Tuesday, January 13, 2009

Trip to the Mountains

Here are some photos from our recent trip to the Smoky Mountains with my family for the great birthday bash 2008. This was something that my folks cooked up about a year ago and it was a wonderful time for all of us involved. There were 5 families from all over the country; CA, MS, TN, MO, and VA - 20 people total. It was the first time that we've all been together in a very long time, it was really nice. The Kesler Crew had a blast - it was our first BIG road trip with the boys. All went very well. By the way, if you are interested in vacationing in that area let me know. Our parents have a beautiful cabin there that they would love to rent out to you, so feel free to contact me and I'll put you in touch with the right people. (Papa Al and Yaya, I hope you don't mind that little plug.)
I'm sure that most of you know that we LOVE being outdoors, so this trip was a big treat for us. Shane and I were so looking forward to doing some hiking. We were able to hike to Abrams Fall one day while Yaya and Papa Al watched the boys. Let me tell you, it was WONDERFUL to be outside in nature. Shane and I have been missing it. We discussed as were hiking along that we hiked this same trail almost 9 years ago on a camping trip with Shane's sister Shannon. It was just as beautiful as we remembered! :)
The boys hanging out with Mom on the front porch of the house.
Relaxing with Dad.
Seth (with Yaya)
Paul
Clay
Cades Cove Loop
Some beautiful ice strings that we saw on our hike to Abrams Fall. They looked like sugar ribbon. They were so delicate and pretty.
Shane at Abrams Fall.
What a beautiful day!

Saturday, January 3, 2009

Today is their 1st birthday!!!

Happy 1st Birthday!!!
Paul, Seth, & Clay


I have tried to sit here patiently and write a post that included pictures in honor of Paul, Seth, and Clay's very special first birthday; however, the pictures will have to wait until tomorrow or another day. You all know that I have no patience! ;)

So, I thought that I would post some updates.....

This time of the year has been very bittersweet for my family and I. We were in such a different place last year....all excited and scared. It's hard hard hard to believe that this much time has passed and that we are celebrating my sons birthdays today! Really, where did the time go?

Most of my time is spent running around chasing and taking care of the boys, something I truly LOVE to do - especially when they are being good, which happens to be most of the time!

Here are some updates on each of my guys....we go in for their actual one year check up sometime around the middle of the month. So I will try to post more accurately then.

WE ARE DONE WITH FORMULA!!! Yay!!! We finally got the boys on to plain old whole milk right around Christmas time and they seem to be doing really well with in. Do you know how much $$$ this switch is going to save us? I am now working to completely get them off of baby food. I try to do most of their cooking, but some days I simply just run out of time. I am ready for them to start chewing just a little better so that I can trust them more to eat right. Let me tell you, it is hard to keep a close eye on 3 babies - so the easier things can be sometimes, the better it could be for me!

All of the boys are pulling up. Paul, the man, is the master! He will pull up and walk along anything. I anticipate that he will be the first to walk and that it won't be long! Clay pulls up and gets down very well, but he doesn't move along things so much. He would rather crawl in order to get something he wants. Seth is BUSY! He was the last to pull up, but that's not holding him back. He scoots along things and can army crawl really fast to get what he wants. Seth loves to hang up-side-down and jump around on things. All of them LOVE to jump and hide with all of our pillows. It's the cutest thing!

All of the boys are also jabbering away! I don't know what they are saying, but they are having whole conversations and they seem to know what they are saying. I don't think they understand each other at this point either, but it sure does sound cute!

They all respond very well to each of their names and seem to understand when we ask them to do things. They love being free to roam our house and explore, they are all very curious!

Another post coming soon, I promise!