Camden Thomas

My sweet nephew, Camden Thomas Boykin was born today. He weighed 9 lbs 2 oz and was born on 9/28 at 9:28 am. He looks just like his brother, Carter. He has jet black hair and his daddy's little face and lips. He was born via c-section and swallowed some amniotic fluid so he is in the NICU. He is having trouble breathing without oxygen right now.  My sis is doing okay except for being in a lot of pain and not having her sweet baby with her. She did hold him this evening. We are hoping and praying for a very brief stay in the NICU.

18 months

Mr. Eli is 18 months old.. sniff sniff. At his well baby visit yesterday he weighed 29.5 lbs (90%) and was 34 1/2 inches (90%). He didn't have to have any shots except for the flu shot. He made an A plus on his developmental screening and is a joy to our lives.

So what can Eli do now?? Well... Josh and I tried to count his words but were unsuccessful because there are so many. We just counted the names of people he knows and had almost hit 50. He is starting to combine words such as " I see dog" and "mommys shoe" and imitates everything. He loves to read "Good Night Moon",  "Brown Bear" (he recites this one along with us), and loves to look at his first word picture book where he can name a lot of the pictures. He is starting to sing.. he gets a few words of "Jesus loves me" and "Baby Beluga". He can answer questions...says 'no' and will say "uh huh" for yes. He will say 'yes' if you ask him to but he uses "uh huh".  He names all sorts of body parts including 'eye brow' and loves to play in the bed with Mommy and Daddy in the mornings and poke Josh's eyes while saying "eyes, eyes".

 He can feed himself with a spoon, and tries to put on his shoes (unsuccessfully.. but it's so funny watching him try to stuff his feet in them). Eli runs, jumps, climbs.... even up the ladder to Isaac's top bunk (with me behind him of course). Can scribble with crayons but doesn't have much interest. He is definitely not a picky eater as you can tell from the  29 lbs.- he likes Thai, Japanese (he says "rice and chicken"), Italian... well really any type of food. I think his favorite is still spaghetti. He is doing better holding my hand when we are out places- we still have episodes where he runs and I have to chase after him. Sometimes it is just easier to strap him in the stroller.  He takes one afternoon nap usually 12-2 in the afternoon, goes to bed around 830pm and wakes around 730am. He is a much better sleeper than his older brother was. He usually gets excited that it is nap time and takes his passy, and blue silky blanket and goes to his crib waiting to be picked up and put in. Of course there are the exceptions such as yesterday when I put him down and he laid in there for an hour and wouldn't go to sleep!  He says "poo poo" when he goes but has no interest in the potty.

Here are some other little things he  has done recently.  He will go get the broom to dig a car out under the couch.  He noticed that our niece has a pair of Chacos similar to mine and that the straps were alike, so he went and put both shoes together and tried to buckle the shoes together. He saw a Buick car on vacation and started saying "Nanny, Nanny ( she drives one). He was able to navigate us from the elevator straight to our room with out making a mistake on vacation.

Ohh and he has a mullet... I just can't cut the curls yet!

We love you Eli Thomas and are enjoying watching you grow!

Back to work.....

Isaac is going into 6th grade... ahhhhhhh! It makes me so sad that this is a year of 'lasts' for us at Glenwood! He is so excited to go back to school. I am going to stay part-time (Tues, Wed, Thursday) so I can be with Isaac and keep 4 days a week with Eli. I truly enjoy my job... I have great co-workers, a wonderful classroom, sweet kids, and my job is definitely rewarding. I have a few older kids that I really need to 'fix' and dismiss from speech so I am pondering ways to intensify therapy for these few. Another perk is that I work closely with one of by best friends (highschool buddy/college roommate) and we have lots of fun together. My mom is keeping Eli two days and my mother-in-law is keeping him one day a week. He has lots of fun and says "Pawpaw" every time we go on a gravel road thinking we are going to visit Josh's parents. He also knows when we get to the stop sign near my mom's house and will say "Nana", "Papa", "Ben" (the dog) and "chick chicks" (the two chickens mom adopted from Carter's birthday dibbies).

