bread not only looked and smelled amazing, but it tasted amazing too!

I don't know for sure, but I am pretty sure that this bread will be a staple around here for a while. :)

Hot Coco For The Win!

A few days ago I told Zachariah that we would have to bring out the hot chocolate if it got any colder in the mornings. Well, yesterday morning it was in the upper 40's and he heard me telling Daniel how chilly I was, so he excitedly asked, "Mama! Can we drink hot chocolate?!" Since this weather puts me in a fabulous mood (most of the time at least) and since he was pretty much adorable, I agreed. Under ONE condition though. I made Zachariah agree to let me take pictures while he enjoyed his hot beverage! :)

Oh, did I mention that this was Zachariah's first ever cup of hot chocolate? Well, it was. I mean, he may have had some at a family members house last year, but not that I know of. So unless I find out differently we are counting this as his first!

And I think its pretty safe to say that he enjoyed it. In fact, he enjoyed it so much that after I got done take pictures he finished off what was left in MY mug as well!

I love this cute little goober. :)

My Ramblings

My goodness. It has been over a week since I have blogged. AGAIN.

This is getting ridiculous. Pregnancy has obviously infected my brain. Before I was preggo I was blogging almost once a day! Now I am down to once a week. And its not like I don't have the time. I have a two hour window when Z is napping (or not napping. Regardless he is in his room for two hours), but I completely forget about this poor little blog!

And it isn't like I am lacking content. I have a couple book reviews to do, I have some paintings of Zachariah's I want to show off, I would like to show you Z's favorite birthday gifts that he received... but I just cant remember to do any of that!

Anyway. Enough excuses. Allow me to fill you in on things.

First things first. We went to the doctor yesterday for the 20 week ultra sound and found out we are having another boy!!! We are oh-so-excited. I would love nothing more to have a house full of boys, and it looks like we are well on our way!! We haven't decided on a name yet, but we have a couple that we are heavily considering. Hopefully sometime in the next week or two we will be able to make a decision!

Second, we are in the process of painting. Not painting a nursery mind you, but painting the play room. You see, the current playroom is stationed in the last available bedroom in our house. So that will obviously become the nursery, and the playroom is being moved to the "junk room". Also known as the closed in carport. It is a good sized room and I think it will be PERFECT for a playroom! Anyway, we are smack dab in the middle of painting that. I am hoping we can finish it this weekend!

And by we, I mean my husband. I started out helping him paint, but then I woke up the next morning not able to move my neck and one of my shoulders. And when I say I couldn't move, I am not even joking. Daniel had to help me out of the bed by literally supporting my neck AND back. I couldn't so much as lift a glass to my mouth to take a drink. It was ridiculous. Anyway, I went to the chiropractor and he helped me out. I am now able to get out of the bed unassisted, which is a plus! It still hurts to do some things (you know, like yawn.) but I am on the road to recovery. But needless to say, my chiropractor has restricted me from painting for a while. Which is a bummer, but my sister and mom are stepping in for me, so that is much appreciated!

And last but not least... Zachariah is still not potty trained. Shocker, I know. If it makes you feel any better, it is completely my fault, not his. What? That doesn't make you feel better about the fact that my son is three and not using the toilet yet? Ah well. I tried. :)

I promise to think about blogging more frequently next week. Ha. Seriously. I hope to get my act together soon. I may even pick my camera up and take some pictures of my oh-so-adorable three year old here soon! :)

Hope everyone has a good Thursday and a great weekend!

A Picture

On the night of Zachariah's third birthday we threw away his paci's. It was a sad moment for him, and it took him well over 2.5 hours to fall asleep that night. But it has been over a week and he has done really great.

Well, except at nap time.

We have always had a bedtime routine that we follow. As he gets older we have tweaked it a bit, but for the most part it has stayed the same. Change into pj's, brush teeth, sit on the bed while dad reads a bible story, lay down and cuddle with mom and dad for a minute or two (which usually involves a bit of giggling), then we say our goodnight's and leave. The routine is something we all look forward to and I love that we have it. I think it helps him get in the mindset that sleep is coming. He knows what to expect when we start doing these things, and because he knows bedtime is coming he doesn't protest or argue about it.

