So Long!

Until next year...




(As soon as I can steal pictures from Katy & Ryan and Erin & Jason, there will be more... don't be fooled.)

Egg Hunt

Some more pictures of the egg hunt w/ his buddies.





By the way, the little boy on the bottom right and the little girl on the left are John Dickson's best friends - Matthew ("Mackhue") and Emma.

Get Ready! The 5th Installment

After the munchkins were done riding horses, they loaded the horses up with carrots. John Dickson fed the horses 3. When we first got to the farm, I thought John Dickson was going to explode. He was talking a mile a minute, ready to go see the horses and get his ride on. I thought we would appease him by letting him feed the animals in the petting zoo with some baby carrots, but the donkey tried to talk to him. And that was all over. Luckily after the other kids got there and showed him the donkey was in fact harmless, he joined right in.



Ella maybe was a tad confused.



After the animals, we had an Easter egg hunt. Adam got to hide all of the eggs - 300+. He was pretty excited about that. John Dickson takes his egg hunting very seriously!

Get Ready! The 4th Installment

All of my babies.



Not bad for 4 kids 3 and under!

Get Ready! The 3rd Installment

We had gorgeous weather for the party - nice sunshine, a slight breeze, and not too hot. We invited all of John Dickson's little buddies from school, along with some of his other little buddies from playdates with our friends, and I'd say we had the perfect turn out. We were really happy to have all of our family there, and it was the first time all 4 cousin kiddos were together at the same time.

Some family shots:

Uncle Jason and Ella



Aunt La La and Bean



Uncle Jason (Jared) and Bean in their coordinating outfits. Don't listen to him - they did it on purpose. Also, in case you are confused, JD loves to call Jared his Uncle Jason. He's found he can get a good rise out of him this way.



John Dickson with his Nana and his Granna



And Henahen with his Papa and his Grumps



Stay tuned.

Get Ready! The 2nd Installment

So I knew John Dickson was going to take right to the horses, but I had no idea that this little one would love them so much! Ella Boo had a great time and would actually cry when her turns were over. And you can't see it in this picture, but she had on some adorable pink cowgirl boots for the occassion.



Emma Bean also dressed for the occassion in her adorable cow dress, but her mom refused to let her ride a horse. I know. Total buzz kill.



And what about Henahen you ask? Well he didn't join us until the end of the party. He just snoozed away in the car. Sweetly, might I add.



It looked mightly tempting to Ms Emma!



Precious, right?



Stay tuned.

Get Ready!

It's the 4th annual John Dickson birthday blogging extravaganza! That's right people - 5 pictures per post, 174 pictures (compliments of Aunt La La and Uncle Jason (that's code for Uncle Jared, by the way)), you do the math!!!! We won't post them all, but get ready. That's all I'm saying.

So my old college roommate Leslie came down to help me out and party it up. I'd like to say that I made this cake by myself, or at the very least that we contributed equally, but alas I can only take responsibility for the design (finding an example online is the same as designing, right?), the toys, the baking of the cake, and the coloring, rolling and cutting of all of the yellow fondant components. Oh, and I did suggest we make the pillow bigger. So I guess you could pretty much say I made the cake myself, right?



Well they say never to trust a skinny chef, and let me tell you, Leslie is a SKINNY chef, but I think this cake proves that theory wrong -




Lil man agrees.




Can I tell you that Leslie stayed up with me until 1 am, making cake?? Last year she stayed up all hours with me baking cookies and chopping pizza toppings. I love her.

We kicked off the party with some good old fashioned horseback riding. We had 2 horses - Haddie and Dusty. I was surprised at how quickly the kids latched on to the names and that they had a preference of which one to ride. In retrospect, I should have known that. I mean, I have one of those kids, afterall.

Lil man LOVES riding horses, and did not hesitate to jump up on one. He requested to gallop, but I think he was satisfied with a brisk walk.

Riding Dusty:



And Haddie:



Stay tuned.

Our Newest Love

WHOA am I behind!!! WHOA I start every blog post this way. And WHOA Ellie broke the E key off of the keyboard. So to recap, we are very behind and from this point forward, I will not be going back to add in any missing Es. Dal with it. Haha, get it?

So we discussed John Dickson's birthday back on the 5th, but did I mention on the 6th we got our newest love? Meet Ms Emma Reagan Libet.

I know what you are thinking... gorgeous. Just like her mama. But with bigger bows. She's our newest niece and we love her to pieces. I saw her the day she was born, the following weekend, then again on Wednesday, again the next weekend and again the weekend after that. I am totally spoiled and fear I may go crazy if I do not see her again soon. Love. This. Baby.

Little Miss was born on the 6th at 3:48 (I think) in the afternoon, weighing in at 6 lbs 14 ounces and measuring 19 inches long. (John Dickson also came in at 19 inches, only he was 8 lbs even. Chunkalunk). This baby is a super snuggler and knows how to rock a bow. I love having nieces - its really quite perfect - sweet little girls to buy the cute stuff for and to eventually take to get their nails done on a favorite aunt outing, but little boys to take home at the end of the day. Could not have planned it any more perfectly if I had tried.

Did I mention my camera is still lost???? Im pretty bitter about that.

