Mega Megs

One of my best friends, Meagan, went down to Bald Head Island for the weekend with some of her family friends and they told her she could have some friends down if she wanted so she very generously asked us if we wanted to go. Paul was away recruiting so it was just the boys and i.......and as much as I would have loved to have spent the weekend down there I just couldn't see packing and trying to spend the night without Paul's help so we just went down for the day. Not sure that was the best move either but hey :)
We got up bright and early Sunday and headed for BHI.
Once we were out, we were out, and I was a little nervous about how the boys would do but they both really did amazing. For a 2 yr old and 3 month old :)
Decky was his usual super shy self and carrig was.....3 months old. He desperately needed a nap by the time we got there but we went straight out to the pool to start with so this is what we did for the first two hours:





Declan at my feet and carrig in and out nursing and sleeping. Awesome. Glad we traveled two hours for that buddies ;)
Luckily the day picked up and Declan finaaallllllyyyyy warmed up (that kid makes you work boy) and left my side to go play with meg and the kids. We ended up having an awesome time out at the beach, went to the market for some ice cream, went crab fishing, took the ferry back (after three failed attempts but that's another story for another day) and finally rolled in to the house about 11pm. Everyone more than exhausted but contented.
Im so glad we made it out and got to spend some time with meggie and she was a pretty phenomenal "aunt" to my boys. Carrig is in serious l-o-v-e with her oh my word. The smiles and the cuddles were pretty cool to see.....
Meg and I have walked thru so much of our lives together and it's very special to share this new piece of mine with her.

















This is a disgusting picture of me but this is how Monday morning started.....carrig and mommy passed out from a very long night :)


As much as this is Carrigs happy place, it's kind of mine too....snuggling and sleeping with my little little buddy is pretty friggin sweet.

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"dooossshhhh"

Or squash:



Our first harvest of the season.

Declan was pretty stoked.

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Jumpy jumpy

We put C in here a few days ago and he was semi amused. He'd really rather just look at mommy, daddy or decky though.
People person.




Short child.


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Mommy's big helpers!

We have been doing a lot of work on the front of our house recently. Nana and Pop brought up a bunch of flowers from their yard in GA so we have kind of been re-doing our yard. Both Nana and Pop did a TON while they were here and I've been finishing up the past couple of days. Let me tell you, yard work is not for the faint of heart. I'm friggin whooped and super sweaty, but at least these two cheer me on from the porch :)


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Twins birthday!

I finally got pictures off my camera from the past two months and these little boys were on there!

Our nephews, TJ and Matthew, turned 1 on April 20th but Nancy waited to give their birthday party until a week later so Paul could make it, which meant we all got to go!

She did a ridiculous job. Insane. She has a full time job but THIS was a job in itself....I have no idea where she found the time to do all of this let alone THINK all of it up but the boys had one heckuva 1st birthday party and we were very lucky to be able to go.

Happy Birthday TJ and Matty Moo! We love YOU!

It was a baseball theme so we came with our Yankee gear on

Nancy teaches HS and one of her students made the boys their smash cakes.........delicious and super cute! talented....

Cool idea - "scoreboard" with pics of the boys at every month.

1 year pic!

iPad with daddy....

someone is already obsessed. ugh!

Brother tummy time

Dear boys......

Well your daddy was home for a day after being away for five and now he's gone again on a recruiting trip so it has me thinking.

It has me thinking about how much I love him. And how I hope and pray and dream and wish with all of my heart that you will one day have what we have. And be to another human being what your father is to me. He is calm where I am..............not. He is funny where I can be a little too serious. He is confident where I am insecure. He is creative where I am very by the book. He is thoughtful and slow at making decisions where as I tend to jump the gun. He is absolutely everything that I am not but in the same breath we are one person. He completes my life (along with you two) and there's not a better feeling knowing that he is with me. Every step of the way. Every fall I take, he picks me up and is the strong man that little girls dream will one day take care of them.

I believe the best gift that we could ever give you two boys is to show you what it means to give love and receive it in a healthy, loving relationship. We certainly have our differences and I know I annoy daddy and he certainly knows how to piss me off but at the end of the day we love each other more than anything on this earth and I hope as you grow you will see that. And learn from it. Because if we can raise two individuals who know how to love whole heartedly and give of themselves without condition, we will consider our lives a success.

Last week was our 4 year anniversary. 4 years is nothing, I realize, but I'm really proud of us because as I told Paul.....falling in love is easy. People do it every day. Its staying in love that is the hard part but he makes it easy for me. I hope one day you make it easy for someone to fall, and stay, in love with you two. And I hope we are able to show you boys how to do that.......

Love you so much. Love your daddy just a leeeeeetle bit more.

Do you think he's happy?

Someone loves his life.


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My shadow:

I can go nowhere without this little man right behind me, beside me, up my butt.......literally.

Today I had to take a quick pee and of course Declan was right on my tail. So I go potty and Declan, sweet child of mine, tears off a piece of tissue paper and walks around as if he is going to wipe my butt. Lovely image I know you have in your brain right now.....

A few things I want to remember and note about this. A) I cannot even get a minute to myself to pee. Nope. Right there with me. B) I love how observant he is. Decky is a definite watcher, take it iner, and then a doer. He knows exactly how he process goes. C) I wish he was this enthusiastic about his own potty situation! He is absolutely getting ready I think to train but the thought of that is enough to throw me over the edge right now. I do think though, knowing him, he's taking all of this in, every trip to the potty with mommy, and one day he will just do it and it'll be a non event so im not gonna Stress myself out about this right now.

I'll just keep enjoying my little shadow man and be thankful for the time in our lives that he wants to be around me every single second of every single day. I know this ain't gonna be forever......

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Mirror!