I am realizing that we need to start doing the same thing with nap time. In the past we would change his diaper, tuck him in bed and leave. His paci would put him to sleep in no time. We never really needed a routine. But now it is very apparent that we need one. He has only napped once since we threw the paci's away. Once in nine days!

Help me Rhonda.

Anyway, to make a short story long, we have started a nap time routine in hopes of getting those coveted nap times back. Part of this nap time routine involves story time, and let me just say that I am loving it. Especially when Daniel is here. (He will generally schedule his lunch break so he can be home and eat with us, play with Z for a bit and then be able to be here to see him off to his nap. Is that not wonderful?) Because we both like to read to Z we split the reading up evenly. Z likes for Daniel to read his book(s) on the edge of the bed and he likes me to read laying on his pillow with him. :)

I don't know if this new nap time routine is going to help at all, but I sure do love reading with my two boys!

My Son, The Hitter

I don't even know where to start with this post. I am somewhat of a hormonal basket case right now, so it may not make any sense... but ah, what the heck. I am just going to jump right on in and hope you can keep up. :)

We have been attending a certain church here in town for a little over a year. Just last week we joined this church, and that is actually a big deal for us. We don't just go around joining every church we attend. We have been searching for YEARS for a church that has a proper emphasis on Scripture, and we finally found one. Not only does this church have a proper emphasis on Scripture, but the people are for-real-deal-genuine. And if Scripture emphasis and genuine people weren't enough to make me giddy about this rare find, the fact that my son loves to be there and loves to go to Sunday School just makes me happy as a lark.

So... all that being said, there are a few things you should know.

1) Zachariah loves Sunday School.

2) Zachariah is one of the youngest in the Sunday School class and he loves it.

3) The teachers are fabulous. Z loves them. I trust them with every fiber of my being. Nothing but positivity coming from this Mama!

4) Zachariah has always been really well behaved for them. Everyone tells me what a sweet boy he is. How he shares, how wonderfully he gets along with the kids, how he participates... it makes me happy to hear such good reports about my baby!

I don't know what happened, but last week my well behaved son became a "hitter". He doesn't hit out of anger, he just hits for the heck of it I guess. And he has even done it right in front of me when I would come pick him up. He and another kid will be happily playing and all of a sudden he will just hit them. I think its mainly a playful hit, but its a hit nonetheless.

Since he is not hitting out of anger I can only assume he is hitting out of excitement. I have seen the hit and it's not forceful. It is almost like he just cant figure out a better way to communicate at that moment so he just gives them a little hit on the arm. And the fact that he does it in front of me makes me think that it is so innocent that he doesn't see anything wrong with it!

Tonight after church I was told that he hit so many times that he was put in time out. And guess what? After time out he hit again. What the what?!?! He HATES time out. So the fact that he would hit again after he has already been in time out makes me even more sure that he doesn't"get" that it is wrong for him to playfully hit.

I don't know what to do. He does not hit at home. He does not hit at his grandparents houses. He does not hit when we have play dates during the week. So why does he hit at church?

Yeah. I don't know either. But I really wish I could figure it out!

I left church tonight in tears. I actually haven't stopped crying since we got home, and that was quite a few hours ago. I blame a lot of it on pregnancy hormones, but the other part is pure frustration of not knowing what to do to about this whole thing. I know he could be doing worse things, and I know it is probably just a phase and it will eventually be fine... but not knowing WHY he is hitting is driving me absolutely bonkers.

Anyway. Thanks for listening to my Mommy woes. I hope to be back later this week with a less boring and more thought out post. I just needed to vent and get my thoughts together before I could move on in the blogging world. :)

Birthday Boy

Monday, my son turned three years old.

Holy freaking cow. That just blows my mind.

But then again, I think I was kinda prepared for it. For the past 3 months or so he has been acting very much like a "big boy" and not so much like a toddler. It makes me sad to see his baby/toddler phases fly right out the door, but it is very fun to see him turn into a little boy. And if he were reading this he would make sure to tell me that he is NOT a little boy, he is a big boy. :)

I don't have a ton of pictures to show you yet, and that is because his party is not until this weekend. But I do have two pictures from his birthday morning I can share if you want! They are pretty cute, if I do say so myself.