So after Ms Emma was born, we headed down to the beach with Granna, Papa, Erin, Jason and Ms Ella. Yes, we have a Ms Ella and a Ms Emma. Don't get me started. It's very difficult. At least thus far we have managed to keep Ms Ellie out of the mix. Anyway, we had a great time, spoiled rotten in a house on the water. John Dickson has enjoyed the beach in the past, but he LOVED it this time. He made a pretty awesome sand castle and moat with his Papa (but insisted that he was NOT a moat monster), and I dug a pretty awesome hole. It came up to my hip, which, as Adam pointed out, is not very deep, but we dug another one, connected the two, put the kiddos in, and BAM - play pen on the beach.

By kiddos, I should specify that it was Ella (I just typed that Emma... seriously, you have NO IDEA how hard this is) and John Dickson. Mr. Hennis does not like the beach so much! Let's discuss.

No blankie.

No musical seahorse.

Nothing to pull up on.

Wind.

Sand.

Sand in the mouth.

Tears.

Hat on.

Pull hat off.

Hat on again.

Pull hat off.

Hat on again.

Melt down.

HOWEVER, you get on the balcony with some Jimmy Buffet and Hennis is in hog heaven. He LOVES to dance. I was a little in hog heaven too watching John Dickson unexpectly bust out with the robot. Hilarious. And watching John Dickson and Ella shake their booties... too sweet. Aunt Erin brought some fun pinwheels and bubbles, and Papa flew some kites - I'm serious - I'm pretty jealous of my kids.

John Dickson and Ella continue to be a dynamic duo, and the fear of what they will be able to accomplish once Ella is a little bit older and they can truly plot is becoming both more real and more scary. They are a trip to watch together, and I think they get along pretty darn well! The two of them entertained each other for half an hour just running around the house pushing a rolling suitcase.

As soon as I manage to smuggle some pictures from Erin & Jason, I'll be sure to post some.

So that about catches you up to John Dickson's 3rd birthday party and Easter. We've just been enjoying playing outside in the pretty weather and cleaning up a lot of "choke up". Oh adenoidectomy, why didn't you work?!?!?!?!? John Dickson has also been wheezing and has been using an inhaler for the last week. He goes back on Wednesday for a recheck, so be thinking about him. It's been about 2.5 years that we have not been able to get rid of the runny nose, nasty cough and as of the last 6 months, excessive throwing up, which is almost without a doubt related to the gunk. Hopefully we are getting closer to the solution.

John Dickson and Henry just had their 3 year and 9 month well visits, respectively. John Dickson was 37.5 inches tall and 32 lbs, both hovering around the 50th percentile, and Henry Bear was 20 lbs 5 oz and 29 inches tall. It's funny to look at Henry's growth charts...

The last 5 percentiles for weight:

72nd

53rd

47th

47th

59th

Height:

99th

98th

76th

84th

72nd

You know, kind of jumps around.

Head:

99.65

99.7

99.45

99.89

99.6

That's my boy! That sweet baby has also started to skitter across the floor, sans knees, and he loves to play a good game of peek a boo - so cute. He actually played it with John Dickson the other day, all on their own, both cracking up. He's learning some sign language and I think he is starting to do some! He is saying Mama (not sure yet if its for me or not... sometimes I think so, sometimes not), Dada, buh buh (for bye bye), and some other random sounds. He will imitate you blowing raspberries and gives big open mouth kisses. And he's a big mama's boy. Darn.

Don

We have a 3 year old!!!

Can you believe John Dickson turned THREE on Tuesday??? Can you believe he ate an entire 4 inch in diameter mini chocolate cake for breakfast???? We sang and he blew out his candles like a champ. He later told me maybe I could have his candles after his birthday was over... but I would have to wait for my birthday. (Might I add, he was a birthday diva). He opened his cards and was very excited about that, and then he opened some presents. I stayed home that day and John Dickson and Henry and I played all morning until it was time to go get some pannacakes.



Lil man got a Rooty Jr and killed it.



Then Henry went to school while John Dickson and I went to Greenville to go see Rango, but alas the theater's power was out from the mondo storm we had Monday night, so we opted instead for some putt putt and race cars. John Dickson LOVED the go carts, but was less than thrilled with putt putt. After a few holes, he quit altogether, but before he did, he had just finished a hole and I told him to watch out. Of course he asked why. I told him I didn't want to hit him with my ball. So he spread his legs out across this thing, and seeing as how I'm quite the golf pro, my ball went straight through.



I later got a hole in one, but he wasn't excited for me. He actually didn't know where the ball went. ::sigh::

You may notice in the first pictures, John Dickson is sporting a mullet. In the putt putt picture, he aged about a year, and he's officially 3. AKA, he got a haircut. After that, we went to Whole Foods to get some strawberries and milk for a snack, considering all he had eaten that day was cake, pannacakes, french toast and some sausage. We then went to the horse farm to drop off our deposit and pet some horses and a donkey that John Dickson will tell you "showed us his hiney." There was a peacock as well, but John Dickson did not like him... at all.

After that it was mission: Tangled. He's been dying to see this, and since our movie going experience did not pan out, we decided to rent instead. It was actually a pre meltdown intervention at the theater being closed, and while I don't typically operate this way, it was his birthday. So we went to one of those express rentals. No luck. Went to Blockbuster. No luck. Called Adam to go to express rental. No luck. Adam went to another Blockbuster, and thank goodness - Tangled.

The rest of the night was spent watching the movie and playing with Jessie and Woody's new pal Bullseye. I hope it was a good day for lil man.

And in unrelated news, how much of a little man (not lil man - thats his brother) is Hennis???



Oh, and he says bye bye (more of a buh buh) and waves. It's adorable. Just sayin.