A Good Long Post.

Well...hello long lost friends. A May to August hiatus wasn't exactly planned - it just happened. I'll do my best to recap and add some pics in to sweeten the deal. ;)

May (the rest of the month):

We moved out of our old house and into the new. No matter how prepared you *think* you are moving, forget about it. Jason spent almost an all-nighter getting the random odds and ends out of our house the night before we had to be out. Settling into the new house wasn't too bad. I spent Memorial Day weekend unpacking while Jason went to the lake to unwind.

June:

One week after moving in, we spent a lovely vacation in Seagrove Beach with my entire family (13 adults and 6 kids under 3). Thankfully the oil did not make an appearance during out time at the beach. We all had a great time. Found a great rental - one giant house with two separate sides connecting in the family room/kitchen. A shared pool was out back and this is where we spent quite a bit of our time. Kennedy was completely fearless and LOVED the ocean! Allie enjoyed her time poolside under an umbrella bouncing and snoozing. We did go out to eat a couple of nights and the girls did pretty well. Vacations definitely take on new meaning these days.

Other June news... met with my boss and it went really well. I'll be returning to work as a part-time employee. I feel like I'll be enjoying the best of both worlds! Still a month left before kissing my sweeties bye-bye three times a week.

Made my first road trip to Memphis with both girls by myself! Eeek was that nerve-wracking. Up to this point little Allie had her moments in her car seat. Sometimes she was a-ok other times she wailed her little head off. Thankfully the ride to and from was smooth. On the way back we got off at our exit right at Allie's bottle time so I stopped and the Flying J. That was interesting and definitely a mom of 2 moment! Fed Allie on a little bench outside of the restrooms near the trucker's restaurant while Kennedy played with some lovely souvenir license plates with the A-Z names on them. Then had to head into the bathroom to change K who decided that was a great place to fill her diaper! ;) Good times.

July:

We headed to the lake to visit Jason's family for the 4th. Kennedy went on her first boat ride and got to play in the most adorable playhouse that Jason's mom and aunt played in when they were little. It's all fixed up with a table, chairs, baby crib & high chair (it even has electricity). Definitely a little girls dream! :)

July also marked Kennedy's 2nd birthday!! I really can't believe it. We had a great family party at home - it was low-key and wonderful. I've been taking some notes on Kennedy @2...

• a few funny words - froggit for frog (a mix of frog & ribbit i suspect), weeweeder for weed eater (yes she knows the difference between that and a lawn mower)
• always says "my" instead of "I" (my do it...)
• can count to 10 and is learning her colors (she gets pink right every time~)
• really into being "scared" (a monster/tiger/big bad wolf is coming!)
• loves dora and ming-ming (really obsessed with wonder pets)
• did i mention obsessed? she cannot stop reading/watching/talking about the 3 little pigs. this all started when Aunt Ashley was pretending the be the big bad wolf a month or so ago
• just started "reading" some of her books. a few of my favorites are monster at the end of this book, baby bear, baby bear. absolutely the cutest thing you have ever heard - must try to catch it on video
• not so easy to video and take pictures of these days... running around crazy most of the time
• tends to cry when things aren't going her way and is slightly into mommy - "i want mommy" is heard many, many times a day - hoping this is all just a part of being 2 because most of the time she is the sweetest little thing in the world! love her to pieces!!

Went to a good friend's wedding in Knoxville. We had a great time and the girls spent time with the grandparents. Finished July off with a trip to Lake Burton with all the Nashville family. Another boat ride for Kennedy and some swim time in the lake (she often says Blake - which is my cousins name).

Almost forgot - we had summer camp each week in July and I went back to work! Summer schedule is T/W/Th which was pretty crazy to pull off since we weren't used to being out the door, and especially by 8:30 am! I'm enjoying being back at work just to give myself a little sense of purpose and life in the adult world.

August:

This month I've been trying to focus on more house stuff. We finally got our new sofa and rug for the family room, got a new side table so I've been ordering curtains like crazy and trying to get plans in my head for other rooms. It's definitely going to be a long process, but I feel like we are making some major strides to a lived-in look. I'll take pics sometime soon to share.

And not to forget our little one... Allie is about to be 5 months old. whoa. She is super sweet and babbles quite a bit. She loves her exersaucer and smiles often. Allie loves her big sister the most and giggles and smiles when Kennedy is being her entertaining self (sometimes she can be doing nothing at all). No major rolling or anything - soon I'm sure.

Our 5th wedding anniversary is coming up...hard to believe my only concerns back then were flowers for my bouquet and how to style my hair!! Things have certainly changed since then. Life is just super busy and crazy these days. It's been hard to balance the mom, wife, home, job worlds. I get pretty stressed some days - par for the course I'm sure. I really don't want to wish away the baby days too quickly. I know they'll be gone soon and I'll long for them again. Life is good and if I can just remember to live in the moments and try my best to be a good mom, wife, home maker (did i seriously just use that term?) and employee then hopefully my mind will settle down. All I can do is try my best. I'm definitely not super mom. ;)

And now that I've probably posted one of the longest entries ever, I'm going to attempt to have a goal for the blog. One pic, one story, one entry per week. Surely with my insane life there will be something funny to talk about at least once a week. Nap time is a wonderful time to sit, reflect and blog! Sooo thankful for my two napping babies!

Update: Now we've reached the end of August and my blog post was still sitting pretty in the unpublished mode. I blame the pictures. It's so hard to keep up with them and get the 500+ pics narrowed down and into the blog. To end my blog drought I'll add some new pics when I get a chance - you get through the beginning of July. :) Allie is now 5 months, we celebrated our 5th anniversary (and by celebrate I mean Jason went to the race at Bristol and celebrated my sweet niece Kylie's birthday in Memphis - sadly the actual anniversary day was not spent together), Kennedy has become slightly less whiny for mommy, the girls go back to school next week, and plenty other regular life stuff has happened. I'll do my best to make the blog a somewhat higher priority - not so hard to do since apparently it's at the end of my list... I do love blogging and I love having a place to put my favorite pics and thoughts on life - I just can't use FB that way for some reason.

Hugs and hope the summer brought you wonderful memories. Until next time...