Wobbly Walker

These are some dark videos of Liam walking. I didn't think they would look this dark! We have been keeping the curtains closed due to the intense heat and number of workers CONSTANTLY walking past our back door. What is cute is everytime they start hammering after a break sam yells "come in!" Ha! by the way I swear my children do wear clothes, they just some how all come off by the end of the day!

Last night I filled up our car and nearly died at how much gas is! So today I vowed to make a REAL effort not to drive unless I need to. The store is close enough that I am actually going to try walking there with my stroller... when these heat wave ends anyway. So today we stayed at home. I thought it would be fun to fill sams pool and put it at the bottom of the slide that comes out of the castle. Then we hoked up his elmo sprinkler and had a little fun in the sand box. Liam was not a fan of the cold hose water at first but he got used to it and was crying when I brought him in for lunch.Liam has also discovered the dusting wand in the vacuum cleaner and thinks it is the coolest thing EVER! I love that it tickles his nose when ever he tries to put it in his mouth!

Walking bumps, Power tools and Froggies

So it has been a fun crazy weekend/ week. Thank you for those of you who spread the word about Peek we have Ada fun response and are enjoying feeling like entrepreneurs! I am working on a clickable button you can add to your blog for the Peek Boutique. I finally got the one for Haughty Mommie, it only took me several hours! So computer illiterate! So if you would like you can now go to that site and get the button! I would love you for it! Anyway.... Liam is walking! I know CRAZY! He has been cruising around the furniture for about a month now but these past few days he has started to let go and walk! Chris and I are dying and Sam can't get enough of us telling Liam to "walk to Sam!" Although he now grabs Liam's hand all the time and says "lets go bro-bro" then proceeds to drag Liam where he wants. All of this is very fun and exciting but I had forgotten that it is accompanied by MANY MANY falls. The other night I was out when Chris called to let me know that Liam had fallen. When I asked him how bad was it he said "Think Sam in Madrid." For those of you who don't know about that it is a whole different story involving Tile, Sam's Head and a Spanish emergency room. So I rushed home and found Liam's head looking like this:
Luckily by the time I got home he looked like this:It is so hard to watch them stumble but I remind myself that Sam had to go through it also to become the expert never tripping walker he is now--- wait a second :)

New Siding

The subdivision of town homes we live in are currently all being resided. I was pretty excited about this as they were looking fairly ghetto. This means for the past week and a half we have experienced almost non stop banging. So far two pictures and a clock have been broken. It has been tough to get the boys to sleep when some one is hammer next to your head. Sam has enjoyed watching the workers though and after taking the workers Popsicles and seeing their cool tools he decided he needed his tools also. This is how Liam felt about Sam playing with the tools:Kissing Frogs: At the Virginia living museum they have lots of fun animals that you can touch and play with. This last time we went Sam suddenly took a liking to frogs. He had this buddy with him the whole time: This is a picture of him ignoring my request to "go eat lunch" while sitting on a frog.

This last weekend I was cleaning out the boys closest trying to organize the insane amount of shoes they own. I pulled out one of the drawers and Liam climbed right in. I decided to push him around our second floor in it only to be run down by Sam who had pulled out his four wheeler-- Lovely. Someday my post will be "the boys went crazy with their dad while girl-to-be-named and I painted our toes" until then I am enjoying the rough and tumble boys provide!

