WW Update

For those of you that aren't aware ... Eric has been working really hard and doing a great job losing weight. I have finally gotten the opportunity to take a picture of him minus the 30+ lbs! He's got 10 more pounds to go. Keep up the good work!!

Easter Weekend

I'm a little late on this one, but better late than never. Well, we decided at the last minute to go down to the Smokey Mountains for an Easter weekend getaway. Notice that I called it a getaway and not a vacation ... nothing with two young kids is a vacation!!! Anyway, we decided to go down to the Gatlinburg, TN area with our good friends Brian and Denise Dewes and their little guy Braeden. It took us about 8 hours to drive down there (in two car affectionately named "big bear" and "little bear"). The drive down wasn't too bad. Dayton took his normal nap and we stopped for a while for dinner. Dayton was a handful, though, because he doesn't want to sit once we take him out. Anyway, we eventually got to the cabin at about 10pm. We rented a 3 bedroom cabin ... here it is from the outside.

34 steps from the bottom to the top ... Dayton counted every time! Well, he counted to 20 then Mommy or Daddy counted ;-)

So our first full day was a bit rough. None of the kids slept well the previous night. Dayton got up about 3am and was raring to go. Two hours or so later, we finally got him back down. Brian and Denise had similar problems with Braeden so it wasn't until about 3pm on Friday 'til we finally got moving. We decided to take a "hike" up to see Laurel Falls. And by hike, I mean push three strollers about a mile up a paved path. Got our exercise! Here are some pics from the top!



That about sums up day one. I can't really remember how the sleeping went the second night but we were in much better shape Saturday. It was very nice out so we decided to do some exploring around our cabin. Our cabin was actually called "The Lodge Between the Streams", so there were two nice little streams to follow. Dayton had a ball and it was the first time that Carson spent any real time outside. Everyone did great!



After our hike, Dayton and I relaxed a bit in the hot tub that was on our deck. It took a bit of convincing to get him in but once we did, he loved it. We cut the temperature down to about 99 so it was just like a bubble bath for him!

Saturday night the kids all slept great!!!! It was a minor miracle :-) The mommies and daddies even got about two hours of hot tub / margarita time all to themselves!!! So Easter Sunday we were all feeling pretty good. The Dewes' were good and went to church ... Eric and I chickened out and elected to take the boys to a playground that we found instead (it's hard enough to take Dayton to a church we are familiar with ... couldn't imagine trying an unfamiliar one). Dayton had fun at the park and tuckered himself out enough to take a good nap for us. Once he woke up, and the little ones were fed, we decided to check out the aquarium in Gatlinburg. It was the coldest day of the weekend so it was a good day for it. Dayton for the most part just ran around like a little maniac. Here he is in the discovery area ... for those of you that know my son ... of course he fell in love with the big steering wheel!

Here we all are ready to go through the gift shop and get out of there! All in all, it was a nice aquarium and we had fun.

We ended up waiting until Braeden and Dayton went to bed to eat our Easter dinner. While the boys were out getting the grill ready, Carson napped in the swing. I'm not sure what he was dreaming about but I think a time out was in order ;-)

Here was dinner (pre-grill) ...

A huge thanks to Brian for getting fanatic fillets for dinner! They were awesome ... we all stuffed ourselves and then treated ourselves to some really yummy smores too!

Then it was off to bed (a miserable night). All 3 boys slept for crap so we were all dragging pretty bad Monday morning. Its always fun to drive 8 hours on a great night's sleep. Anyway, I thought I would share a pic of the pool table in our place ... Brian played one game on it. It was mostly used for this purpose, as well as a changing table. Ha!

All in all we had a really nice get-away. Thanks for putting up with us Dewes' we had fun as usual!

EE in the making?

Oh no ... he's got the knack!

Eric would be so proud! What you can't tell is that Dayton is "reading" Digital Filters and Signal Processing.

Go Daddy Go

Well, I'm not sure if Eric would appreciate this or not, but I wanted to post this because I'm so proud of him. Eric is doing great with his weight loss. He's lost over 26 pounds and still going strong!!! I'll have to post a picture of him. He looks great! I'm going to have to keep my eye on him when we're in Jamaica this summer!

