Flags, sticks, and watermelon stars

Heart be still. . . .is that really a photograph of two moms AND three kids, and everyone is basically looking at the camera? A MIRACLE I tell you! We had some friends over for the 4th, and the kiddos had fun parading around in the front yard, and trying to make their usual mischief together. Eric cooked hamburgers on the grill, and we made watermelon popscicles. . ..so seriously fun and easy. (recipe below!) Before Eric and I headed to bed that night, I walked by the front window, and realized that we could see fireworks over the rooftops of our neighborhood, way in the distance! So although we hadn't planned to see the fireworks, we got to see some after all! Hooray! Hope you had a fun Forth of July!

Watermelon popscicles. . . .Just slice watermelon (about an inch thick) and cut a star with a cookie cutter. Stick a popscicle stick in it, and freeze it for about an hour. Ta-Dahhh!

Happy 4th of July!

Wooohoo! Two posts in two days!!! It's a Fourth of July miracle!!!! We are all ready for the big day: hamburgers, corn on the cob, 4th of July decorations, flags out in the garden, sparklers, and our Snoopy Snowcone Maker all ready to go! Sounds like perfection to me! Have a great day! I'll try to be back AGAIN tomorrow, with pictures from patriotic partying! XOXOXO

the new church!

Eric started at the new church this week! Bryce and I went over to check things out today, and I of course tried to snap a few pictures! I haven't edited these yet, so pardon any red-eye, and dark photos! At least I got them posted!! :) I'll be back tomorrow with some fun 4th of July photos!!! XOXO

i won't even ask. . ..

for forgiveness!!!! i have been sooo out of the habit of getting photos up here. but i am working on it now. the problem was that i had no motivation to get pictures off the cameras. but i got them off of one camera, so now i just have to do the other one!!!!! here's one that seriously motivated me to share!!! bryce learned how to cross his eyes, on the car trip back from ft. lauderdale last week. . ..enjoy!

this should make up for the lack of posts this week

my excuse is that we were out of town for a few days, but now after a five hour trip in the car today, you can see how we are feeling. . . .loopy!!! sorry once again for the lack of posts. i just realized that i don't even have a june folder of pictures on my computer yet. when i labeled this photo, i labeled it as "May 20". See, loopy, I tell you. We've lost it!!!! XOXOXO

Happy Father's Day!

Happy Father's Day to all the daddy-o's today! Here are a few fun pictures of Eric and Bryce over the past 3 1/2 years. Sigh. To all the dads that we aren't with today .. . .we miss you! We wouldn't be the people we are today without the influence of each of you in our lives. For more trips down memory lane, check out this post
Hugs and kisses!!!!!!

slacker slacker

here are finally some pictures of bryce while we were in lakeland. we went to this fun little childrens museum there, and played for a while. they had a pretend grocery store, doctors office, post office, news station, and LOTS of fun things to play with. Oh, and the BEST part was the play orange juice factory - soooo much fun!!!!

it's official!

here are some photos from the ordination service on

friday night. (eric is the first one on the left. you can click on it, to see it gigantic!) he's official and liscensed now! woohooo!

two of his favorite things . . .

Fountains and ice cream. ( a special thanks to the girl who works at Cold Stone Creamery who said "You look like you would like blue ice cream with sprinkles!") Seriously? Blue icecream? NOT something I would have encouraged my child to eat!!!!! It was SO sweet - its a miracle he didn't throw up last night!!!!
we're having a nice time in lakeland .. .dinner HERE last night (so yummy!) ice cream afterwards, as you can see. . .and lots of meetings for eric, and catching up with friends from the conference today and tomorrow. tomorrow eric will be OFFICIALLY liscenced as a United Methodist pastor! Woohoo! I heard someone say last week that "pastor's wives are dangerous" (in a good way!) so I guess I can be officially considered a DANGEROUS woman now .. . .but we already KNEW that, didn't we? XOXOX

but wait. . . .there's more!

yes, yes, i know. been too long. taking too long. not enough photos. whatever. be happy with whatcha got, k? ;) (tee hee!)

here's eric, his parents, steve, lizzie, and bryce. at this point, bryce was starting to be done with the picture-taking. fun times!

we're leaving tomorrow (yes, again) for a few days in Lakeland, where Eric will officially be "liscenced" as a pastor, at the United Methodist Annual Conference. more fun times! gotta get back to packing! XOXO

backtracking

i am seriously skipping all around these days. here is another picture from my parents' house last week. (was that only last week?) i just think its funny ALL the different random stuff bryce is playing with in this photo. . . .let's see there's:

legos (in two sizes)

trains

tinker toys

leaves (yes, leaves)

blocks

20 year old Little People toys

and a few other assorted things of which i have NO idea what they are.

but that's okay. he was happy, and busy. (and only making a slightly gigantic mess.)

the new addition

HERE (finally) is Bryce's NEW BED!!!!!!!! My mom has been asking for pictures for DAYS (sorry!) and here is finally one. These bunk beds used to be in the playroom at my grandparents' house, but since all the kiddos are grown now, Bryce got to bring it home for his very own!!! He LOVES it. We did some minor rearranging in his room, and it looks really fun! We still have his animal valance and decor up (not seen in this pic) and so far, Bryce doesn't want something new. . . .it doesn't really match, but it doesn't exactly clash either, so for now it will stay! I was super excited to go buy under-the-bed boxes for extra storage, (hello ORGANIZING!!!) He's been sleeping well in his new bed, and hasn't fallen out yet (that we know of!!) He also hasn't been up to the top bunk yet - I'm not letting him up there at all yet, because otherwise he will want to be up there ALL the time. (And he hasn't tried scaling the side of the beds yet . . .I'm sure that will come, in time!) We also took down the baby gate in his doorway, so he is a free man now. But he hasn't tried to escape ONCE yet . .. (again, I'm sure that time will come!!!) Thank you Annie Grannie for the beds!! We love them!!

the graduation photos!

