Spring Fun

Christy and I took the kids to the zoo last week. The weather was gorgeous and we didn't experience any major meltdowns with the kids. I think the only disappointing part was that we weren't able to see the lions and the crocodiles (Morgan loves the five little monkeys and the crocodile book) but we did get a very close view of the giant pandas!

Maggie and William

Jackson and Morgan (our own little monkeys)
Morgan and the baby panda bear
Morgan and Jackson
Train Ride

Matthew is almost two months old - I can't believe it. Below is a video of him enjoying the sights around him:

The best $12.99 we spent...

So earlier this year our hard drive on our computer crashed and we lost everything that was on our computer. Thankfully, all of our digital pictures (12,000+) were stored on our external hard drive and that worked just fine...until yesterday that is. Our external hard drive died - Brian says it was the 'clicks of death'. Thankfully, when our computer died a few months ago, I realized I would be devastated if I lost all of our digital pictures of Morgan and Matthew growing up. After some advice from my IT guy at work (thanks a MILLION Kevin) we went with backupright.com. It costs us $12.99 a month, but it is WORTH every penny. After Matthew was born it took about 8-9 days of uploading our files 24 hours a day to backupright--well worth the effort. I am still hoping we can salvage our hard drive, but because of backupright.com, we will be able to restore all 12,000 of our digital pics and other files we backed up.

Take our advice - back up your files!!! If you have a better way to do it than we do, please let us know. Hopefully you won't have the horrible computer luck that we do...

Happy Birthday Brian!

Brian's Birthday was yesterday - Happy Birthday Brian!

While Morgan was at school, I met Brian for lunch at one of our favorite restaurants (Season's 52). Matthew was great and slept through the entire lunch. At dinner, our church had a volunteer appreciation night with free dinner, entertainment, and childcare (how could we resist???). Grandaddy, Nene, and Miss Hope watched Matthew - a big THANKS to them for putting up with a fussy, uncooperative six week old!

This past weekend we had a birthday breakfast for Brian and invited the Norris kids over for some playtime (five kids all at once sure kept us on our toes):

BDay Mickey Mouse Pancakes
Matthew - Six Weeks
Jackson
William and Maggie (8 months)

Spring Fling

Morgan's school had a Spring Fling last week during the week of the Young Child. All week long they had activities for students and parents to do together while at school (color pictures, decorate pin wheels, eat snow cones, attend the book fair, and play at the spring fling). Now that I am on maternity leave, I am able to spend time volunteering at the school - something that has been a lot of fun for me. Morgan absolutely loves her school and her teachers - one of the reasons we are still sending her while I am on maternity leave. She is already looking forward to when she turns three and gets to move up stairs with the big kids and her friend "Abby Girl".

The pictures below are from the spring fling - they had an inflatable jumper, plenty of games, face painting, tattoos, and cotton candy:

Morgan and her shades (she loves wearing them)

Morgan and Lily
Morgan admiring her face paint in the mirror
Morgan and her classmates eating cotton candy (glad I didn't have to watch them the rest of the day!)

Random Thoughts

Matthew is now 5 weeks and weighs 12lbs, 9ozs. We are moving out of 0-3 months clothes and beginning to wear 3-6 month outfits. Matthew is now consistently sleeping 6-8 hours at night - yeah! He eats a lot during the day, but it is worth it to get some sleep at night!

Brian has been pretty tired lately (he doesn't get the option of a nap during the day if he needs it) so I know he welcomes Matthew sleeping more at night. The other night Matthew was getting fussy so Brian sat with him in our kitchen to calm him down while Morgan and I went to the family room. After about ten minutes of not hearing either one of them, Morgan and I went to check on them - this is what we found:

Matthew and Brian taking a cat nap

Morgan is a great big sister and loves having Matthew around. She constantly wants to hug and kiss him. She loves playing with her puzzles and her baby dolls. Although having a 2 year old is a BIG challenge, she is such a joy to have in our lives and definitely keeps us on our toes.

Morgan
Matthew - 5 weeks (his smiles are getting bigger and bigger)

In other family news, my cousin Jake passed his bar on the first try - way to go Jake. The pic below is Jake and I at Josh's wedding in Aug 06. My sister has a picture of my grandfather from the 1940s - see any resemblance????

Family Time

This past weekend, we took Matthew to Auburn for the first time to visit Brian's family. The weather was georgeous (I would actually consider it too warm for April!) so we went to the park on Friday. The rest of the weekend we spent time with Brian's family and celebrated Brian's upcoming birthday. We also celebrated Megan's acceptance into a PhD program (way to go Meg!). Kim made a fabulous dinner and Nana made Brian his favorite cake. Morgan and Matthew's cousin, William, even pretty much mastered crawling this weekend.

Brian and Morgan getting ready to blow out the candles

Matthew - 5 weeks

Maggie and William
Nana reading a bedtime story to Morgan and Jackson
Jen and Matthew (growing sooo fast!)

Peppy and Morgan at the park
Jen, Matthew, and Peppy
Aung Meg and Matthew

Three Weeks!

Another week has flown by. Matthew is growing very quickly - he has gained 2lbs in about 3 weeks. He even fits into some 3-6 month outfits! Matthew has a long torso so I don't think 0-3 month onsies will last much longer! Brian and I are still sleep deprived, but I am beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel as I only need to get up one time to feed him now (however, he pretty much eats non stop between 6 and 11pm-I guess he is storing up for the night ahead). Matthew has even begun to smile :)

Morgan is also doing well. We had parent teach conferences this week at her school and they pretty much confirmed what we already knew - Morgan is a very loveable, smart, well adjusted, motherly 2 year old. Brian and I are thankful that Morgan loves her school and teachers and has a great time there.

Proud Daddy and Matthew

The best part of having a newborn is being able to snuggle!
Morgan!

Smiling Matthew

Sleeping Matthew

Morgan and Matthew
Peppy and Matthew