Projects: So I got down to business and made the bag I had bought the pattern for. It turned out pretty cute. I made one BIG mistake (think backwards and upside down) but luckily sewing is forgiving and it was unpicked quickly. Hopefully the girls that come over to sew theirs with me will have as positive results! Also this weekend I tackled what to do with the crazy amoutn of blueberries taking up space in our fridge. I made several batches of blueberry muffins that I think turned out pretty good, considering they are also low fat! Yummy!Just a cute one of Liam to end with:

My other two babies

For a few months now my good friend Leslie and I have been starting up our business The Peek Boutique. We have worked pretty hard on getting designs, web pages etc but we seem to keep hitting walls, due mostly to our self imposed monetary expenditure limit but also to my complete "uneducatedness" in regards to computer programing. There is nothing more frustrating then having an idea in your mind and being unable to convey it properly. Either way you are more than welcome to view at least the first page of our site which we created completely on our own. If you have any suggestion or hints we would love to hear them! This also goes for my newest endeavour Haughty Mommie (the link is on the top right of this page) I have yet to be able to figure out the correct html to allow people to copy and past the proper html code so they can put the button on their blog. Again any help would be great! And please feel free to send the sites around we love to see that visitor number rise!

Fabric High

I am a fabric junky... seriously I see beautiful fabric and my heart just sort of stops. This is thanks to Christoper's very patient mother who taught me basically everything I know about sewing. I have decided to tackle my next fun project and make myself this. I am very excited about it but at the same time I find myself going crazy over which of the seemingly endless supply of amazing fabric out there to use. I seriously am agonizing over it. Totally lame I know but hey I am going to be carrying this thing around for a while so it has got to look the part. I am sure I will end up doing something from Amy Butler, Joel Dewberry or Heather Bailey's line but they are all soooo cute!

This obsession has also made me very grateful that so far I have two boys. I am itching to make these but I don't have a little girl yet to do it for. Roby maybe I will make them for Ava! Yippie an excuse--- Chris will kill me. Fabric is dead last on the priority of spending currently. Some day though I hope to have the fabric room you posted on your blog Natalie! For now my TV tray works great!

Sisterly Love

I have two great sisters, then you add to that my seven sister in laws and I am surrounded by sisterly love. This week though my younger sister Claire and older sister Felicity, hit home once again how grateful I am to have sisters. Both of them spoiled me and came to my aide when I really needed it and I just want to say how grateful I am for both of them. They really need to have a sibling day, where we can celebrate the wonderful friends we grew up with and can ALWAYS count on. Thank you Gigi and Bink!

Mother Dear I Love You So (even if you don't like that song :))

My mom and lil' sister Claire came to visit this last week and it was a BLAST!!! We spent the first two days at a beach house in Cape Henry. It was lovely (even though it rained the first day) There are two beautiful old Light houses and a private beach. Sam loved the pirate themed playground right outside our door. For those of you with kids who watch Backyardigans (i love that show) you will appreciate the fact that Sam spent the entire weekend digging for and singing the "treasure" song from the pirate episode. Claire and I made a crazy amount of x's, as he kept reminding us that "x marks the spot!". He also enjoyed the jellyfish... yes the bane of my existence. The first time we found one we pointed it out and told him not to touch it that it would hurt, then Claire and I turned around and sat with Liam and my mom. two minutes later Sam comes walking up with a jellyfish on his shovel and plops it into Liam's bucket! Well I guess at least he didn't touch it. While there we also ate an amazing little place called Taste. The sandwich's were to DIE for and the store itself was adorable! When you order a lunch it comes in these adorable little lunch box's: After three days at the beach we headed home to relax by spending more time at the beach. We headed to York town beach which I LOVE. We also had to do the traditional Colonial Williamsburg walk through. Which meant feeding our favorite horses Ranger and Captain. Although this time Liam did not want to share his carrot. And Sam got a scare when Ranger decided it sniff Sam's hair and give him a little "kiss". Needless to say Sam stays at an even safer distance now. We then had a fun "cook out" at Waller mill... only we couldn't get the coals to light. But we did get to go out on a paddle boat:

The last time we did this Sam had his girlyfriend Lucy there to have fun with, without her he quickly grew board so we went back and Claire and I grabbed a kayak instead. We then proceeded to be publicly berated by two old ladies who literally said to us as we paddled by "We had to stop and watch the show". Claire and I took the humiliation in stride and after they teased us some more with bad stroking advice our self esteems had had enough and we paddled in. After trying to light the fire with cigarette lighter fluid and not heading my advice that it would poison us, it took one disgusting tasting hot dog for us to call it quits and we went in search of the best gourmet Williamsburg could offer. We ended up at the Hot Dog King haaaaa! Wow. But I am proud to say none of us got sick afterwards, the service was great and the bathrooms were clean :) And double points for it's proximity to snow to go!

