Major Catch Up!

I don't know if I've ever gone this long without updating my blog! Although this blog began as a way for me to allow friends and family that we don't see very often to keep up with our activities, it has become a way for me to journal and document our day to day lives. I used to love scrapbooking, but have not had time for that in quite a while, so blogging has become my scrapbook! Therefore, I need to catch up on the last month and I want you to be warned......this is going to be a long one! I'll begin with April 24th which was Will's half birthday. (The real one, this time!) I made chocolate cupcakes with white icing and my intention was for Will to have a "do-over" from his first birthday when he freaked out and wouldn't have anything to do with his smash cake! Well, not much has changed, and he still didn't want to eat any icing or cake and basically was totally hands off!

Just a fun picture that was taken sometime in the last month of Will in the "corn box"! We decided to fill the sand box with corn this year and it has been a big hit! Will loves it! Now, I do have corn EVERYWHERE, but it is better than having sand everywhere! He is such a happy boy!
Another sweet memory from the last month. I asked Beckett to go outside and read a chapter book to Helen and this is how they got set up. It was so sweet. He read the whole book to her. He would show her the pictures and they would just laugh and laugh!

About two weeks ago, Nashville and it's surrounding communities experienced terrible flooding. Many lives were lost and people's homes and businesses were ruined. The damage has been horrible. My mom and dad live right outside of Nashville and they have a river that runs through their backyard. We grew up playing in it and it is usually more like a creek than a river. Occasionally it would rise up out of the banks and come up in the backyard a little bit, but not often. However, on May 1st, dad called me and told me that they had water all the way in the front yard and up the street. Within an hour of that phone call, firemen came to their front door and evacuated them from their home in canoes because they could not get to their cars and they could not see the roads to drive on. It all happened so fast! Fortunately, the water did not get in the house, but it did flood their rec room. They had converted the garage into a rec room over 20 years ago. So Sean and I spent a couple of days that week helping them clean out the rec room and the little storage barn in the backyard. Fortunately, they have a covered carport and they were able to move everything out there so they could tear up the carpet and the baseboards. The bottom 2 feet of dry wall and insulation had to be torn out and is all being replaced. I didn't take any pictures except this one of their carport with everything under it. I also took it at night, so it isn't a very good picture. So many lives have been affected by this flooding. Mom and dad were very fortunate and their loss was minimal compared to so many others. We are very thankful that they were able to get out of their home that evening and that they were safe and dry!

The kids stayed with Sean's mom and dad while we went to help my mom and dad. (Thanks, Nana and Papa!) We had really missed them, so we decided to go to the mountains on Friday! This is a picture of the kids having lunch beside the river. They couldn't wait to get in!

It wasn't long before they were all in the water! Here is a picture of them posing with Sean.

And of course, Sean was fly-fishing while we were there! I got this cute pic of him showing Will his fly rod! Won't be long before they are fishing together!

We had to get in a bit of school that day, so we took Beckett's math book and he completed a few pages. He wasn't too happy about it, but I think he knows that he's got it pretty good. When I reminded him that not too many kids get to work on their daily assignments while sitting beside a beautiful stream in the mountains, he had a quick attitude change!

I loved this picture of Beckett and Will playing together! I caught them as they were laughing at each other. These two are quite a pair and Will really loves "Beh Beh"! Beckett is a great big brother! (And that is a colorful band-aid on Will's head.) He took a spill off of a tricycle and had a pretty big gash on his forehead, but it is much better now!

The next day, Helen and I went BACK to mom and dad's house to help with more clean-up. We were able to clean up a bunch more and also go to a craft fair at Centennial Park which was a nice break for mom! On Sunday, which was Mother's Day, my sister, Susi drove in from Atlanta and we had a nice lunch with mom! Helen and I left after lunch and Susi stayed for a couple of days and helped mom and dad pick out new paint and new carpet for the rec room. It is coming together well.Here is a picture of mom with her daughters and grandaughter!

I loved this sweet pic of mom with Helen! She loves Grankaki!

Helen also loves Susi and Susi's I-Phone! Beckett wasn't there to have to share the I-Phone time, so she enjoyed playing with all of Susi's "apps"! She was hanging out in the hammock with Susi and concentrating hard on a game!

We've been back home this past week and back into our routines which includes baseball! Here is a picture of Beckett with the game ball from Thursday night's game and Helen in her Marlins jersey with the boys!

Sean's brother Josh and his wife Kathy went to NYC for a few days and their kiddos stayed for us one night! We loved having Ty and Marley here for a night and day! Here they are enjoying fudge popsicles in the corn box!

Another cute one of the cousins in the wagon!

And last, I'm posting two cute videos. This first one is of Helen singing her special Mother's Day song to me. We enjoyed our mother/daughter trip to Brentwood and yes, I took this video as we were driving on the interstate, but it was all very safe! :)


And this video was from the other morning when I took Helen to Mother's Day Out. The boys always stay in their pajamas and wait for me to drop her off. This particular morning, they were listening to their I-Pod's. (Except Will's isn't an I-Pod, but he doesn't know that his is any different than Beckett's!) It is one ear phone and it plays N-Sync's song "Bye, Bye, Bye". Will was singing it over and over, but he wouldn't sing when the camera started rolling. Instead, you have to hear me sounding goofy, but Will just looked too cute in this video so I had to share!