We started with pancakes for breakfast (his request). He called them his "birthday pancakes" and was VERY excited when he saw birthday candles sticking out of them. All through breakfast he kept thanking us for his birthday. It was THE cutest thing ever.

After breakfast he opened his gifts (which I will blog about later.), played with said gifts all morning, we went to the riverquarium (his idea), came home and played with his toys some more, went to Mimi and Poppie's house for a family celebration, ate cake, and came home and crashed. Even though it was not the official party day, he enjoyed the heck out of it.

He told me, "Mamma, I am so happy. My birthday makes me happy." It melted me. I just love this kid, and I love that he loved his simple birthday so much.

I'll be back soon to tell you how the party went! :)

Training the Potty

Is it just me or would training a toilet be easier than training a toddler to USE the toilet?

Oh, its just me?

My bad.

We have had some serious potty training issues. (And by serious I mean inconvenient.) You see, I missed the first window of opportunity with potty training Zachariah. I saw signs of him being ready, but I had ZERO desire to start potty training. So I ignored the signs and figured I would start when I got my act together. Well, by the time I was ready to start potty training I found out I was pregnant. And then 4 months of constant puking ensued. I couldn't potty train a toddler while staying in the bed/hanging over the toilet all day, so I put it off again.

So by the time I was done puking I had missed the window of opportunity. He was not interested anymore. But I decided to try anyway. I was actually convinced that if I potty trained a certain way he would "get it" in 2-3 days and I wouldn't have to worry about it ever again!

Yeah. I'm dumb.

To make a long story a little shorter, we tried a certain method and it failed. While it works great for some kids, it did not work for Z. We tried another method and it still didn't seem to do much. I then realized that Zachariah was not recognizing the "urge" to go. Once he would start peeing he would obviously know he was going, but he just was just not getting the whole tell-mommy-BEFORE-you-pee-thing.

In four days he peed in the toilet once. One time. And that was accidental.

Needless to say, I was discouraged and very aggravated. He wasn't "getting it" and I felt like a big fat failure for not doing this when he was showing signs of being ready months ago. I'm not going to lie... there are not many times where I feel like a failure as a mother. Quite honestly, I think I do a pretty darn good job at being a stay at being a mom. Sure, I could use some work in a few area's. But for the most part, I am rocking it. So this whole failing at potty training thing hit me hard. I was in a mini-depression for a few days because I just had zero desire to try anymore. So we stopped the potty training process. We put him in pull ups and decided to let it be for a few days/a week and then try again once I could re-energize myself.

And do you know what happened? Within two days of being in pull ups and me not saying a word about using the toilet he started telling me when he had to pee. He wouldn't catch it completely, but once he started peeing in the pull up he would stop and finish on the toilet. He then started becoming VERY uncomfortable in pull ups and diapers. (Seriously, when he pees or poops in them he waddles around like a duck. It cracks me up!)

Now, he is still not potty trained, but I am planning on starting the process again with full force in the next day or so. And you know what? If he still doesn't get it, thats ok. I have decided that I am ok with the fact that he may not be fully potty trained at age of three. As with any other milestone, kids move at different paces and I need to keep remembering that.

Anyway! As of right now, that is my potty training story. When he is fully potty trained I am sure I will be posting pictures of him in his Lightning McQueen underwear, so watch out! :)

Sneak Peek

We have some friends from church named Chris and Corrie. They have an adorable daughter named Ariana and she is turning the big UNO this month! So what better way to mark that milestone than with a photo shoot?! Ariana is SUCH a cutie pie, and she did a great job putting up with my camera in her face for an hour! :) Here are a few pictures!

Enjoy!

Aren't they cute? They are such a fun couple. Always laughing and always in such a fabulous mood. I love it! :)

That's all for now! Thank you guys for giving me the opportunity to dust off my camera and spend some more time with you and your cute daughter! :)

Beach Trip 2010!

See! I told you I would get some pictures up this week!

Ok. No unnecessary babbling. Lets just dive right on in, shall we?

