CONGRATS, J!

Last weekend Jennifer graduated from App State! We all headed up Friday and spent the night and had a GREAT time hanging out in Boone. Jenn is now on the job hunt! Not a fun task in this economy with about a million other business grads...okay maybe not a million but she sure does feel like she's competing with that many grads! Jenn, Caden and Addison!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MARY!!

Today is Mary's birthday...that means my birthday is in just under 3 months. Growing up Mary heard a million times that she couldn't do something I was doing because I was three years older. Mary responded a million times with, "She's not 3 years older than me...she's 2 years..9 months..and 5 days older than me!" We headed to Winston tonight and ate at the Tavern in Old Salem. We got a few pictures. Just before Brian was going to take pictures with Mary and Caden the battery died! We'll be able to catch some more this weekend as we're headed to Boone for Jennifer's graduation! Caden and Addison in their sweet matching outfits!
Addison, Emma and Caden. Caden was really excited because I was making all kinds of crazy faces trying to get Addison to smile. It didn't work but he loved it!

Dad, Mom and Addison on the porch at the Tavern.

Caden and Addison on the brick sidewalk! She just adores him!

A little blurry but I love how excited she was!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MARY!!!!

We've been busy!

We have been very busy this week. Caden finished up swimming lessons. In fact for his last lesson he convinced Jennifer to drive two hours home just to take him. I'm sure it helped that she wasn't going to get to see Jeremy for two weeks. So she got to see her 2 favorite boys and her favorite girl! She headed back this morning for one of her last presentations! We are VERY excited that she will be graduating next weekend!

Yesterday my Grandma arrived for a 10 or so day visit! We are VERY excited! Yesterday we picked her up from the airport and hung out until Mom got off work! This morning she wanted to go to Dillards. So Caden, Addison and I picked her up at 10 and headed to the mall...strolled Dillards and then headed to Friendly. She has MUCH better shopping than us up in DC but still enjoys some stores they don't have! For lunch she took us to BRAVO! After lunch I'm not sure who was more exhausted the kids, her or I. Well, the kids are now napping, she is out with mom and I am ignoring the laundry that needs to be folded and am relaxing!

I am not sure what we have in store for next week. I do know that Caden has "bike" day on Monday so we will be loading up the bike for school! Wednesday I am looking forward to the Mother's Day tea he invited me to! There is talk about us heading to Chapel Hill on Tuesday.

Enjoy the weekend. I hope the weather is nice here so that we can head to Caden's soccer game and then play outside for hours!

7 month pictures!

Addison is such a sweet girl. She is sitting up well now, starting to wiggle her way around on her bottom and eating puffs!! Isn't she the cutest thing you've seen all day!?!?!?

Easter, Pigeon Forge and other fun things!

Well...I took an unintentional blog break...but I'm back. It was way too much work to try to upload all these pictures at once. Also, I find that when I blog I get more pictures of the kids. These are also in opposite order of events....sorry. Blogger is not supper easy to move pictures around. This is Caden and Addison playing last night while I was at church! I love that they adore each other even if she does look annoyed! Can you believe this sweet girl is 7.5 months old? We can't!

Mimi, Pop pop, Ryan, Payton and Taylor came for a long weekend. We had a great time. We did the Science Center, Bumper Jumpers and of course soccer!

Addison at the soccer game!

Mimi and Caden at Bumper Jumpers.

Addison and I at Bumper Jumpers!

We went to Gatlinburg/Pigeon Forge for our first vacation with just the 4 of us! We had a GREAT time! We went to a great place called Wonder Works!

We all had a great time! I think Brian could have spent an entire day there! Addison got in a great nap in the stroller despite the place being packed because of the rain!

Caden ventured inside the space ship!

Caden and Daddy were both astronauts!

Looking for a purple bead in over a million yellow and orange ones! They did not find it. Caden was done looking after about...oh...30 seconds!

Here's Easter...in reverse order of course! The playground continued! We NEVER could have imagined this being as big of an ordeal as it was! Also, Brian could have never done it without all the help he got. You saw in the last post that Matt helped level the land. Then the next saturday Jeremy and Andy came over and helped Brian. Sunday afternoon I helped (ha!) and then my Dad found out Caden and I were his only helpers. Within 5 minutes my Dad was over to help for several hours! Certainly he didn't think that Caden and I weren't ample help!

How could I forget that she helped too! Someone had to hold the box down and look adorable!

We enjoyed a nice Easter lunch at the Print Works Bistro!

Believe it or not Caden was more interested in Addison's Easter basket than his own. Each of our children get to use my first Easter basket for their first Easter. Addison has a VERY cute basket for next year...don't worry it was monogramed!!!

Emma wants to see what Addison got too! Maybe that rattle was more exciting than I...I mean the Easter Bunny thought it would be!

So much to catch up on....birthday, soccer, and playset!

Happy Birthday Caden! We had a great day! We went to Bumper Jumper...an inside jumping castle place. Then we went to lunch with some great friends and then home for a nap before dinner at Caden's favorite place...Tripps!

Caden had his first soccer game! I'm pretty sure he had the biggest following with Brian and I, his Grandma and Grandaddy, Mary, Patrick, Jennifer, Jeremy, Art, Lynn and Grandma Gina. Whew! That little boy sure is loved....oh yea...how could I forget Addison?? Here she is with Mary!!

Coach Daddy and Caden out on the field. I love it when these sweet pictures are caught on "film"! Thanks Patrick for getting all of the great pictures!

Get it Caden!!!

Sunday Brian and Matt got busy leveling the backyard for the playset! Addison hung out in the shade of the bobcat!

Caden played soccer with his new soccer goal!

Daddy and Matt worked...then we had pizza with the Ryan's! It was a GREAT day! This weekend the assembling will happen!

The Last Three Years!!

I hope you enjoy these pictures! The last three years have been some of the best! Caden was a VERY sweet baby and continues to be a sweet little boy...most days! Here is a picture of him at about 3 or 4 weeks already sucking his thumb. He told me a couple of weeks ago that he was going to stop when he turned 3. I asked him about that this morning and he told me that it's okay if he sucks his thumb when he's 3. April 3, 2006 our sweet boy was born weighing 6 lbs. 7 oz!! My water broke at about 5:30 on April 2nd at 37 weeks 2 days! I didn't have contractions until about 10 that night. Caden was born on the 3rd at 4:23 pm. When Caden was born he was VERY white, with a fever and did not cry! After a couple of hours I got to hold that sweet boy!

This is the first time I held Caden just before they swept him off to the nursery to make sure he was okay! His Daddy stayed with him the whole time!

This is one proud Daddy!

Happy Halloween 2006! Caden was a scarecrow...the cutest I've ever seen! (As I look at this picture I see a lot of Addison!)

I'm 1!!!

Beach Fun!! Caden loves the beach and asks to go everyday that it's warm. I would go everyday too if we could!!

I'm 2!!!!

August 31st Caden became a big brother to Addison Elizabeth!

Christmas 2008. Caden got his first Motorcycle! He loves it! Just about 3!! Caden having fun in some March snow!!

These last 3 years have gone by way too quickly! I'm looking forward to watching him grow into a young man. Brian and I pray for him daily that he will grow up to be a wonderful man, father and husband! We also pray that God will guide us to be the parents that produce that wonderful man...we sure can't do it on our own! HAPPY BIRTHDAY CADEN! We love you!