GNO

Last Friday evening I had my first Girls Night Out since Carson was born!!! It would have been great had Eric not had so much trouble with Carson. Well, I'll recap the night for you ... I picked up Kelley Kearney around 5:15 and headed to Chili's to meet Denise, Karen, and Brenda. So far so good. We needed to kill an hour before our movie started so we got some chips and cheese dip and splurged on some Presidente Margaritas (yummy)! Then we headed to the theater to see "The Other Boleyn Girl". The movie was really good until about half way through when I got a text from Eric that Carson wouldn't stop crying and that he was struggling getting him to take the bottle. After getting in trouble for texting during the movie, I decided to go out and give him a call. Well, needless to say, Eric was about ready to lose it and was looking for any advice on how to get Carson to stop crying. I gave him a couple of things to try but my movie was now already ruined since my mind was completely on my screaming child. Once the movie was over, I called home to find out that he had finally stopped crying! Yay ... unfortunately, I was getting in trouble again at the theater for having my feet up ... Oh geez. Eric thought that it might have been gas. Anyway, I asked if he wanted me to come home but thankfully Eric said no. So from there, we proceeded to Outback for dinner. Oh, I guess that was after Karen scored us each a free movie pass because the movie wasn't completely fit to the screen right and we couldn't read the couple of lines at the very end of the movie to see what became of each character. Thanks Karen!!! By the time I got home, Dayton was in bed and Carson was finally sleeping in his swing. Daddy looked like he needed a couple of Presidente's!!!! All in all it was a much needed night out for mommy. Thanks ladies ... we'll have to do it again next month!

Big Boy!

Last night my big boy slept in his big boy bed for the first time! I am so proud of him. We've been asking him for weeks if he wants to sleep in his big boy bed and every time he would answer "no" and go to his crib. Last night be didn't say anything when I asked him. So we read his books like we usually do and then I told him to put his head on the pillow and mommy would lie next to him. Before you knew it he was asleep (and so was I)! When I got up to leave, he woke up but I told him to lay back down and he didn't put up a fight. He slept through the whole night and woke up happy this morning at 7am! He was cute when I went in after he called for me this morning. He was just sitting there by the pillows happy as could be. I am just so proud of him. I couldn't resist taking this picture to capture the event!


Since I was taking pictures of sleeping children, here's one of Carson too!

Is spring getting close?

Man ... I sure hope so. We definitely got a taste of it yesterday. Eric and I noticed that our outdoor thermometer was reading in the upper 50's so we decided to take the boys out for a walk! It was a little taste of heaven. We even took Carson out for his very first outdoor walk. He really seemed to enjoy it ... he sure did a lot of smiling! And of course Dayton loved it! Unfortunately today its raining and can you believe they want it to get cold enough tonight for it to change over to ice and snow? AAARRRGGGHHH!!!! The high for Friday is supposed to be in the low 20's. All I can say is if March comes in like a lion I sure hope it goes out like a lamb (and fast).

Friday night fun!

So we went over to the Kearney's again on Friday night. This time we went back to our normal take out dinner instead of venturing out like we did for Valentine's Day. We did get all wild and crazy though ... instead of Don Poncho's, we opted for Outback! They did a good job except that they forgot my salad :-( Oh well, Eric let me share his (what a nice hubby) and it wasn't like we didn't have enough food otherwise. The boys actually behaved pretty well through dinner. Eric fed Dayton his beefaroni and banana while Carson hung out in his bouncy seat. Then Dayton actually started eating Evan's hot dog! I can't get him to eat a hot dog unless I virtually mince it up and hide it in his mac and cheese. Oh well, I guess it tastes better when you steal it from your friends! After dinner we kept the boys busy for quite a while playing with all of Ethan's trains. Sure takes up a lot of space though ...



... and this was before Kelley had Ethan's all set up! The fun didn't end there. As we got close to bed time the boys started doing anything they could to keep from having to go to bed.
Dayton escaped just after a diaper change.



Fortunately Evan caught him ... we think Evan was trying to convice him that it was time for a colonoscopy?? After the short examination of Dayton's rear end, they decided to play a concert for us ...



Finally all four boys made it to bed and the grown-ups got to watch an entire movie while drinking mommy and daddy juice! Thanks Kearney's we had another great evening!