June Moments and a cousin's wedding!

June has been great with time spent planning and leading Camp Jr at Trinity Pres. Each summer our church puts on an amazing CAMP experience for kids 6-12 years old in a neighborhood called Young Terrace.  In this area of project housing, 70% of households fall below the poverty line, 56% are single mother households and 50% of the population has less than a high school education.  

We have a relationship with this community and the CAMP is just one way we can foster this relationship. While 100 volunteers are serving over 260 kids at CAMP, 50 volunteers are back at church ministering to over 115 campers aged 0-5 at Camp Jr.  This was an incredible (and hard) week filled with laughter, dancing, arts and sports, snacks, hugs and sharing that "Jesus Loves You even when you are different, afraid, and feeling left out".  

(for privacy of kids and families, I only posted a large group shot)

The Stage, done by Linda and team

Large Group time!

J loved Ms Becky, Timmy the Turtle and Bible time

All Creatures of our God and King!

When I have not been planning Camp Jr, we have had lots of family days at the outdoor YMCA pool! This gem came to Norfolk last year and we decided to bite the bullet, re-join the very expensive (but amazing) Y and we have certainly enjoyed our choice! Jackson loves the 2 foot kids area and we have recently convinced him that swimming is more fun (and safe) with his life jacket on. We also have a TON of friends from church who go to the pool and enjoy seeing his buddies there.  

The petting area at the zoo is FINALLY open!!!

Enjoying a great visit with Grandmom and Pop Pop 

lovely flowers to adorn the kitchen counter 

It's World Cup season...every home needs a cardboard goal

"I'm going to Camp. Where is my motorcycle and phone? I want to hang with Lincoln."

Post-Camp Jr car ride to Deleware

 On Friday after the end of camp, we packed the car and headed to Dover DE for Sandra and Jim's wedding! We love Jim and are so glad that he is the newest addition to our ever-growing family. Jackson got all dressed up for the occasion courtesy of a friend who owns lots of bow ties.  He has this new expression of surprise and delight that is the cutest and very hard to capture on video or camera but the picture below gives a small idea

Handsome man

J had a great time running around the sanctuary during photo time with my cousins who we are calling his cousins to avoid lots of confusion. Look at those cute and sassy girls. J adores them and it kept them all busy for an hour! 

The flower girl and J's best buddy, Riley. 

27 weeks

early morning run behind the hotel

playing with Riley

Happy Father's day, JB

I'm not good with really emotional words, which is why this blog has been somewhat easier to write than I though it would be. Keep it objective with pictures and thoughts of what we are doing lately. But on Father's day (or several days late), and really every day, I must say THANK YOU to the amazing father that JB is to our little Jackson and our soon-to-be Rachel. 

JB is a sacrificial father. He learned how to clean a bathroom during my first pregnancy to protect me from fumes. He got peed on (several times) during our newborn photo shoot. He sacrifices quality sleep even when he is on night rotations to allow J to be a kid (aka LOUD) around the house.  He shares his bacon and granola bars. He plays outside in the hot sun for hours with J, teaching him about soccer and just being silly. 

 He cares about our kids before they are even born. 

 Jonathan is thoughtful about how we want to raise Jackson, from discipline to activities to school. He prays for J all the time, which has to be the most important thing we can do for our children.  He also makes a great husband and father because he saves us from unnecessary trips to the doctor. It's nice to have a voice of reason saying, "It's ok. He'll be fine by morning, etc". Despite, or maybe in spite of, his extensive medical knowledge, he worries about little J, which is so sweet. He is such a protective, nurturing father. 

 He and J took killer naps together when he was younger. 

 He enjoys outings with us that would otherwise not be so fun for him, like strawberry picking, hours at the zoo and children's museum and the play area at the library. 

 We struck a deal early on in Jackson's life that I would do all the nursing and he would do all the diapers when he was home. That deal is still in place to this day (well, just the JB changing diaper part).  

J was 100% momma's boy for the first 2 years of his life, but, like this picture, he is looking up to Jonathan and you can tell that he wants to be just like him. I wouldn't mind having a Jonathan and a mini-Jonathan around :) 

Happy very belated Father's Day to the best dad! Jackson and I love you so much!  

Stay-Cation #2 and 3!

Thanks to my parents and their amazing time share, we got to enjoy two weeks at the beach in May. The first week was just the three of us on 16th street. The weekend started off with a girls' day at the beach with some of my favorite friends from church. We talked, laughed and got caught in a sudden downpour on the beach! After searching high and low for a place with no wait (it was Monster Truck weekend), we ended up at Rockfish for dinner and a homemade birthday cake to celebrate Erin's "29th" birthday! I love how we are all still in our 20's. Forever young.  