I'm just going to keep adding to this post this week, sharing some more photos, so keep checking back!! XOXO

XOXO

he made it!

he got across the stage, and didn't even trip!!! :)

I'll get pictures up tomorrow!!! Just wanted to share the official news!

CONGRATULATIONS ERIC!!!!

Love you all!

XOXO

We're almost there!

Two more days!

This is the graduation announcement that I made for Eric. If you haven't gotten one, it may be sitting on my kitchen counter - I forgot to take the last batch to the mailbox before we left town! (SORRY!!)

I realized that I never shared the scoop on our plans for the coming year. . .

So here's the scoop. We are staying in Jax for another year, and Eric will be splitting his time between two churches - our current church, (the one we got married in, where Eric has been working the past few years) and another church in Jacksonville. It's a very small church (about 20 people on Sunday mornings) and Eric will be THE pastor - so he will preach on Sunday mornings and have some office hours during the week, but also share his time with his duties at our other church.

SO that's the plan. THE plan. Oh, and we are staying in our current house - not moving across town like we had looked into. Most likely, we will be moving again next year, so staying put for now is definitely a good thing!

pool party with poppy

sugar, sugar, sugar!

Highlights of the first day and a half of our trip:

-getting out of the CAR!

-Dairy Queen, and rainbow sprinkles

-visiting the library

-going to the airport to pick up poppy

-a GIANT chocolate chip cookie from Starbucks

-playing in the pool

-splashing everyone near the pool

-pizza for dinner

-reading books with mimi and poppy

-anticipation of another day of fun!

XOXO

i picked this just for you.

i have lots of pictures to share, since i have not been completing my duty of sharing photos everyday for eric. in my defense, he was home for the weekend, and then bryce and i had lunch with him in lakeland yesterday, on our way down to fort myers. so just to hold you over, while i finish photo editing (and in case eric checks the blog after he gets out of class at 9:30. . .here's a doozie for ya. Nice huh? Actually I was quite thrilled that I captured this - it will definitely be a good one to torture him with when he is older!! As you can see, Bryce enjoyed some pool time today - but more of that later!!! Back to editing! XOXOX

the ABC's and the booty shake

Just for Daddy, here is Bryce singing his ABC's .. . well, this round of it was a little less convincing, but he spent all of quiet time belting them out. And his new favorite dance - I don't know where he came up with this from (I promise Eric nor I do this dance!!) but he loves it, and it always gets quite a reaction!!! We miss you Daddy! Enjoy, everyone!

whoops!

i missed adding pictures yesterday - so much for me and my big talk about lots of blog updates! the first photo is how bryce dressed for Little Gym yesterday - firehat, and dino boots. he wanted to take an EXTRA pair of boots too, but I was able to dissuade him from that!! I wish I could delete that other kid from the last picture - but I don't know if ANYONE's photoshop skills are good enough to do THAT! I'll just have to do some major cropping I guess!!! :) We've talked to Eric a few times since he left, but he is pretty busy - please pray LOTS for him to get his work done for school, find a few hours to sleep here and there, and have a worthwhile time at Liscensing School. :)

watch for lots!

watch for more pictures than usual this week, as we try to keep daddy up to date on our adventures while he is away! (the first picture was before eric left today)

thank you lizzie for picking out this VERY cool elephant puzzle! bryce loves it! (and we have done it twice today!!)

i know, i know .. . .ketchup.

Okay, we need to get caught up. I hear Bryce stirring, and might wake up at any moment, so here's the two-minute ketchup.

-Eric leaves today for his two week long Liscensing School where they will teach him for the second time all of the things he has been doing for the past five years of seminary. Excellent.

-During those two weeks, while he is MISSING his last two weeks of seminary, he will be staying up till ungodly hours to complete his last two weeks of schoolwork, plus finals.

-We don't know yet what the internet situation is there, while he is staying in a dorm at Florida Southern for two weeks, which will be seriously interesting when he emails all of his final work.

-Bryce and I will be eating scrambled eggs for dinner every night while Eric is gone, and I plan to scrapbook EVERY night. We are spending the second week of Eric's trip, with my parents for a week. (where I can do more scrapbooking in the evenings!)

-My bathroom will stay quite clean and tidy, and free of BOY germs for two weeks. . ..but its really not worth it, I would rather have Eric and all his boy germs, than a clean bathroom. XOOX

-The first two pictures here are of Bryce when we came home one evening and the neighborhood ducks were chilling in our yard. The second picture is Bryce taking a photo with his imaginary camera. He really REALLY likes to take pictures with his imaginary camera. Just wait till he gets the REAL one that he forgot he got for Christmas, and we are saving for a rainy day!

-The last photo is Bryce eating one of our birthday cupcakes. Seriously messy cupcakes.

-Last night we celebrated my birthday with Eric's family, and I got lots MORE wonderful presents, and some of THE best most AWESOME chocolate cake with chocolate frosting (which now resides in my refrigerator, and I want to go stick my face in it RIGHT NOW at 7:24am.) You can see photos of my other birthday goods, somewhere on MY blog.

-This past weekend Sabrina got married. Sniff sniff. I wasn't there to see it - well, neither was almost anyone else, because she got married in a cave. Hoping for photos soon.

-Eric graduates on the 17th. He will go straight from Liscensing School to Orlando, where we will meet him, the night before the big day! Lots of family and friends coming for the event, and we are SOOO excited!!!!

Eric is walking out the door to church, which means Bryce will be waking up momentarily so I gotta jet on outta here. Now you have The Two-Minute Recap. We really should do this more often.