Photo Journal

I need to post some pictures and journal a few things. I might just have to post the pictures with short explanations. I've been SUPER busy lately, mostly with photo shoots- which is AWESOME, but haven't had a lot of time to blog.

This was at Stake Conference for Church and they had a musical number by the choir and anytime there is a musical number at church Ben always wants to watch. He likes to stand up and watch and listen and usually will stay up the WHOLE song with out distraction! (Although in this picture he was obviously distracted because he wasn't looking forward!)

Ben really enjoys hanging out with Miss Aubrey. He gets REALLY excited to see her and even agreed to hold her hand as we were all coming out of the restaurant from dinner the other night. He's going to have a lot of girls to worry about one day I fear!

This was just a cute shot I got of him sleeping!

At this moment in time I felt like EVERYONE (except for Ryan) needed to be on me. Not that I mind...

We went to Piedmont Park for a family sitting I was doing. It might not have been the greatest idea for the whole family to come in retrospect, but we still managed to have some fun in the HOT, HOT miserable heat!

Ben had his 2 1/2 year check up. He's so TINY! He only gained a pound and maybe like half and inch. He's in the 3-5th %tile for height and 10th for weight. He's still wearing 18-24 month pants, but his torso keeps getting longer, just like his daddy's. He got an extra sticker from Dr. Greenwald for using the big boy potty while we were there!

We got to visit with some old friends of ours, Joel & Keely Robinson. We knew them in the singles ward at church and they now live far, far away in Virginia. I haven't seen them in FOREVER, so we headed to Mellow Mushroom to visit with them and their cute little girl. It was a good visit!
Ally really loves to hide under the bed. We mostly see her tail sticking out, but this was too cute to pass up.

Ashley and Jacob have recently acquired a toddler bed for us to use. We have not brought it home to put up yet, but... uh... we plan on it soon. Ben calls it the "school bus bed". It even has a sunroof! LUCKY! I think he'll enjoy it, we just need to figure out where the heck to put it!

Two Saturdays ago we went to see Sesame Street Live at Philips Arena, courtesy of free tickets from my work! SCORE! Ben was mesmerized! More to come on that... as soon as I find the little camera with the photos on it!

We got to stop for TCBY after! Our A/C was out ALL that weekend so we did everything NOT at home that we possibly could because it was SO HOT. The frozen yogurt was refreshing and a treat Ben doesn't normally get, so it was fun.

The Elton's let us borrow their fish tank. We bought 3 fish and by approval of Ben named them Ham, Goomba and Betty. We're down 2 and still have Goomba currently, although I'm not sure how much longer he's going to stick around. We think the weekend with no A/C made the water too warm and some kind of bad bacteria must've dun dem in. Ryan was heart broken... they're his first fish. (Insert sad face here)

Sweet Memories

So today marks 6 months since my big sister Shauna passed. I sure have missed her. I have lots of really neat dreams though where I've gotten to hug her and tell her I miss and love her and either it's just my way of coping or her way of coming to comfort me. I'd like to hope it's the later. I have a lot of thoughts about it... I'm not sure how to write them out though. It's still terribly hard. I still cry a lot. I still think about her everyday, and how I could've been a better sister and friend to her. I wonder what it's like where she is, and if she feels loved. I wonder if she watches our family and watches over us and knows how much we feel a vacancy with out her here with us on this Earth. It's so weird to send emails with pictures of Ben to everyone, except for Shauna. I can't delete her phone number out of my phone or her address out of my address book... it's too hard. Every once in a while, Facebook shows her profile as someone I am recommended to reach out to... man, if I could I WOULD! I really miss hearing her call me her "Little One". I miss how she used to laugh and get tickled when I sang to her "I'm gonna beat you up, beat you up, beat YOU UUUUUPPPP-ah!" She loved that. I have little torn up pink sticky notes in my blue recipe book she went through once to choose some recipes that I refuse to take out. I have her funeral program in two places in my house and a photo of the two of us I gave her that her partner Randi gave back to me in the family room. I just miss her, period. And it sucks she's gone. Randi sent me a package of letters and pictures I sent to Shauna over the years that she saved. She saved EVERYTHING. I haven't even been able to bring my self to look at them yet. I had Ryan put them away for me until I can muster up the strength to do it with out crying my eyes out.
Reminder to myself... PLEASE, PLEASE don't take your family for granted. Tell them you love them, often. Be their friend. Know what is going on in their lives. Be kind. Be understanding and Christ-like and non-judgemental. You never know when Heavenly Father will decide to bring them back to be with him and leave you with their memory. Make the best of the time you have with them NOW.