Wilmington

Josh and I have been wanting to take a vacation by ourselves ( did I say that?) for some time. I didn't want to leave Eli his first year of life because he was nursing and since then we haven't found the right time. However we finally just decided to take a long weekend and go to Wilmington (the condo was free, which helped!). My mom  and step-dad kept our boys. I was nervous to see how Eli would do away from home but other than asking for "Mama" ten times a day he was fine. Mom said he slept great and was a good boy. She told him we were gone to the beach when he asked. One morning she went to get him out of his crib and he said "Beach?" wanting to know if we were still gone. Josh and I had a wonderful time even though we missed the boys. We slept in (had almost forgot how to do that), saw 5 movies, ate yummy food, and enjoyed each others' company. Josh as been swamped at work since his office caught on fire a few weeks ago and I am heading back to work soon so it couldn't have come at a better time. It is nice to able to sit down at a restaurant and actually get to enjoy eating dinner for a change. We stayed right in the historic section so we were in walking distance of pretty much everything downtown. We toured the North Carolina Battleship which is where this picture is taken from (our room is in that building behind the coast guard ship).


Had dinner on one of these adorable private balconies on River Street with live music in the background.

Saw, "The Help", "One Day", "Conan", "Planet of the Apes", "The Change Up" (as you can see we each picked a few movies). I loved "The Help" even though the book was better! Josh even laughed out loud several times.

House building 101

Well, it has been wonderful to finally break ground and see our house being built. I will post some of the pics that I have previously put on fb.  We had house roped on July 14th, drilled for water on July 19th, and foundation was complete July 27th. Today is August 22 and we have all the bottom floor rooms framed, sub floors on top floor and half of the top floor framed. We have already made a lot of decisions but I know there are lots more to come. We did decide on chocolate gray rock and are getting ready to make decisions on kitchen cabinets soon. I really like the distressed white cabinets paired with a dark wood island and darker flooring but I guess we will see. It is going quickly but I know it will start slowing down soon. My sister's house is going great too.. she may get to be in by Christmas. Our builder says we should be finished anywhere from January to April.
Here is the progression so far:

Two bedrooms, Jack & Jill bath, and walkway on top floor

Front of house (Master Suite on right, foyer, dining, and bedroom on left)

Subflooring

Foundation is set!

Laying out house

Isaac is ELEVEN

What? Eleven? Nooooo way! We had Isaac's birthday party at the local water slide again. Unfortunately I have no pictures because a huge storm came about 45 minutes into his party and doused the whole affair. He has been wanting a Nook Color for his birthday.  I decided it would probably be a good investment for him because I cannot keep him in books... they are a bit cheaper and easily accessible. He was thrilled of course.

2011- What a year for my family

Yesterday my Uncle Richard's father died. Uncle Richard is Aunt Jane's husband. So much heartache in such a small amount of time. This year he has seen his brother-in-law (my dad) die suddenly, his wife (my Aunt Jane) get diagnosed with cancer, and then his mom died in May on his birthday and now his dad died after a complication from a hip replacement. Please keep my aunt and uncle in your thoughts and prayers.

The LAST Potter!

Harry Potter tickets bought!

Babysitter booked!

Am I a dork??

YES

We are ready to break ground!

Okay finally after MONTHS of trying to figure out our budget and what we want  in our house we are ready to start building. We never could find the 'exact' plan we wanted so our builder drew our plan from pictures of plans we liked. I will try to take a picture of our house plan and post it. Our driveway is graveled and the grader has cleared out more dirt from the building site. I met with our builder yesterday and we decided the plan needed to be flipped (again!) and that we need to cut down the dirt about 5 feet. I am ready to see some block in the ground.

Date night

Josh and I had a date last week.  We met my mom and step-dad in Asheville at Olive Garden for a late lunch and then they took the boys while Josh and I went out. We decided to go see a movie since that is a rarity now days. We saw 'Bad Teacher' with Cameron Diaz... vulgar but funny. We stopped at our favorite Thai restaurant and had thai tea (love this stuff) and shared sushi.  We finished off the evening with a trip to Target.