Mom&Dad's Visit: Day 1

This is the first post from my parents' visit to Santa Clarita, CA. It was SUCH a great visit and we loved our time with mom and dad! It had been a long while since we had seen my parents, but it didn't seem like that because we do FaceTime with them almost everyday! It gives us something to do during the day and we all love it! 

Mom and dad arrived on a Thursday night and stayed overnight in L.A. They came to us as soon as they could and immediately basked in the awesomeness of their little grandbabes! It was fun to watch them goo and gah over each other. I love how my parents love our kids so much and how our kids adore their grandma and grandpa! What a blessing to have grandparents that love them SO dearly even when they live over 2,000 miles away!

My in-laws were out of town the week my parents were here so it worked out perfectly that they could stay over there. We all stayed a few nights together and then let them have the house to themselves half way through the week. Each morning we would meet up and decide what fun things we were going to do that day. The first day was PACKED as we drove to the Getty Museum, Santa Monica, and Malibu! Here are a few pictures from the first two full days with mom and dad!

Samuel just loves being with his grandpa! (whom he affectionately calls "humpah"...love it)

Tickles!

They adore each other!

Wearing one of abba's old snow hats from when he was a little guy! While we were at my in-laws' we went through a couple boxes that had a lot of Joshua's clothing and toys from when he was little. It was fun going down memory lane and picking out clothes that we thought would be fun for the boys to have.

Such a sweet face!

Benjamin smiles at grandma ALL. THE. TIME!

Lovey!

While staying at Grandpa's (Bill) house, Samuel just loved playing the piano! And driving his trains on the keys, too :)

Grandma made a great big breakfast for everyone on the first morning together! 

Yummy! Thanks, grandma! :)

This helped get us all over SoCal! The whole time, Benjamin tried to strain his neck so that he could see what Samuel was watching. He's going to LOVE being in his forward-facing carseat in just a few months!

Waiting for the tram to take us to the Getty Museum in L.A.

More waiting...

By the way, Samuel did SUCH an awesome job being schlepped all over the place with little naps. There were many cranky times, but overall, he was pleasant and fun. Again, blessed we are!

The start to our day of walking! Everyone was a trooper (especially mom who had a BROKEN TOE!)

Just about nap-time!

The Getty in gorgeous! The last time I was here was when Joshua took me the first time I visited him in CA. It brought back lots of memories and was amazing to see how far the Lord has brought our little family in such a short time!

3/4 of my favorite men in the world!

Messin' around. I wanted to see what I really look like when I take pictures, so I had my dad do this. I'll have to post one of those when he passes them on to me :)

Yay! It was so bright in the courtyard, but such a fun place to run around and get some energy out!

Joshua went into the Sketching Gallery where they gave him paper and nice pencils to sketch paintings, or sculptures, or even photographs.

He chose a painting.

And did pretty well if you ask me!

Love love love! Photo credit: MOM!

Parents with the L.A. Skyline

I love my family.

After spending some time at the Getty, we drove to Santa Monica and walked around a bit. We stopped at P.F. Chang's for a late, yummy lunch!

Banana Spring Rolls. So good.

Benjamin enjoyed some, too, after he woke up from his nap in the stroller. Samuel was still sleeping, so we won't tell him what he missed ;)

Pigeons on our walk to the Santa Monica Pier. I thought this photo turned out pretty cool!

The houses down there are pretty extravagant...and...colorful!

Beautiful scenery. Really, CA is such a pretty place!

The Pier!

YUM YUM ice-cream!

Monkey and Abba...Samuel's two favorites!

The beach was crowded and beautiful!

In the arcade area of the Pier, they had a basketball game and FLORIDA GATOR balls! I felt like a piece of home was there on that pier :) GATOR NATION!

FUN!

A short photo-shoot of the little man, while Samuel and Abba walked in the arcade!

Thought this was a cool one, too :)

Happy boy!

Eating feet. That's the life!

After a LONG day of fun activities, we drove down the PCH listening to the Beach Boys and looking for the moon! It was SUCH a fun start to my parents' visit to CA!

More to come...

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Benjamin is 9 months old!

This past week, we celebrated our Benjamin's 9 months of life! We got to celebrate with grandma and grandpa coming into town which has been a blast (pictures/post to come)! 

Benjamin is such a neat little baby! He seems to be content most all of the time and smiles at everyone! Just a couple weeks ago, was the first and only time he has shown any type of stranger anxiety, which is very different from his big brother! He seems to have a more timid side which expresses itself with a coy-like grin at times and a head bow when anyone claps and says, "yay, Benjamin!" 

Benjamin has learned to army crawl since his last monthly update and is getting into EVERYTHING! Thankfully, we live in a tiny 300 sq. ft. apartment so there's not much to get into, but I definitely see cabinet locks and outlet covers in our future! 

