Water Balloons...

Last Sunday, Jake and Chris enjoyed a fun water balloon "fight" :-) It was entertaining to watch, and if it were up to Jake, we would STILL be out there (yes, a week later) playing with water balloons!! Cole enjoyed looking on himself .... he is SO READY to be able to join in on all of the fun, though - and not just sit on the sidelines with Mommy :-)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MIMI!!

We definitely DIDN'T forget Mimi's birthday - and didn't forget about the shout out on the blog, either .... it has just been finding the time - after I spent so much time working on all of those Disney pictures. Mimi's birthday was Wednesday - and we hope she had a REALLY HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!!! We are thankful for you - and we love you SO much!! Jake has a little message he wanted to send out :

Lots of shout outs, actually, to give -

*My grandmother (Nana) and Mom share the same birthday .... pretty cool!

*Mom and Dad's Anniversary was yesterday (the 11th). 34 years! I am thankful everyday for their marriage and the parents that they are! Jul and I were - and ARE - truly blessed!

*My grandfather's (Papa) birthday is today .... Happy Birthday Papa!!

*Jul and Matt's 1st Anniversary is today - hard to believe it has been a year! Hope you guys had an extra special day! :-)

Disney World 2010 Videos...

Disney World pictures are up .... now for some videos :-) To say that the vacation was a BLAST would be an under-statement! We had such an amazing time. You never really know how a trip is going to go with a 2 1/2 year old and an 8-month old, but they both did really well - and you could tell were having LOTS of fun! It was SO NICE having Poppy and Aunt Jenn along. Not only were they such a huge help .... but we enjoy their company, too, which made it all the better! We appreciate them being able to take leave from work and join us - great memories were made!! I could write pages and pages of all the fun we had, but since Jenn and I took a combined 442 pictures, you can just enjoy browsing through all of those and let the pictures do most of the talking - and if you DO make it to the end, you'll see that Jake rode his very first rollercoaster! The pictures are great, b/c he looked scared out of his mind at the beginning, but is cheering at the end! His favorite rides were the race cars, tea cups, and Dumbo. Oh, and he liked the Honey I Shrunk the Kids playground at Hollywood Studios. He really liked it all, though - except the characters. Jake was NOT a fan of the characters .... he wanted to SEE them, but from a distance. On the other hand, Cole LOVED the characters ..... he would just start kicking his legs, so excited to see them while we were waiting in line, so that was pretty cute!

Enjoy experiencing some of our fun memories through the pictures and videos :-)

The Dumbo Ride

TEA CUPS (probably his absolute favorite)!

The resort we stayed at had a really nice pool - for kids and adults. Here is Jake going down the slide on the kids' pool!

Then, he got braver and started going down backwards, BUT was told by the lifeguards feet first (facing front)! Lifeguards are always ruining all of the fun, huh?! Haha!

After going down the smaller slides for a while, he was all about trying out one of the slides from the "big pool"! He must've gone down this slide 50 times over the course of the week. I wish the camera was closer to capture his facial expressions, BECAUSE once he got around the corner of the slide and was facing the pool, he had this HUGE GRIN on his face, because he was so excited ..... then, as he started to quickly go down the slide, the smile went away and was replaced by concentration :-) THEN, after coming up from the water, another HUGE smile! It was so fun to watch!!

We went to Hollywood Stuidos on Thursday - and while we were there, we went to the Playhouse Disney Show. For all the Moms out there - you would've LOVED this show. Chris was laughing afterwards saying you could see all the Moms singing all of the songs - haha! So, in this show, we saw a little of Mickey Mouse ClubHouse, Handy Manny, Little Einsteins, and Tigger and Pooh! What I love about this video is Jake's face. I noticed more than ever this past week that Jake is a PROCESSOR. He is constantly processing everything he is seeing and hearing, so I just love the looks on his face - taking it all in - seeing IN PERSON what he watches on TV! The ONLY bummer about this show is that they didn't do the "hot dog" dance at the end!!!!!! You can't have Mickey Mouse Clubhouse without the hot dog dance!!