This is the view from the living room in our condo. If I could walk into my living room at home and see this every day I think my life would be complete. This view did not get old!

And we didn't just stare at the beach from the balcony. Our first full day there we ventured down and parked it in the sand for a while. Now, the ocean was NASTY. And by nasty I mean there was nothing but seaweed in sight. So we stayed out of that grossness, but Z really, really enjoyed playing in the sand!

And this is what happened when I asked him to look in my general direction and smile. Yeah. Not so much.

And no, I have NO clue what Daniel is talking about in the background.

And here is Zachariah's favorite cousin, Collin! See Zachariah, Collin smiles for the camera!

*sigh* We will have to see if Collin can help Zachariah out with the whole posing for the camera thing. :)

And what did we do after we were done playing in the sand? Hit the pool of course!

I'm not going to lie... this pool was pretty great. Half of it was in the shade and half was in the sun. I LOVED that I could choose to bake or not to bake. It was great. And grand. And lovely.

Oh, and we don't know that couple there in the sunny part of the pool. Our crew was in the shade at that point and these people creeped into my picture.

Rude.

Each afternoon when we would come back to the condo from our fun activities this is what Zachariah would do. He did not take a nap the whole time we were there, but he would definitely come close resting on the couch waiting for lunch to be fixed!

Ok folks. Hold onto your hats, because this was one of Zachariah's favorite part of the whole trip.

The skywalk. The convenient covered walkway that connects the condo to the parking garage. It can be called a skyway, catwalk, skybridge or skywalk. But in reality, it doesn't matter what you call it because Zachariah will only yell at you and insist it is a spaceship. That's right. A spaceship.

And this kid LOVED going in the spaceship. It was the highlight of every day. Anytime we need to go to the car (rain or shine) he would beg to walk in the spaceship. It was pretty much the cutest thing ever.

Yes, we could have just walked across the street to get to our car. And yes, it would have only taken about 30 seconds to do it that way. But we very rarely did that. We decided to take the extra 2-3 minutes to ride the elevator up, walk through the spaceship, ride the elevator down and THEN walk through the parking garage to our car.

Because, lets face it, there is no way on earth we could refuse such an adorable and giddy boy the experience of walking through a spaceship several times a day. :)

And seeing him walk through the spaceship may have been one of my favorite parts of the trip too.

No, wait. This was definitely up on the favorite part of the trip list as well. We went down to the beach to take a group family picture and seagulls were flying EVERYWHERE! Zachariah was basically in heaven.

Every morning Z and I would take a walk on the beach before breakfast, and every morning he would chase the seagulls in hopes that he would be able to hold one. He never got upset when he couldn't catch one, but he was a little discouraged that he couldn't even get close to them. So you can imagine how giddy he was when they started flying very low and very close to him!

Watching this kid run with/towards/away from the seagulls was probably one of the cutest things ever. I mean, EVER. He loved every second of it. :)

And just in case you were wondering, here is our Titus Family group picture. :)

The morning after the seagull fun we started packing up to leave. It was a sad moment when Zachariah realized we were leaving the condo and heading home. We had packed everything up in the car and came back into the condo for one last look around to see if we had left anything. We decided nothing was left behind and started heading out and he quietly said, "I don't wanna go home. I need to stay in condo." and from there it was just downhill. For the first 20 minutes of the drive he cried about not wanting to leave the beach. It wasn't a bratty cry. He wasn't pitching a fit. It was a genuinely sad cry.

And that made me cry. I wont go into how long I cried, but lets just say that Z dried it up well before I did. Darn these pregnancy hormones!

And here he was, about half and hour into the ride home. My sweet baby was exhausted.

So yeah. We had a blast. And while it wasn't his first beach vacation, it was the first one where he was able to soak in and enjoy the wonder of the beach. It just made my year to experience this trip with him! And I owe that all to my wonderful in-laws. This yearly family beach trip is a fabulous tradition they started and it is because of their hard work planning this trip that we were able to have such a great time!

I guess that about wraps it up! Well, not really. I still have a post about going to Gulf World while we were in Panama City, but you will all have to wait for that one. I am beat! :)

Until next year...

Well, ok. Until the next post...