This little guy loves to be around people. He seems content to play on his own at times, but would much rather be surrounded by his momma, abba, and big brother. Speaking of big brother, he just LOVES Samuel and following him around. Samuel is {slowly} learning that Benjamin is one of those kids he's going to have to share with now ;) It can be challenging, but it is very sweet to see Samuel learning to be kind and sharing with his little bro. He also likes to share milk, nuts, small trinket toys, and chocolate...

Benjamin is an eating machine! He will eat everything and anything we give him (or that he finds in random places). I feel like he's eating more table food at an earlier age than Samuel did, which makes it easier if we don't have baby food on hand. Benjamin is 100% weaned which has been a nice transition. I truly enjoyed my time nursing him, but it seemed time to end that stage with him. He is doing great and loves the bottle!

All in all, Benjamin is such a pleasant baby and we have, once again, been blessed beyond measure by God. He showed us great favor giving us the boys that He did. Such a good God!

(don't mind the food-stained t-shirt. we're living life over here! :))

(This picture isn't from Benjamin's "PhotoShoot" but I just loved it. I shot it at the Getty Museum which was such fun! :))

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Benjamin - 8 Months old!

So I'm a couple days late for Benjamin's monthly review, but here it is! WOW! Do we just love this guy!!!

He is learning and growing so fast! From picking up his own food, to making strides to being  a crawler, Benjamin is always amazing us! He is still pretty flexible, which makes it nice having a very active brother who loves to be on the go! 

Also, Benjamin is starting to do things like lifting his bottom and getting on all fours which make us think he is just around the corner from crawling! Boy will we have our hands VERY full when he eventually gets going! Already, he has such a tight grip and is not very happy when things are taken away from him. I have a feeling he isn't going to like the word "no." But, we'll cross that bridge when we get there (sooner than we think...)!

Benjamin loves to put anything in his mouth and that has proven to be dangerous these days! Our poor little guy contracted a nasty stomach bug this past week. He was the most miserable I have ever seen him, not eating and screaming all the time! We did all we could to make him feel more comfortable. It was definitely a shock to my system as he was waking up 3-4 times a night with dirty diapers. How quickly I forgot what it was like to be up in the middle of the night. God gave me (and my poor husband!) such strength and supernatural energies!  Praise be to God, he is starting to act like himself - cheerful with a HUGE appetite :) Still working on some stomach issues, but he is definitely on the mend! 

We LOVE LOVE LOVE this guy and are so thankful for him! Still can't believe that he's 8 months old!

Here are a couple pictures of our little man!

We call him "BenjiMater"because his two little teeth remind us of Mater from Disney's Cars! LOL!! 

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Facebook and Graduation

Whelp! I've been on quite a hiatus in recent months. In the midst of moving from Louisville, KY to Santa Clarita, CA and preparing to graduate with my Master's in Biblical Counseling, I haven't had big chunks of time to sit down, edit pictures, and write much. I even skipped Benjamin's monthly post as we were smack-dab in the middle of packing and moving.

Also in the midst of not blogging, I decided to remove myself from the Facebook world. After lots of prayer, discussion with faithful friends, and a few helpful blog posts, I realized I was spending too much precious and valuable time browsing photos, writing on walls, and simply "checking facebook" for who knows what! It became somewhat of an addiction. I began to feel comforted by the continual "checking" and browsing. This post really helped me get a better understanding of my own heart when it came to this newfound "love." The author pointed out that we tend to "check" Facebook at our lowest moments and compare our lives with the perfect ones that we see on Facebook. (Who doesn't try to put their best foot forward?) Though I felt like I wasn't necessarily comparing myself with every status and photo I saw, I was wasting a great deal of time essentially becoming a busy body going from profile to profile in search of the latest "news" that my friends and acquaintances had to share (see girltalk blog's post on this here). So as I examined my heart and habits, I came to the conclusion that it just wasn't worth my time investing in this avenue of social media. Since then, Joshua and I have come together to create a family-type facebook page where we can keep in touch with family and friends and post pictures. We think this will be best for our goals as a couple and a family :)

~~~

Since arriving in CA, I managed to graduate with my Masters in Biblical Counseling! Yay! It's been a long time coming and I'm thankful to have this season of studies completed. Now on to continue studying the art of mommy-hood and homemaking for my 3 guys :)

(I have a beautiful life.)

I feel like there is just so much that I could write about since it has been so long. Days are long and busy and it has actually taken me almost a week to get this one post completed so I'll leave with this...God is doing great things in our family. He is proving Himself to be faithful in all circumstances and we are trusting Him! :)

Until next time, may I continue to seek first God's kingdom and will and may I fight harder and harder for the joy that is found in Christ Jesus!

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