Really.....I'm posting an update...yes....I.....am. I wanted to post a while back with pictures from Korben's b-day and a few others. Then Matt reformatted the computer and LOST a huge folder full of pictures. So needless to say I didn't feel like posting after that. So what has happened since April?! Lots. Some I don't have pictures of but I will try my best to update you all.

JUNE: The first full week of June we went on our annual beach vacation. We went to Ft. Morgan, Alabama again and stayed at a different beach house. Kids loved it, even the eagle's nest on top of the house. You could see the ocean PLUS the lagoon on the other side of the peninsula! By day 3 1/2 I was ready to get back to TN. I have a hard time really relaxing when I am watching two little ones going in and out of the water. No Jellyfish this year. Matt was happy about that!

After the beach for the week we headed up north to Mobile, Alabama to see the USS Alabama ship. It was massive and took most of the day to tour it. Kids had fun exploring and I was beat from carrying Trenton in the Mei Tie carrier most of the way.

The rest of June was spent catching up from vacation and visiting friends. I'm pretty sure Korben stayed at someones house at least every week.

July: Lets see, its hard to remember what aall went on. I guess I need to update at least once a month...haha. I know at the end of July Korben went to Ohio to visit family. Flew on Southwent Airlines by himself for the first time. I think I was more nervous than he was. He did want to pack a ton of stuff to take up there. He wasn't sure if he would have enough army stuff for his cousins to play with him. Of course he had plenty. While Korben was gone for that week, Matt and I was searching to get a van. We found one and got a Toyota Sienna. Its so nice now to have room for the kids to stretch their legs!

August: On August 7th Matt's youngest brother Christopher graduated from the Marines Corps. We left TN on a Wednesday morning we drove 10 hours all the way to Parris Island, SC. That was a long drive but having our new van helped the drive be less stressful. Thursday was Family Day. We woke up early to get on base. They had a small presentation and dismissed the recruits. We walked around the base and had lunch with Chris and caught up with him! It was a nice visit and the kids really enjoyed seeing everything there. We even brought backa few souvieners from the MPX. Everyone got a Marine t-shirt. I got my magnets but realized they got lost somewhere along the trip. The following day we went to Hilton Head, SC so the kids could recoop. They had fun but its deft. nothing compared to the white sands of the Gulf!

The day after we got back Korben had to register for school. He found out he got the 5th grade teacher he REALLY wanted AND his 3rd grade teacher would be his Social Studies teacher. She had left for a year to take care of her son who is was born in November 2008. She wanted to take the year off to take care of him and be a stay at home mom.

September: We have just been going through the daily grind. Focusing on school and taking care of one another. We are trying to avoid this flu that is going around like wild fire. Our neighbors behind us had it the other week. Luckly we have not had any symptoms of it. Julianna has had a little cough and a sore throat but I am pretty sure that has to do with the seasons changing slowly and allergy season picking up! Matt thought he would need surgery on his knee in the beginning of the month but got a second opinion. That Doctor (who has done surgery on tons of Nashville athletes) says he just needs physical therapy and meds for a bit. Thank God on that one! But just less than a week after hearing that great news, Matt hurt his shoulder will sprawling around with the High School wrestlers after his Pee Wee practice. Kid landed on his shoulder and pulled something. So..he is trying to nurse that back into health.

I hope the next few months are illness and injury free. Korben will be starting his wrestling season up pretty soon. Hope he begins to really enjoy it this year. He is hard to motivate sometimes!

At some point I want to put up a few 30 second clips of the kids, and most Trenton talking and acting silly. He is so much like the two other kids all rolled into one!

18 Month Old Stats Trenton: 25.2 lbs and 32.5 inches tall

You can read about our camping trip in my blog. I didn't want to rewrite everything but here are a few pictures that we took on our mini vacation.



This is one of 4 deer that we saw while at our campsite. Julianna wanted to go up and pet the deer. I don't know how many times I had to explain to her that it was wild and could bit.




This is before we left camp the morning of our hike. Kids all are ready to go, digging into the dirt and messing with rocks. lol



Halfway point on our snack break. Korben showing some brotherly love. I do have like 5 other pictures of him giving Julianna bunny ears.




Julianna showing us how Daddy stands. She was hysterical!




This is when we got to the Falls. Matt let Korben go exploring and we found him on top of this huge rock at the bottom. Matt had a good eye on him though.







This was the next day after we cleared camp. We went around the State Park and found this older playground. Kids had fun but Julianna was afraid to go down the slide without Korben by her.

Well I hear Trenton up from his nap, screaming.

I will explain the video of Julianna. She was watching Super Why on PBS yesterday and started singing the song that the Purple Princess sings "I love to spell, S-P-E-L-L!" Well Julianna was singing that song all day, wrong. lol She got the first part right but when it came to spelling 'Spell' she would say S-P-E-E-L or S-P-E-L. I didn't have the heart to correct her so I video taped her instead. =o) Eventually I would sing it with her and she realized she was singing it wrong. I should have taped her without her knowing because she was so much louder and herself. She got shy once I pulled out the camera and was taping her.

