Young Party of Four

Today is a super special day! Today our niece, "Baby" Evie, turns 1! She is officially no longer a baby. (Though I fear we will never be able to convince Kenzie to call her "Toddler" Evie, "Preschooler" Evie, "School Age" Evie... maybe just Evie...  or anything other than "Baby" Evie. ) I didn't take this picture. I "borrowed" it from Evie's Mommy. =) I will never forget the days leading up to Evie's birth and that fateful day that we got the call that Evie was born. I will never forget hearing the excitement, yet some reservation in Julie's voice. I will never forget the day they brought her home from the hospital. I wasn't there, but I will also never forget that day they got all dressed up and Evie "officially" became a part of our family despite the fact that she was our family and our little Jellybean from the moment she was born. For anyone that doesn't follow Steven's s...

It's official. Spring (ahem... Florida summer) has started. That means that our average temperature each day seems to hover somewhere between the Sahara Desert at midday and surface of the sun. I'm not complaining. Trust me. I am a warm weather fiend. I thrive on hot temperatures and wouldn't trade them for those freezing temps that so many of our northern friends deal with so much of the year. That being said, I'm not as big a fan of the Florida rainstorm. It comes on unexpectantly (except for the fact that in the true summer you can almost set a watch by it sometimes) and can either hang around for hours or (more commonly) about 20 minutes before it disappears like it never existed. The plus to a Florida rain is that most of the time it is gone fairly quickly. The downfall is... that crazy weather makes our humidity crank up to 1000%. I figured that this year was the year to start coming up with a few activities for those days that the rain shows up and decides th...

Okay, I'm part Irish. At least a smidge. =) Happy St. Patrick's Day! This year the holiday fell on a Tuesday but we were still able to attend the Mt. Dora St. Patrick's Day festivities (if there is a formal name for that event, I don't know what it is) at Gilbert Park. The event took place on Saturday. We all got decked out in our green and took off for the park. The city sets up an event complete with bounce houses, games, popcorn and snow cones, and (most importantly) a treasure hunt. They "hide" these bags of gold coins all over the playgrounds and then children go in and find the treasure. The hunts are broken down into age groups so Kenzie is still in the youngest group. Needless to say, Will did not participate. We did this last year and Kenzie had fun but this was the first year she honestly understood what was going on and she had a BLAST. Shortly after we arrived Kenzie made a beeline for the bounce house. Steven and I were convinced that we wo...

I must first preface this with... this is NOT a pregnancy announcement. Dear Lord. We have a 5 month old and a toddler. I would have to be crazy. =) It was around 3 years ago that we first posted this picture to Facebook... This was our way to announce that we were officially expecting Young Baby #1. Less than 6 months later, little Kenzie graced us with her amazing presence. She came into our lives like a shot and is still keeping us on our toes day in and day out. Kenzie is a happy, fun, excitable, vibrant, friendly, little girl. She loves life. She loves her family. She loves Doc McStuffins. (I had to get that in there. The kid thinks she is the next Doc...) Kenzie spent two years of her life being our one and only... and then... Will entered the picture. Kenzie immediately took on the role of big sister. She is an amazing big sister. Just like his sister, Will entered our lives in a slightly dramatic way. He became the other part of our whole. We are this family now, fi...

Dear William, Happy 5 months Little Man! Again, time seems like it is flying. Although, it also seems to be standing still on those days that you get me up every hour or two all night long. Haha! You are getting so very big. A true "Young Baby" from what I have been told. You didn't have a formal doctor appointment this month so I only have my estimates on height and weight this time. I measured you numerous times and kept getting between 27.75 and 28 inches, so I am just going to say you are 27.75. I also weighed you over and over again and you tended to fall right around 17 lbs, 13 oz. Again, these should all be taken with a grain of salt because I am doing it informally. You could be a bit larger or smaller than either of those estimates.  I have noticed that your rate of weight gain is slowing, which is typical for a breastfed baby. Apparently it is common for you to gain a lot for the first four months and then slow down because you can regulate how much you e...