Things I Love Thursdays - June Eve Edition

June Eve. That makes sense, right? Moving on...things I'm loving today....

My Mom's Retirement - It was a big decision for my parents to uproot their lives in Corpus and move up here and that included my mom closing down her practice and entering early retirement. I know she misses her career but I love, love, love having her so close by to pick up and go on my most random of adventures or  boring of errands. She makes everything fun and I know I'm so, so lucky to have her here. So many of my friends don't have family nearby so for her, I am so grateful. 

Hmmm, I mention our adventures but my only pictures are of them on the couch ;)

Here's one - just had a cinnamon roll at Paradise with Mimi this morning!

Rainy days and nights - The thunderstorms and hail have been intense the past few nights (just ask our wimpy dog, Brinkley) but I love being curled up in bed listening to the rain. Or on the couch in PJs most of the day with my baby. Plus, with the Frisco water restrictions in full force, our yard has been so thirsty! Our plants just look happier. :)

This dog has given me so much grief the past 3 nights of thunder.  Shaking and insisting he sleep in the bed with me. As you can see, I had a huge problem with this. ;)

My boy fell asleep on the couch before 11am yesterday despite his nap time being at 12:30. And slept for 2 1/2 hours after I moved him to his bed. The rain just does that to a person, I guess.

Pinterest ideas - I get a kick out of making something from this site that actually turns out well! These mini pot pies were perfect for our play date today. Here is the link.

Play dates! These little suckers can wear out my child and have him taking a 3 hour nap in no time! The best are when we have people over here so that there's none of this falling-asleep-in-the-car-trying-to-transport-to-the-bed-thus-missing-lunch business. We had our neighbor Lowery over today! Later his sisters and his Mama joined us for popsicles. 

Lowery, Maddie and Grayson

Television - I know this is controversial and I shudder just a little every time I even mention it, but Grayson is showing a little more interest in his kid programs than before and I'm pretty stinkin' happy about it. He digs Sesame Street and since it's educational, I'm cool with that. I've said a billion times that I know there will come a time where I wish he wouldn't watch but if I can get just an hour a day of him watching some educational programming, that's one less hour in the 100+ degree heat this summer! He just doesn't have any interest in being inside these days. Plus, I've gotta get him into movies before our flights/road trips in Florida this summer! :)

He made it almost 30 minutes through Sesame Street! 

Mouth gaping and everything. Grover gets him every time. :)

Beau + Food + Home....I have a husband that comes home at 5pm today! His Thursday flights can get in pretty late so I'm stoked to have him home in time to see Grayson and eat dinner with us. I also love a fully-stocked fridge and planned meals for the weekends. Looking forward to laying low with my boys, some food, some movies and our house! We don't do that very often!


A fun month - Grayson and I both have birthdays coming up, our Life Group is having a pool party at my favorite house in the world which is in Prosper, we start My Gym with our play group and Soccer Tots continues on Saturdays with Piper and her parents. Oh, and there better be a girls' wine night in my future. Just sayin'.


Reynolds family weekend begins at 5pm today - holler! Have a good one!

Memorial Day Weekend 2012

What a relaxing weekend we had! Time away at the lake with friends was the perfect way to spend this long weekend. Beau and Grayson had their first day of Soccer Tots Saturday morning so we headed out to the Cooks' lake house late morning and arrived shortly after lunch time. The drive wasn't bad and I always love to see how the trees get taller and taller as you drive further into East Texas. Just beautiful.


I have been acquainted with Alison for years but have become much better friends with her since she joined the stay at home mom world and get to see her more often. She and her husband Bill invited us and another couple (who we hadn't met yet) out for the weekend. Each couple has one child around 2 y.o. so it was perfect. We all also like to relax, laugh and have a cocktail or 3 so it was the perfect set up. :) The kids got along beautifully - we were all a little surprised and really impressed! The Cooks have London - I've never met another little girl like her! She has a confidence, determination and a will that makes her seem 20 trapped in a 2 year old body. The Millers have Grayson. Yes, another Grayson! He is 22 months and has a vocabulary, like London, that would blow you away. He is also obsessed with soccer so you won't see too many pictures of him without a ball. ;)


The rest can be told through pictures but I want to add an update on Grayson's sleeping really quick. We took a twin air mattress for him and were so nervous! But he did great, stayed put and slept like a champ. Beau tucked him in, read him a book, he went right to sleep, and didn't wake up until the following morning. I'm really relieved that this bed transition has gone so well. I was just certain he'd give me grief. :) 

London: "I think you should wear these right now. Yes while we are taking pictures. Sit still."