Trenton is now staring to really babble. HE is almost blowing raspberries and is doing the Mamamam and nananana and babababa. It is so cute and I was surprised I was able to get some on tape.

I felt bad for Korben because I didn't get him on tape. So I just went into his room and he was building with his Legos. The Legos that you see are only half of what he has.

I just realized after I was watching the video of Trenton that my kids are wearing opposite seasoned clothes. It was chilly that morning so I dressed Trenton correct. Julianna has been wanting to wear her flower dressed for the last couple days so I let her, in the house. She wants to dress up all the time.

Here is Trenton trying to crawl to a couple of his toys on the floor. He is getting better every day but still hasn't figured out that you have to move your arms as well as your legs. lol



Julianna wanted to get in the video as well. But she wasn't happy until I 'took' a picture of her. Hence the 'say cheese' in the video.

Trenton is 5 months old today! Above is a little video I took last week. I think he is our happiest baby ever. ANYTHING will make him laugh but he is also sensitive. You scare him, he will cry in pain. He will put out that bottom lip and just cry, until you can comfort him and try to calm him down. He is still nursing like a champ, but going for longer durations now. He has tried a few foods, HATES any type of baby cereal but LOVES to munch on bananas and frozen peaches. I bought a net feeder that you put in solid foods and infants can munch on the netting and it will turn to mush practically.
He has been waking up almost every night for the past week. I think its time to reintroduce cereal after dinner time. He wakes up and nurses for a while then falls back to sleep. Of course I fall asleep too, on the couch or the recliner. Its killing my back, I need to get back to bed right after he is done nursing. I will not bring him in bed with me though. I did that with Julianna from when she was a newborn and it took almost 3 years to get her out of our bed. NEVER again.
A little funny thing that happened today:
Julianna was playing on my Nintendo DS and was trying out Cooking Mama game. If you have never heard of it, you make all kinds of dishes. You have to prepare everything, like shop up onions, mix ingredients etc. I am sitting right beside her and I hear "OH CRAP!" I turn to her and say, "Julianna we do not say Crap, its not a nice word." She turns to me and states, "No Mom CRAB!" I look down at the DS and she is trying to 'tear' a CRAB apart. lol OOPS! Of course I apologized and she just laughed.

The two kids are doing well. Korben is working hard at reading. He still struggles here and there but I think he is beginning to realize that reading CAN be fun. He has to practice on his handwriting. Half the time he can't even read it. Teacher told him he also needs to slow down. It seems that he is trying to be the first one done in school work.
He has taken on a sport now. Matt signed him up to be in a wrestling program sponsored through the Sheriff's Department. And no its not that WWF/WWE whatever crap. Its Greco-Roman style wrestling. He really seems to enjoy it. No complaints yet from him about going to practice so that is good.
He is still in Scouts. He is a Bear this year. He is about 3 Achievements away from getting his Bear badge. Which is awesome.

Julianna is ornery as ever. She turned 3 on Sunday. LOVED to sign happy birthday to everyone and tell them happy birthday. lol Loved her presents and all the attention. She also had her 3 year old check up on Monday. She is around 3 feet tall and 28 pounds. She is right in the middle of the percentile for both. No shots this time around. It helps not being in a day care setting. Those kids have to get a few extra because they are exposed to alot of viruses.

Today we are going to a playgroup Christmas Party. It is about 2 minutes from our house. I am glad I don't have to drive 30 minutes this time.




We put up our Christmas tree on Wednesday. Julianna was all excited and was wanting to open up presents already. lol We ran into a few problems. One set of lights half of them would light up. So we went through all the nonlit up lights and changed the fuses and nothing. lol Oh well.

Just messing around with Photoshop today. Figured I would share what I made.Oh and I am still learning the program, Matt is way better than me though.

I swear Julianna was one sensitive sniffer on her. She smells something that doesn't agree with her and she will go full blown with the gag reflex. Twice it has led to me cleaning up the floor. I haven't known a kid that gets so weak in the stomach like that. I just hope she grows out of it.
Saturday morning we had snow again when we woke up. It was coming down so hard, big flakes and all. It last about 2 hours and we got about an inch. Took the kids outside to play in it before Matt came home with breakfast. They got to build (me really) a snowman. Forgot to take pictures of it but I did get the crazy snow falling. I have to upload those pictures and share them along with our other snow fall we had back in January?!? I can't even remember when we had that.
Julianna has a fever today plus a runny nose. Its clear so there is no infections but she is SUPER whiney and just not feeling good. She took TWO long naps today which is really rare for her.
Amber, I have clothes for Chloe for you. I am going through Julianna's clothes today and I have next Fall/Winter clothing. I am going to go through a summer bag and see if I can find any 9-12 months summer clothing. Some are good for outside/daycare extra clothing. So expect a bag in June when we come up or meet in VA for Aaron's wedding.