"Game Day"!

Reilly and Braxton are so funny....they know that Sunday is Panther "Game Day" and they can't WAIT to get all decked out in their Panther jerseys! And they especially like it when Layton wears his!

Black Mountain and Apple Pickin'

Last weekend we took a quick trip up to Black Mountain to visit with Mama Ree. She hadn't met Layton yet and the kids hadn't seen her since May, so we felt like we needed to go! It was a fun time and we definitely enjoyed being in the mountains where the temperatures were getting close to Fall temps! We took the kids to Montreat to play at the park for a while and then had an awesome dinner at My Father's Pizza.

(side note...Shawn is determined to start shooting weddings with me, so he's been doing some practicing with my camera....all of these shots at the park were taken by him! I'd say he did a pretty darn good job!)








Sunday morning we woke up, had a great breakfast, and headed over to Hendersonville to pick some apples! We decided to go to a new orchard this year, different from the one we went to last year. It was huge and very busy!! It was way more commercialized than the small, more hometown feeling one in Morganton that we visit last year, so I think we'll go back to it for our apple orchard trip next year! But, the kids had a blast and we came home with WAY more apples than we intended!! I made 6 loaves of bread right when we got home to give to the kids' teachers and only went through about 12 of the 75ish apples that we have! I've also made homemade applesauce and an apple pie!

LOVE this family picture....however, the downfall of handing a $2000 camera to a stranger even though I thought I had all the settings right for them, is that they don't realize when it's NOT IN FOCUS! ugh!! Such a pretty view...too bad we are all blurry!

After we did as much picking as we could, we then indulged on more apple products that I thought possible! We had a quick sandwich, and then enjoyed an apple cider slushie, WARM apple cinnamon donuts, a fresh sliced apple with warm carmel dip, and a jug of cold apple cider (basically like fresh "sqeezed" apples!).

Labor Day- O.I.B.

I'm not gonna lie, I was a bit nervous about how our 2nd, and last, beach trip of the summer was going to go. With an 8 week old who is not the best napper and who had never traveled before, the need to bring two pack-n-plays since Braxton is not out of a crib yet, and the temptation to just rent a U-Haul to make it easier than puzzle-packing the truck with all that was required for this 4 day trip, I was a little skeptical about things! After we literally packed up the whole house, and beach supplies, we got to Memama's house right at 2:45 Thursday afternoon. All three kids did awesome in the car and Layton slept almost the entire way down! Shawn took Reilly and Braxton straight to the beach for a quick stay while I stayed back to feed Layton and let him nap in a bed instead of a carseat. We had our traditional dinner at Sharkys with Memama to "kick off" the weekend, where Shawn got his routine flounder sandwich a ice cold corona and I got my routine grilled chicken sandwich with fries; yes, I food from the land vs food from the water :) The trip started out a little bumpy with Reilly complaining of a headache, throwing up twice, and sleeping most of the afternoon on day 2, all the while I was in the ER with Layton for an extremely high fever, running every test possible with all results being negative. We did hit the beach for a couple hours Friday morning before all the sickness started, but most of the day Friday was a complete wash. But we more than made up for it on Saturday when we hit the beach with DeeDee and Poppi and Uncle Brandon and Aunt Angel for a few hours. Shawn grilled some mean hamburgers on the charcoal Saturday night and we all just hung out! Sunday was the best beach day ever. We stayed on the beach for 5 hours! I don't think I have ever been on the beach that long, and I know my children have never made it longer than 3 hours before. We all had so.much.fun. The kids played and played, we got Sunset Slushies, the kids rode the waves, we had a big football throwing game going, we barried Cooper in the sand up to his neck, we built sandcastles, Braxton pretended to take a rest several times but never sat still for more than a few minutes or else he really would have fallen asleep, and Memama even stayed out for most of the day with us! We finally all headed in around 6:15 when we realized it was dinner time! It was such a perfect day. The weather could not have been better...mid 80's all day and not a cloud in the sky. It was a great trip and other than our rough start on Friday, we had a blast! Thanks Meam, for always opening your home to ALL OF OUR STUFF....and all of us :)

all Reilly talked about leading up to the trip was building a sand castle...

Braxton's FAVORITE was dumping a bucket over and then yelling at the top of his lungs, "I made san-casl!!!!!" He was so proud....every single time.

Uncle Brandon was the best "wave-jumper" and "deep water taker" ever!!

1st time riding the waves! They both LOVED it!

(I promise we have bathing suits on....even though we both look like we're naked in this picture!)

DeeDee lovin' on baby L

B was such a trooper!! He didn't nap once the whole trip b/c we were out on the beach so much and he did so great. He was covered from head to toe with sand, but he just kept on going!

Memama (great-grandma) hanging with Layton in the shade.

Layton is 2 months (and 1 week!)

Layton had his 2month well check yesterday and I'm not surprised to say that he is 13 pounds and 2 ounces! He is continuing on track to be my biggest baby! He's at 75%tile for weight and height (23.75"). It's so funny to see his chunky little legs since I don't think Reilly and Braxton ever got rolls on their bodies as a baby! After the scare we had a couple weeks ago that landed us in the emergency room for 7 hours with our little guy due to a fever of 101.6 that lead to x-rays, blood work, urine samples, IVs, antibiotics, and him turning whiter than the bed sheet he was lying on, I'm grateful for all 13.2 pounds of his chunky self!! He has the yucky baby acne mixed with some eczema on his face right now.....every baby goes through it, I guess!! :(

I have NO idea how I caught this next expression, but it cracks.me.up everytime I look at it!!

Pictures of "Mommy +kids"!!

I had a very sad realization the other week. Braxton's preschool teacher asked us to send in a picture of me and him together to put in the classroom so in case he was sad during these first weeks of school, he could go look at the picture of us and it would comfort him. As I was looking through our 5,000 pictures of family things, I literally could not find ONE picture of just me and Braxton, much less one of me with ANY of my children by myself. Really? Is that possible that I seriously am that concerned about capturing the moment that I don't ever GET IN THE MOMENT myself? That was a really hard realization for me to consider that my children will not have near as many pictures of themselves with mommy because I'm always behind the camera. So, I am committed to being IN pictures with my kids now!! And, coincidentally, my good photographer friend came to town this week and just so happen to teach me a little trick to allow me to get in front the camera while it automatically snaps a shot every second for as many frames as I set!! How cool is that?? So I've been playing with this new little feature today and was able to get some fun pictures of me with my kids! They may not be the most perfect pictures, but I am with my children and it's captured forever, and that's the point :)