A Grayson sandwich 

Group pictures don't come easily.

Sweet hugs!

Nature walk Sunday morning

Loved how not-hot it was!

The whole group

The kids all ate really well. Everyone brought way too much food! But it was ideal really. 

The boys with their kids. It was precious to watch.

The Reynolds Family

A topless London and an over-dressed Grayson

Interesting - Grayson hated the sand on his feet shortly after the pic above was taken! He decided he needed his feet propped the entire time.  The same kid who used to touch dog poop.

Sweet London in her yellow polka dot bikini bottoms devouring a cherry snow cone.

Grayson's first snow cone of the summer! (and perhaps ever) 

This is how his eyes always are but how I rarely capture on camera! Thanks to Alison for being a great photographer.

London's mama had to see my baby in pig tails. I won't include Beau's reaction when he saw this. ;)

Beau made his cinnamon pecan pancakes Monday morning and they were a huge hit!

One last picture before we left Monday. 

I can't say enough about how seamless the weekend went! We had so much fun during the days with these guys and even more fun after the kids went down for bed! Poker, apples to apples and a little something called Tequila Squirts (it's a drink, I promise!) made for some fun times. 


Grayson napped on the way home and once we returned, we had two sets of neighbors telling us to change clothes and to join them at their pool. Who wants to do laundry when you can actually HEAR the fun next door?! So we did and had a blast! 

Going to say it again, happiest baby ever.

And look at that bathing suit!

If I ride, I ride in style.

Watching the big kids on the trampoline with the sprinkler and shaving cream.   Pretty much thinking they were crazy. :)

Later, we cleaned up and headed to dinner with the Phillips and Seemans. The Blodgetts had to cancel but had they made it, this would have been the first time in probably a couple of years that we were all together again! Bummer, but we still had fun. We just don't get everyone together enough! Here is the latest picture of the kids...

L-R: Grayson, Finley, Cole, Emily and Joseph

Stillll going.

I've never seen him quite as delirious as he was at the end of this weekend! :) 

Grayson's Last Day of Preschool

Today was the last day of school before summer break. I didn't plan on doing a blog post about this but I have some fun pictures and it was a surprisingly emotional day (for me). Are you sensing a trend here?


I asked Grayson if he understood that it was his last day and he answered, yes. Sure enough, he gave extra long hugs to Miss Henrietta and Miss Jen and even asked me to pick him up so that he could look in the room one last time. :( His teachers and I were all pretty touched by that. He just seemed so much more grown up than this time 4 short months ago when he started in January. I really wish we had the whole year with his 2 teachers! They are so, so special and I'm bummed that I didn't get a picture of him with them!

Grayson posed with his nap mat and in his new outfit - both from his great-grandmother, Ma!

His face when I said, Smile (sigh)

We started the semester with ice cream after school; we ended with ice cream!
We capped it with a fun walk around the Shops.

Yesterday's boo boo with today's HUGE, bad boo boo on his forehead. What a send off! Miss Henrietta felt so bad about it.:( He fell of a bike while he was trying to "fix it". :) Poor baby! 

He so loves the fountain at Shops at Legacy. It's hard to pull him away actually.

He would clap when it started back up and was very concerned when it the water would go back down, saying "Uh oh!". Here's an unnecessarily long video of him applauding the fountain:

We had to duck into this little shop completely dedicated to team gear.

Playing peak a boo with the sales lady. I think he looks like a girl here. ;)

Had to buy it for him. Such a big boy.

Play time with the neighbors. He is so much younger than them so it's sweet to watch them help him with the glue and stickers and such. :)

Today was especially sad because we are leaving Teddy Bear Junction to go to Bright Beginnings in Frisco in the Fall. I sort of cried a little when Kathy, the Director, hugged me. What a great school. They will be missed but assured me that he has a place there if BB doesn't work out. Good to know!