We ended the visit with a trip out to the farm by Jolly Pond to pick blueberries, or as sam calls them Blue strawberries.... Anyway we had fun filling the bucket and now realize why blueberries are so expensive. They are a serious pain to pick, but even Liam tried to help!And as a person who actually doesn't really like blueberries this made it even harder for me :) But they were cheap and will be made into some yummy muffins! Liam ended the day with a nice warm sink bath supervised by Aunty Claire-- who left the last picture on this blog as a surprise on my camera-- bet you didn't think I would post it but I did! Haaaa! I am so grateful they came to visit, the week went by WAY to fast... now the four week count down to Myrtle Beach begins!

One Two Skip a Few

It is so interesting to me to see the inherited traits that pop up in my kids. I am sure my parents went through the same thing. Although I cannot say decisively about personality, hair eating habits etc. The ones that have cropped up are far more surprising. The two that make me laugh the most are mannerisms Sam has expressed belonged to Grandpa Crawford and my Grandfather on my mothers side (A bit of Kelly trivia, both my grandpas were Murphy's so I cannot distinguish them that way haaa!) Sam LOVES to sit with both hands behind his head. I know he is truly relaxed when his arms pop up and his hands rest behind his head. He does it ALL the time. When we watch TV, in the car, when he is going to sleep. It is so cute, and what is so uncanny is that is exactly Chris's Dad. Whenever we are in a deep conversation or he is watching a football game his hands are resting behind his head. What is crazy is that Chris rarely sits like this so he certainly didn't learn from example. I am dying to be able to get a picture of the two of them sitting in their "chilled out mode". The other is Sam walking with his hands behind his back. He was walking as such again the other night when my mom pointed out that that is exactly how my Grandpa used to walk around the garden! I love that we are blessed with little pieces of our families to carry with us! Hopefully cute things like this keep popping up and surprising me!

Roller Coasters, Swimming Pools and Olives

Last week was a crazy fun week. After the birthday festivities we continued partying with the fourth. Lets just say I went to Busch Gardens (BG) six times in four days! I would go in the morning with the boys and then was lucky enough to go back twice in the evening with buddies! The first evening I was joined by Leslie and Nora. (totally copied you on the pic nora!)We talked Nora into getting a season pass so hopefully nights this hilarious happen often. It is surprising how much conversation you can fit in while running around an amusement park like teenagers and the brief time before the rides take off and the screaming ensues. It really was so fun to stay up till eleven with such wonderful girls. When I got home I was greeted by my wonderful friend Kerstin visiting from DC! The next night Chris once again took the boys so she and I could return (we had been there earlier in the day) and get on all the good rides. I about had my fill of fireworks from seeing them every night they were done at BG, so I wasn't to broken hearted when it rained pretty heavily and we were forced to cancel BBQ planes and attendance a the firework show. Instead we got KFC and watched them on TV-- is there anything more American I ask you? We were able to go to CW for lunch. I loved being in the revolution city on the fourth. (I literally ran after this women to capture her patriotic spirit on film! Those are some sweet pants!) We ate at Chownings which was my favorite tavern before they up and changed their menu! You can't beat the atmosphere though. This is what the view was above meAnd this is what I saw when I looked to my left