A Child's Prayer

(Ben in his church clothes. He was SO handsome, he even thought so because he kept checking himself out in the mirror!)

Last night after dinner was prepared I peered over the counter to my husband sitting at the table waiting to eat, and my little dude sitting in his high chair to the right of him (not) waiting to eat. And I said "okay, let's bless the food" I asked Ryan and Ben I guess decided I was asking him and I asked him if he wanted to bless the food and he said yes. He folded his arms and squinted his eyes and covered them up with his folded arms- and said VERY quietly "Heavenly Father (in two year old accent)..." and then proceeded to mumble some words like "pweese" and "bless" and some other incomprehensibly cute things. I had to help him out a little bit, but he finished it up with a great big "AMEN". It wasn't his first "prayer", but it was different this time because he did it all almost by himself and he wanted to and he knew how... It was SO adorable, and it put a big gigantic smile on my face and a melody in my heart-and I felt so proud of my little 2 1/2 year old BOY who is growing up so very quickly before my eyes. I am so grateful he is in our lives. I am so grateful for the way he learns so quickly and loves his family. He's going to be a good man one day and I know it's because he has a wise spirit in that tiny little body.

Thundering Waters Labor Day

Well, Labor Day weekend has come and gone and it's officially not summer anymore. I guess it's Autumn now? Because it's not quite Fall to me yet. It's still very green and HOT. It's supposed to be in the 90's this week, so to me- it's Fall yet.

We had a fun Labor Day weekend this year. It seems in the past that we usually try and make it to the beach one last time before it gets too cold to go and enjoy it. But that didn't happen this year. We decided to go to the Thundering Waters cabin we have loved to rent the last year or so with everyone. It's so inexpensive (even though it sounds like it wouldn't be), and homey, and relaxing, and not a long drive away from home. We're all familiar with it now and feel like we have a place there. I wont go into too much detail about what we did, because in reality it wasn't much. But that's what was nice. We did have the opportunity this time to get in the Chattahoochee River and play though because it is still nice and warm out. We've only ever been in winter so it's always been too cold to go. When we got there Ryan spotted some abandoned tubes (used from a local tubing company) on the rocks below the house by the rapids. I would like to hope that they floated away and down stream and that no one got hurt and left them. Anyway- we got there Friday night and then Saturday we went out to the river so Ryan could "rescue" them. I only got in to my feet that time, Ben wanted to go in so we just took his socks and shoes and shorts off. Later that day, after Ben's nap and after playing some games and waiting on Clint and Geoff to arrive- we all suited up and went down to play. It was us, the Terry's, Jennifer and the aforementioned gentlemen. :) We all had fun, it was refreshing and there was lots of fun rapids and water falls to go down. Ben had a good time too. We rested Sunday, mostly played games and Wii and then Monday we (me and all the boys) went out to play in the river again. Jennifer took lots of pictures for us. Ryan took Ben down a couple times and he LOVED it. He giggled and smiled and had so much fun. He played in the sand a lot too. The boys all went down the rapids sans the tubes too, we got some funny face pictures from that! Anyway, we had fun as always up there. Fun group, relaxing, cozy, good food, good times. Oh and the weather was PERFECT. AND I didn't get sick this time. I usually always have something when we're there. Although, Ryan didn't have a lot of good luck because he fell up some stairs and then down some others! Poor guy.

I also saw this as an opportunity to spend some quality time with Ben on his potty training. He was a ROCKSTAR! Well, he already is in my opinion but he did really well. I'm still not comfortable with putting him in straight up undies all the time, but we're getting there. He's still having accidents in his pants, so we're keeping either diapers or pull ups on still.

But, we have had a WONDERFULLY fun Summer and I now we'll have a wonderfully fun Fall and (hopefully) Winter too!