Birthday Boys

Happy Birthday AJ and Jim! Ok, so I'm a few days late, but they are still one year older. Their birthdays are a few days apart, but it was nice to celebrate them together. Jim is 30 yrs older than AJ. Can anyone guess how old they are? The candles were melting in the birthday cake, so we decided to sing to them while they just held the candles. I know, you have to wait for the cake to cool before inserting candles. But we were all so eager to get our lips around the delicious cake. I'm not a huge cake fan, but I must say this is one of the best cakes I have had. Anyone care for butterscotch? I stole a recipe from a friend because this is AJ's favorite.

We went on our first official date without Ari for AJ's birthday. All he wanted was to go see Harry Potter. We ended up having time for some dinner afterwards. A movie for two, popcorn and drink at the movie, and a dinner all less than $7. Now that's my kind of date. We had been given a movie package before Ari was born and never used it until now. I think it was 2 or 3 years since we had been to the movies. No joke. The outrageous prices for a few hours of entertainment is beside me. Even with a FREE pass it was hard finding a decent movie worth using up. That's a whole subject of its own, so I will spare you anymore feelings I have on the topic.

Last week we visited my cousin. She had her baby the same weekend as everybody else at church. Four new babies in one weekend! I think that is some kind of record. Definitely gives me the bug for another one! But until then, I'll just have to suffice with holding everyone else's. That is if Heidi will share : )

It was interesting to see how Ari would react to another baby, especially with me holding him. I must say he was very curious and interested after he realized I was paying attention to someone else. Here he is pulling on baby Nolan's shirt after he pet his head a few times.

9 months

Mr. Personality has made an appearance folks! If you haven't seen him in action, then you are missing out. He screams with joy and excitement at every new thing he does. Once he's figured something out, then that's all he is interested in doing. No, that one particular thing is not crawling. But he does have a fascination with standing and pulling himself up. He almost loves his cheerios as much as standing. Also a new found thing. And I must say that Annie is thrilled with him eating cheerios on his own too. (She already knows to find them squished tightly in his hand, but can get them out by tickling his hand with her tongue.) Shame on us for thinking it was too cute to stop. Annie might be getting more cheerios than we care to know!

Here he is playing tug-of-war with Annie.


Another new thing...digging in mommy's purse!


And I must say he was proud to find a granola bar.


This next picture wouldn't happen to give that away...


And swinging away...


Weeeeeeeee!!

Someday I need to figure out how to put a video up. His laugh is contagious and looking at this last picture I can just hear him now!

Ari's favorite things

It's funny how one week can just fly by like it never even happened. One week is just long enough to forget about reality back home, but not long enough to actually miss home. However, it was easier leaving this time knowing that I will be back in sunny Florida in 7 weeks to visit the grandparents. Yay!

AJ snapped this while fishing, isn't it awesome!? He says it was much larger in person, at least 3 ft wide.

More splashing in the ocean...

One of the few pics he is looking at the camera outside...it was usually too sunny

AJ would hold him high in the air and run up and down the beach. Ari just cracked up the whole time.

One of the few family photos...

Greasy baby and wild hair! He actually got a pretty good tan. You can tell by the white skin in between his rolls!

For some reason he would fold himself in half to look over and stare at the floor. Even when we tipped him back he would stay like that!

Already loves football...hmm...wonder where he gets that from?

He absolutely loved his floaty! By the end he was kicking himself around the pool and blowing bubbles in the water.
And of course...a sleepy baby on the beach.

Lots of food

So besides the beach, what else is there to do on vacation? Eat, of course! Lots of seafood and ice cream in one week. With fourteen of us we usually had to wait 40-60 minutes every night to go eat out. One night we waited 1 1/2 hours to eat at Fudpucker's. Yes, we're slightly crazy. But in the end it was totally worth it.

Fudpucker's is known for visitors writing on the walls, or any place they can reach. So here are a few places AJ made us known.

They are also known for their live aligators...


A random barrel?

Us waiting patiently (or not so patiently)...that's my sister and mom. You can see all the writing on the wall behind them. That's how every wall and ceiling was.

And a random picture, not of us eating. AJ and I have a friend from college who we had not seen in a year. She travels all over the world for her job which makes it difficult to get to see her. Well she just happened to be on vacation in Destin the week we were there so I had to snap a photo for proof! Jenn is great and I'm so glad she finally got to see Ari. Thanks for visiting us!

Fresh Fish, Anyone?

There's nothing fresher than going and catching your own meal!

Charter fishing was AJ's most fun thing on vacation. It was an early morning starting at 5am but ending with some delicious eats! Here they are bait fishing- the crew takes you out to catch your bait, then you go and use that to catch the larger fish.

These are some of the guys who went fishing. AJ, Wil, Mark, and Mark Alan. We were all on vacation together, long time family-friends! Nine out of the fourteen of us went fishing.

This was what took place when they were breaking. Doesn't look like much of a break to me! My brother is on the left and Clay is on the right. I won't tell you who won!

Pulling up a red snapper...


Two of the fish that were caught...I guess they are kissing?

Here is all the fish caught in one days work. Or should I say play? They caught red snapper, amberjack, grouper, and a bonita. Bonita is not for eats, but the rest is absolutely delicious. After they were all cleaned, we ended up with 60 lbs. of meat. I'd say that's pretty darn good!

Fun in the Sun

I'm a slacker. It's only my second posting for July. But I promise to make it up these next few days. Last week we were in Destin and the one thing I forgot to pack was my camera adapter for the computer. Yes, it's my lame excuse for not posting anything. So without further ado...

Taking a walk on the beach the first night...

First time in the sand!

Having fun in the waves!

Having fun with daddy!

With daddy in front of the house...


More pictures to come...stay tuned!

8 Months

I'm ashamed for my lack of posting. But to be completely honest I have been forgetting to take pictures and I really didn't want to post 8 Months without any pictures. I even spaced taking pictures over this past 4th of July weekend!

Despite my absent mind, we really haven't been up to a whole lot in order to take pictures. We are still without air and will be going on vacation in a week, so mostly getting things done we need to before we head out.

Enough about us though...


Ari is such a little man already. Even though he doesn't walk or even crawl yet, he has so much personality. Definitely takes after his daddy in so many ways! On another note (Heidi)...Ari has had lots of problems the last two weeks with constipation. After six days he finally went this weekend. HOORAY! Never thought I could get so excited about that. It had been so long I thought I would forget how to change a poopy diaper. Ok, so maybe too many details, but I was going out of my mind worrying about his little body.


So far he has had peas, green beans, sweet potatoes, carrots, cereal, pears, peaches, prune juice, and a little bit of a popsicle. He has liked every bit of it too!

He stands very well by himself if he is holding on to something. Still wants nothing to do with crawling. He just cries if we try. However, this past week his motivation to get to things has definitely picked up. Before he would just sit and not care about anything other than the toys in front of him. But now if he sees something else he will try and reach for it, usually ending in falling over and not being able to get back up. But still...he has motives now!

Notice how he has the same expression in every picture. He gets so excited when I pull the camera out - he starts flailing his arms and opens his mouth up really wide. I can hardly get a picture of him doing cute stuff because he stops to pose!