Mother's Day

The day before Mother's day Joe and I spent the entire day at the old apartment cleaning and getting the last of our things out. It was a very long day and a lot of work. That night we went down to Maryland for my sister-in-law Victoria's 13th birthday party. It was really a party for her friends but she asked us to come down because it was at the place where Victoria takes horseback riding lessons and we hadn't seen her ride yet. Unfortunately I didn't take my camera so I don't have any pictures to put up. But it was a nice evening and Victoria did really well. It was neat seeing her in her element with her friends. I still can't believe she's 13 already!

This was my first Mother's Day as a mom. In some ways it was like most other days except that I got to sleep in until 10am for a change while Joe took care of Ben. The rest of the morning and afternoon, Joe and I spent unpacking, cleaning and running errands to prepare for my parents coming over for dinner. This was the first real meal we hosted in the new house and we wanted to make sure it was nice. Joe planned to grill so I wouldn't have to cook. Just as he was getting ready to put the food on the grill, it started to rain. But he and my dad decided to keep going with it outside and, despite the downpour, dinner was really good. After dinner we sat and watched the baby as he showed off all his new tricks, like sitting up by himself. Then my brother called from Hawaii where he was visiting for a friend's wedding. It was great talking to him since we don't get to do so much now that he's back in Korea.

Here are some pictures we took on Mother's Day.




My parents brought me a very pretty and big pot of flowers.












Ben and Gramma













Ben checking out Gramma's card












Mommy & Ben













Mommy, Gramma & Ben

Evie's Birthday

Our friends Chuck and Jenny's daughter turned 2 at the beginning of May so we went to her birthday party on 5/6. It was a small gathering for a change and gave us a chance to catch up with our friends. I didn't get a lot of pictures that day but here are a few.


Evie - the birthday girl
















Caran & Ben - he really enjoyed the baby swing
















Olivia - Joey and Laura Mallon's new baby - she has the most hair I've ever seen on a baby that young!!














Evie and Sara Mallon chowing down on some birthday cake

Carnival at St. Helena's

While Devin and Joe were playing on the big machine, I snapped a couple cute shots of Ben in his stroller.
















After Devin finished playing on the bull dozer, Joe, his dad, and I took Devin and Ben over to the St. Helena's carnival. The place was packed and the lines for the rides were long but Devin seemed to enjoy the few he got to go on. Joe, on the other hand, came to realize he's not as young as he used to be...spinning around on the sizzler and himilaya were about all he could take!














I took Ben on his first carnival ride, the carousel. There weren't any horses left on the outside so Joe wasn't able to get a picture of us while it was moving. But after the ride ended, he snapped this shot.

Ben really wasn't very impressed with the ride and honestly it made me dizzy! I guess I'm going to be one of the mom's that stays back and waves to the kids rather than ride along.

Heavy Machinery

The first few days after moving into the new house, I worked on unpacking while Joe worked on his grandmom's yard. She had an inground pool but it hadn't been used in years and really wanted to get it filled in. So Joe and his dad rented a bull dozer/back hoe and went to work. Unfortunately I didn't get any before pictures, but here's the final product after it was all filled in.







On the final day they had the machine, Chrissy brought our nephew Devin up to check out the machine and play on it. Devin loves tractors, trucks, and any other big machines. From the time he was pretty much able to talk, he would ask to go for rides on Mom-mom's riding mower or "tractor". So when he heard he would have the chance to ride the bull dozer he was all about it! Here are some pictures:

Nap Time

Even before Ben was born, Joe enjoyed a good afternoon nap on the couch. And now that Ben is with us, Joe loves to snuggle up with the boy and take a siesta. I guess Joe figures it's easier to get away with sleeping in the afternoon when he's cuddled up with the baby...and he's right! So here's yet another picture of the boys snoozing together. This was the first picture I took in the new house...gotta break it in right!

The Old Apartment

Here's a picture of the outside of our old apartment. It is an old farm house that has been split into apartments. We lived on the first floor and it was a really big place. Joe's grandmom owns it and lives next door. Joe actually did a lot of work on the apartments about 10 years ago and then he lived in that first apartment for the last 9 years.

Although it was time to move on, it was sad to leave there. It was our first home together and Ben's too. But we take with us a lot of great memories and truly appreciate all that living there allowed us to do. Thanks Mom-mom!

Ben - 24 to 30 Weeks Old

Here are some recent pictures of Ben. I'll be updating some more of our recent adventures soon.


24 Weeks Old











25 Weeks Old


















26 Weeks Old












27 Weeks Old















28 Weeks Old
















29 Weeks Old

















30 Weeks Old

Settling in

I must apologize that it has been such a long time since my last post. We moved to our new house on April 29th and didn't have our internet hooked up for a while. Plus we've been spending most of our free time unpacking. But things are starting to get back to normal now so hopefully I'll be able to devote some more time to the blog. Thanks for sticking with us!

The move went really well. I think only one glass broke...which is pretty good considering all the breakables we own! However, I must admit that we still have one of Joe's vans full of stuff that we still have to go through so there may be more mishaps we don't know about yet.

The new house is great and I plan to put up pictures of the final remodeling soon. We're having our first major unveiling at a Memorial Day barbeque tomorrow for our family. The house is probably as clean as it's going to be for a while so I'm planning to take pictures before everyone arrives. I'm also printing before pictures to show everyone what the house looked like when we bought it...the transformation really is amazing!!!