Carrig finally saw himself in the mirror and he liked what he saw! :)



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The stall tactics

Are remarkable. Declan has been trying everything he can to stall sleep time since we switched him to the big boy bed. Today for his naptime he spent 45 minutes jumping in and out of his bed, asking for his blue truck(not red) yellow car(not green), two chips (not three), throwing off every book on the shelves and screaming "moooom look!!!", asking for a hug and kiss, then another kiss, then another hug.....

Guess what decky - mommy is more stubborn than you.

I applaud your efforts, I really do, but you are now asleep and that's how it's gonna be homeboy. Good try though.

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They are cute

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Apparently I took this sideways.....

And I am not fantastic with this thing so I can't figure out how to turn it but if you don't mind tilting your head for a minute I promise he will make you smile :)

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Dear mom -

Cool your jets with the camera. Seriously lady enough is enough.



Love -
Carrig James

PS - I am chubby.

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GiGi!

My mom stopped by here for a few days on her way to the beach and it was so nice. She helped a ton, let Paul and I go out for our anniversary, cuddled with decky and chatted it up with c-money! They sat and talked to each other and smiled smiled smiled for hourssss..........it was so cute to watch. They are best buds!

Thanks for coming GiGi. We love u!

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The carseat......

Is getting a little better!!



We've made it numerous car trips and walks with no crying and even has fallen asleep a few times! We are rounding a very long painful corner.....finally!

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Picasso

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Pink eye

Blows.

I think btwn the 3 hours at the eye dr and then the four diff stores we went to trying on tons of communal kids glasses, decky picked up pink eye that brought with it a wicked cold.

Sunday (mothers day) was brutal and his eye was pretty red and goopy, monday was not better in the slightest so Tuesday when he woke up with his right eye basically closed shut I finally broke down and took him to the
Dr. Turns out he had it in both eyes and also turns out they give u horrible eye drops that are surely from the devil. Why they think it is acceptable to think a 2 yr old will be ok with eye drops 4 times a day for a week is ok is beyond me. Can we please come up with an alternative cure....Anyone???

Sad pink eyed sick buddy......


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"hurry up I'm stuck with a grenade here!!"

This is how we ended our night.
I'm not sure what I was expecting out of today but it certainly wasn't a super sick toddler and an infant who thinks naps are optional....nor was it a total blowout right before we put carrig down. It did make for an awesome laugh, one that both Paul and I desperately needed after today :) I was bent over hysterical laughing and trying to find my camera while Paul's screaming at me to get him off of him, thus the grenade comment. It was everywhere, all over his pants, the blanket, the pillows, carrig. Oh it was a good one.










So this mothers day was a little less than ideal but what can you do. It's real life.......Paul, decky, carrig and I are just doing our best to get by and today was a massive struggle so let's hope for a better one tomorrow. Anyway you slice it though, I love my boys and I'm so thankful for them....




Declan finally getting some rest.
Sweet baby.....he needs it so badly. love how he still sleeps in the fetal position........My love.

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Dear Pearle Vision of myrtle beach

I apologize. So so much.

Yesterday after the boys afternoon naps I thought it might be a good idea to go see if we could fill Declan's prescription for glasses. Right. Great idea.

I could have filled it at his eye appt on wednesday but a) it was in Florence and I didn't wanna drive 3 hours again for friggin glasses and b) Declan had reached his absolute limit by the time his appt was over (3 hrs in a drs office is gooooood times!!) so we hightailed it out ASAP.

We had to find a place here and my dad called around a little for me and found Pearle Vision and was told they worked with kids a lot. So we went and oh my word. If, by chance, any of you blog readers out there are thinking of opening up an optical center, do not - repeat - NOT, put the glasses at eye level or within arms reach of a toddler. What the sh*t???? For about 28 minutes I chased Declan around the store trying to stop him from touching every flipping pair of glasses. "yeyyow gas! Oooo boo gas!! Ohhh pu-pull gas!" I mean holy smokes he was absolutely not listening to me so then I yelled at him, he basically laughed in my face, I pick him up and he pulls my favorite arching the back move, I could go on....

Meanwhile there are other people in the store looking at me like i am easily the worst mom on the planet. The lady was trying to help me and show me pictures in a book of what we could get decky but like I said, he was running around touching and grabbing every pair possible so I couldn't exactly sit nicely and talk with the lady. Ps carrig was sitting nicely asleep in his carseat until Declan went over and started rocking it and woke him up - which of course made him start screaming. So I have a screaming infant and a crazy toddler. Delightful.

Safe to say we did not get a pair
of glasses and we are damn lucky we didn't walk out with a $2000 bill of broken glasses.

I got in the car and just had to laugh. Otherwise I would have balled my eyes out.


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Little four eyes

So this guy:



Is getting glasses :( he has a nice case of esotropia as you can see above due to his pretty severe farsightedness so we had him evaluated by a pediatric ophthalmologist and he told me basically my biggest fear about this situation - that Declan needs
glasses. They are ridiculously expensive and all I see is Declan tearing them off his face every two seconds. And tripping and falling, breaking them. And getting made fun of :(
Hopefully he will surprise everyone and do ok with these things but oh my. I don't have high hopes....
Poor guy, this is definitely a Hunt trait. I was verrry crosseyed as a child and actually ended up having surgery. My brother still wears glasses and was pretty crosseyed as a baby, my dad, all his male ancestors, everyone.......all crosseyed. So it was really just a matter of time. He started doing it when he was tired around naptime over Christmas and it has escalated from there.
Some days I don't even notice it and other days it's almost all day that he is cross eyed. And it is scary looking......it'll freak you out of you aren't prepared.
Next up, finding glasses that will fit his head and actually stay on. Pray for us.

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