23 Months!

Less than a month until you turn 2, my dear! You will always hear people say "They grow up so fast!" and "Where did the time go?!" but until you have your own kids (my grandbabies!), you will just never understand how true it is...

You weigh 35lbs. You are almost too heavy for me to carry you. :( But I have faith that you will thin out like most kids and stay at this weight for a while. I mean, right?! I'm not sure how tall you are but pretty much everyone tells us how big you are and how they can't believe you aren't 2 yet. Cool for a teenager to hear maybe but I really want you to stay a tiny toddler for as long as possible!

Size 5 diapers, 2T everything, 3T in some brands (Old Navy), 7.5W shoes moving to 8 pretty soon (I think).

You are a bigger helper than ever before! You carry as many tools as you possibly can under your arms (as I mentioned in the last post) and are by our sides every step of the way for any task. It's simply wonderful watching you take such an interest in things and really seeming like you want to learn about it.

I'm not sure how many words you "should" have but you are adding so many more each week. I have so looked forward to hearing your voice! I imagine you could be saying more but I'm content with your progress! I was worried there for a while. ;)

You call me Mom. Not Mama or Mommy. Mom. I feel robbed! But I love hearing it. I'll take it. You call all of us by name every time now. You particularly call for Pop A LOT. And if I don't tell you where he is, it goes like this:

"Pop. Pop. Pop. Pop. Mom? Mom? Mom?"
Yes, honey?
"Pop. Pop. Pop."

That said, once I tell you where he is (work, the store, at home), you're satisfied with the answer. So cute.

On that note, you are so good with us setting your expectations! We have drastically limited tantrums just by explaining to you what is about to happen. That you will play outside after your nap. That you can get down to run after we finish a few errands and that you can have dessert after your finish dinner. Your Mimi discovered this and you are incredible with being satisfied with things once you know what's about to happen. It boggles my brain that your brain comprehends a series of events like this. Thank God because that temper was getting ridiculous. ;)

You can now open doors. You can tell us what you want to eat. You still have a great appetite and love to dip foods. If we have a dipping sauce, you'll eat it. :) Such a bad habit.

For a good 2 weeks, you were telling us every time you had to go to the bathroom. I wasn't ready! While we didn't discourage it (we enthusiastically took you every time), we didn't encourage it either and you kind of just forgot about it. :/ I'm confident in our decision to wait until you're older. You still need to get better at dressing/undressing yourself (you're getting there!) and I want to wait until after our beach trip. So bad, I know. I'm thinking August but could totally wait until January on. Seriously, no rush here!

You are expressing a lot of interest in sports these days. It's a lot cooler than things with motors, like shop vacs, hair dryers and leaf blowers. :) At least, more fun (and more manageable) for me. You love to swing a golf club (not the plastic ones, your Dad's real ones), love to throw a football and baseball has been a favorite for months. I so badly want to know what kind of teenager you will be and if you will play any sports but I'm already freaked out about how much you've grown already, I can't imagine a teenage Grayson!

You and your Dad were hitting golf balls and Brinkley would fetch and bring them back.
Great idea!

A few other things....

You still light up when you see Ma and love to spend time with her! 

Your kisses are something else these days! Plentiful to say the least - even
Aunts Amanda and Andrea get them via pictures! :)

You are showing a great interest in reading and books these days. A relief for me because up
until a couple of months ago, you couldn't care less. 

These rosey cheeks after outside play are the best!

A real chair with real plates and real silverware. It's all so REAL. 

You're much better at drinking water like a big boy. We still have room to grow though ;)

You love wearing hats and playing outside with Mimi!
It feels so good to have you in great hands when I'm away!

You are such a ham! You make the strangest faces when we ask you to smile. Such a hoot!

I received this picture of you hanging on the patio with Ma and Mimi
while I was in Florida. You were so happy :)

You ONLY eat olives by putting them on your finger first.
Definitely an Aunt Andrea and Aunt Amanda move.

We are so proud of you and the big boy you're growing up to be. And how effortless that seems for you. We love with you everything inside of us, Grayson Luke! xoxo