I REALLY wanted to have a babyshower that Nora and I are planning here but apprently they don't do that except for inordinate amounts of money. Sorry girls.. but it is totally our inspiration! After our fill of good ole colonialism we then went swimming and that was LOVELY. I bought one of those floaty seat things for Liam but he wasn't a fan so I spent the whole time floating around on it-- so lame! Sunday we had a lovely dinner with Katie and Brian who are new 1l's here at William and Mary. They are awesome and I know will be a wonderful addition to the law school/ ward family. So today I had planned on cleaning the majority of the day as my mom and sister are arriving Wednesday woo hoo!!! But it was a commanders day at Langley so Chris was basically by himself at work. I decided it would be fun to take the boys down and meet him for lunch. Now if you have ever tried to call me on my cell phone you know that I am often hard to reach. That is because I have a serious serious problem keeping tract of it! It is horrible Chris is always asking me and my answer is inevitably "um I dunno will you call it for me?" Well today was no different, I didn't have it on me and thus spent forty five mins driving around trying to find his work. We were rewarded for our efforts by eating a horrific lunch at CiCi's pizza. OH MY GOSH GROSS!!! I dunno how you can mess up Ranch dressing but boy did they ever. The upside is I discovered our boys LOVE olives. Not only do they adore scarfing them down but apparently they make a wonderful hat for Sam's Thomas train! Sam discovered this half way through the meal when he placed an olive on Thomas' funnel. He looked at me proudly and said "Is a hat!" (sorry for the blurry pic it is stuck in some weird mode...) Then pure devastation, after carefully carrying around Thomas and his "hat" the rest of the day we were in the car driving to the grocery store when I hear "momma help me, please please help me" I turn around and Sam is holding the broken olive as tears stream down his face. "Thomas hat broked!" We of course picked up a can of olives and now we will have a fresh hat for Thomas everyday! I love kids and their imagination! This is sam at 7:30 PM after a LONG hard day and some yummy popsicle. The poor little guy slept in until 10:00 am! ( I am currently painting our table and chairs hence the weird white black combo)

Lets Not Talk About It-- Oh Okay Lets

Yesterday was my birthday... yeah I am officially 27. A few days ago while drifting off to sleep Chris asked me what I wanted to do for my birthday. I actually was relieved because I had genuinely thought he had forgot about it. I told him "lets not talk about it-- I am going to be closer to thirty than twenty" He kindly pointed out that that actually happened last year--thanks gorgeous. Anyways I was lucky enough tot spread it out over two evenings. Monday night I spent the evening eating at Panera and talking with four of my great girlfriends.

Sarah (baby Abigale) Terisha Leslie

It was FABULOUS! We ended up talking for almost three hours, enjoy the yummy food and hilarious and deep conversation. (Nora)

Terisha always has a way of bringing me to tears with her amazing spiritually uplifting stories so of course there were a few, wonderful tears. Thanks girls for a great night! On my actual birthday Chris had to work so it was mainly business as usual. I was able to talk to my mom and dad and joke about how grateful I was for them bringing me into this world ;) Then we headed to Bush Gardens with the boys to let them play around with the Lacey's for a while. There was this hilarious band as we were headed out playing music. I had to capture it on video-- maybe they were only funny to me :)

When Chris came home he brought me beautiful Roses! We then tried to take the boys to see Wall-E. Sam actually seemed to be enjoying it for the first hour but after that Liam totally lost it and we had to head. I am excited to go back and actually see it though. Leslie came over and watched the boys so that Chris and I could go to dinner at Longhorn. It was really yummy and as Karma would have it the couple in front of us turned around and have us a ten dollars off coupon! Woo hoo! We then picked up the boys and Leslie and headed back to Busch Gardens to watch the fireworks. We sat on the grass kinda far away thinking Sam would cry again, but he didn't! He mainly buried his train in the dirt... but he enjoyed them for the first little while then wanted to go ride the trains! Its a step in the right direction! Liam, who is obsessed with walking cruised around the stroller!To end the evening I got a fun text from my friend Christa! What a lovely day! It was a different birthday, I am used to the traditional Cake, song, presents but a fabulous one nonetheless! Last year I was in London-- which was great, but it is nice to be with Chris!