Mother's Day brought a day of rest for me. Ally and I enjoyed Chai Lattes at Starbucks and then I read on the beach for several hours, enjoying God's good creation and some peaceful time to myself. Jonathan and Jackson joined me later that evening and we had the rest of the week together! 

J won this cute shirt from Bitsy Boutique, via a giveaway on my friend's blog, Life with Pizzazz.   

During our stay-cation, we search for shells, spent hours at Grommet Island Park (a playground that is accessible for children with special needs!), went running on the boardwalk and ate lots of Dairy Queen. A rainy day allowed us to hit the aquarium without having to miss out on any sunshine! We also learned that J can get out of the pack n play and open door handles. We had a surprise visitor at 5:00 one morning!

Then we packed our things, JB dropped J off with my parents for their timeshare week, he headed home for a week of work and I headed to ODU to attend a PT conference for the weekend. J was so excited to visit with Grandmom, Pop Pop, Aunt Karen, Uncle Bob, Riley and Piper. When I arrived on Sunday night he was looking pretty sluggish and felt warm. Mom and dad said that he was out of sorts all day. A dose of Tylenol took his fever down but he had an awful night sleep and woke with Hand Foot and Mouth, round two. At least we knew that it would not be something to worry about, as long as he stayed hydrated and we kept his fever down. We were mostly concerned with the other two girls avoiding it! It took him all week to recover, as evidenced by a 'Jackson wake-up' on Tuesday morning at 12:30am....where he refused to go back to sleep! We watched Nemo twice, Disney and then tried to read some books before Grandmom took over for me at 5 so I could catch an hour nap before work. 

Piper

He ADORED Riley, who was so good about generously sharing her stuffed animals and cars. Aunt Karen was also generous and gave J his first big juice box and first package(s) of gummy snacks! I suppose that is what aunts are for :) But according to me, gummy snacks only exist at the beach when Aunt Karen buys them. Just like M&M yogurt only exists in stores near Grandmom and Pop Pop.  When they were driving away, Riley remarked, "I want to marry Jackson". Technically she is my cousin, but we still hate to break it to her that they are just going to have to settle for being best buds. 

Some of my dad's family made it for the second half of the week, including Grandpa and Aunt Janis and our local family, the Coles. It was great to visit with everyone and catch up on all the mother-of-the-bride wedding planning details and cheerleading happenings! 

J called them his friends, so sweet 

Our boy knows how to relax on the beach

Grommet Island

J loved spending time with Pop Pop and Greatgrandpa and was even outgoing enough to call GGPa by his name at the end of the week. He was running around playing hide and seek, taking baths with pop pop in the 'bubble tub' and eating lots and lots of goodies. 

Grandpa and the Coles 

Wednesday of this week was our big 22 week ultrasound where we confirmed that we have a healthy-looking baby girl! I am not one for big gender reveal surprises (who has the time! not this girl), but I swung by Plaza Bakery for some cute petit fours with pink icing to share our news.  

It was a great two weeks, but we were completely exhausted from all the fun and glad to be back at home! 

Memorial Day weekend

We had a great Memorial Day weekend, packed with fun!

First, we saw THE DUCK.  Not just the duck, THE DUCK. This is a famous piece of art which travels the world and unites people, brings peace and  harmony and just makes people laugh. It was in the Haugue for just over a week and attracted thousands of people, public entertainment, food trucks and picnic-goers, like us.  Despite J's face in this picture, he actually did enjoy it! He talks about seeing 'the big ducky' and asks when it will come back. 

 On Sunday we had a memorial Day picnic with the Speasmakers. Joel and Caroline were in town before their big move out to California.  We also got to meet their newest addition, Josh. Jackson and Max would be good buds, if only they lived closer and we could see them more often!

We hit the beach, of course! 

The boys played baseball, or more like Cricket as Jackson has interpreted it. 

Then JB and I celebrated 8 years together with dinner. JB made us dinner once when we were dating and ever since then, it's our special day tradition. He has an unlimited budget to buy whatever he wants but he has to do all the cooking :) 

Then, J and I took an impromptu trip to go strawberry picking at this great farm which is practically on the NC border. We picked pounds of strawberries, with him telling me, "Only the red ones, mommy. God keeps growing the green ones".  We played on the bounce house and pet some goats and pigs too!