Another day on the tea cups .... Jake's face is priceless... riding these with his Daddy!!

Those are the highlight videos .... I suggest you start planning YOUR Disney World Vacation today. I know I'm ready to start planning our next one ;-)

Disney World 2010

Click here to view these pictures larger

A Little Behind....

To say that the past 2 weeks have been busy, would be an understatement. You would think that with Jake being at my in-laws for a few days a couple of weeks ago, that I would have accomplished a lot .... but Cole REALLY keeps me on my toes - especially these days as he is into everything, BUT it was nice spending some quality time with Cole, and Jake had a blast with Gram and Poppy .... eating ice-cream with waffles, going swimming, going to the park, making Mickey Mouse cupcakes, eating at Moes, lots of playing outside, and plenty more....

It was great to have him back, though - HE WAS MISSED! BUT, before he got back, Jenn came into town for Graduation. It was great spending time with her - and Chris was especially excited about eating sushi and then our seafood feast we all prepared to celebrate graduation weekend. Here are some pictures from graduation - Chris's first as a Company Commander. There ended up being 487 new Marines that graduated from Hotel Company!! They should get an extra $500 in their next paycheck for making it through Parris Island - IN THIS HEAT AND HUMIDITY we have had this summer!!!

Chris and his 1stSgt before graduation....
Beautiful morning .... a little humid, but still nice compared to the brutal summer we have endured...

The Band...
Chris is in front ....


Cole only made it halfway through graduation before I had to get up and walk around with him, so there was no way we were going to be able to get him to look at the camera during this picture - he was DONE.
Chris in his office afterwards enjoying the AC....
Cole LOVING seeing Daddy....

Then, on Saturday .... we had a wedding to go to - and Aunt Jenn watched Cole for us while Chris and I went to the wedding. Very rare picture of the 2 of us - all dressed up!

Don't worry .... Disney pictures are coming soon. I'm uploading them all to shutterfly and then will post the link (there are SO many of them), so I'm hoping to get around to finishing that today. Disney World was such fun!! I wish we could leave tomorrow and do it all over again instead of Chris starting a new cycle, BUT we have some great pictures and fantastic memories from the week!!

Beach with Cole

Jake has been at Gram and Poppy's house in VA since Wednesday. This was honestly a hard thing for me to agree to, since VA is 8 hours away. It's not like I can just hop in a car and quickly get there if I needed to, so it was a pretty big deal to me, but I knew he was going to have a good time (and he, obviously, is so far....he may never want to come home, actually) - and I wanted them to be able to enjoy some Jake time. Since Jake has been gone the past couple of days, Cole and I have stayed BUSY. I think Cole has been wondering where Jake is .... as he crawls around and looks around the corner, as if to look for Jake, but at the same time, I think Cole has also enjoyed a couple days of having FREE REIGN of the house and no one coming and taking toys from him and saying, "that's mine" (which we are constantly working on with Jake.... typical 2 year old)! Aunt Jenn is in town now, too - for graduation today, so it's fun having her here!! One of the things Cole and I did over the past couple days is go to the beach. We haven't been in a few weeks - and he enjoyed every minute of crawling around! I had to put the pacifier in his mouth, though - after several handfuls of sand to the mouth. :-) Cole is definitely a beach boy .... he LOVES the sand and the water!!

Cole and Elise
Elise, Cole, and Elle

A few More....

Here are a few more pictures from our trip to Florida. I forgot that I had taken these, since they were on my other camera, but they are important pictures :-) The first 2 are of Cole in a high chair at a restaurant for the FIRST time! He did great ... especially since we had a party of 14!! :-) His first time in a high chair was at Scooners - probably the absolute best place ever to eat shrimp!! Hopefully in a couple of years, he will be sitting in a chair next to me enjoying the goodness of shrimp and hushpuppies at Scooners!

Look at these 2! So cute!!!
Uncle Don with Cole
Trying to get a picture of the kids with Nana and Papa ....
wasn't really meant to be (but you get the idea) .... :-)
Jakester!