While Daddy's Away....

Will is back from his 2 weeks out in the field!  Yay!  Here are some pictures though from the last couple weeks of the boys hanging out around the house.  One thing I learned while Will was away was that bedtime takes TWICE as long... maybe even three times longer!... when I'm doing it on my own!  It will sure be nice once Grayson gets a little older and can change into his pajamas by himself!  I'm not looking forward to the next month while Will is as JRTC and I don't get even those few hr breaks with him home every 4 days or so.  It may be a LONG month!  Visitors are highly encouraged to come during that time! ;)

I found it easier to take Ryley down in the laundry basket in the morning rather than making two trips!  He thought it was pretty fun as well! :)

Grayson was always happy to see Daddy when he'd be home for a few hours from the field.  On this day they had fun blowing bubbles on the back porch in the morning. 

We have a mole problem!  Found one dead on the lawn, but still finding tunnels every morning.  Any advice???

One evening I ran downstairs to grab something before changing Grayson into his PJ's.  When I came up... this is what I found!   

Grayson found his way into Ryley's crib with him and was having a grand ol' time!  Ryley didn't seem to mind... most of the time. :)  Now Grayson's favorite thing to do is play with Ryley in his crib.

We haven't seen our friends, Mel and her girls (Harley and Shelby), in a LONG time!  They finally came over the last night Daddy was gone for dinner and some play time.  Of course Mel had to get her baby fix and get lots of smiles from Ryley.  

Will came home and on Friday I got both the boys in to the doctor for a persistent cold that Grayson can't seem to get rid of.  Then Ryley started coughing and was congested as well.  Turns out Ryley had a double ear infection as well as Grayson is starting to get one in the ear that one of the tubes fell out of.  Now our counter looks like a pharmacy with saline drops, antibiotics, cough medicine, etc. for both the boys.  For two sick boys, they both have been very happy and sleeping well!  I'm definitely blessed with boys that don't let sickness get them down!  Tomorrow morning Grayson is scheduled to get new tubes put in so hopefully all goes as planned!  The doctor office said his cold shouldn't interfere with surgery unless he's running a fever.  So we'll be at the hospital bright and early at 5:30am tomorrow!  I'll be sure to let you all know how it goes!

Video-A Story told by Ryley

Ryley has been quite the chatter box!  That is when he can get a moment when Grayson is quiet which is rare!  Yesterday he had a moment where he just kept on talking.... sounding a bit like Chubaca (I have no idea how to spell it since I'm not a Star Wars fanatic!).  He started telling me a story while I was changing his diaper.  I think he kept his little story up for about 5 minutes!  Here's just little bits and pieces of it.  Of course had to throw a little grin in the middle of it for you and Grayson had to join in at the end.  Once Grayson came over though Ryley was done with his story.... as usual!

Video- Grayson and the little chicken

My Aunt Marilyn and Uncle Duane sent the boys some gifts before Easter.  Grayson LOVED the little chick that layed eggs.  Of course it came with little gum eggs.  I let Grayson try one, but he immediately chewed then swallowed!  So I switched them out and put in jelly beans instead.  As soon as the chick would "lay an egg" he'd grab it and gobble it up!  He's rather disappointed that mommy doesn't have any more jelly beans to put in the chicken! :)

Video at Hilton Head

Here's a video of our day at Hilton Head Beach with my sister, Deanna, and her two girls, Katelyn and Mia.  They came to visit the last week of March.  I didn't bother putting a swim suit on Grayson that day because he had been afraid of the water... until then!  The girls must have had the secret to getting him in the water because we walked on out there with them to jump in the waves!  We took a video so Grandma and Grandpa Sand could feel like they were there with us! :)  Here's a little of them playing in the sand, jumping waves, and of course a quick peek at Ryley relaxing under the umbrella.  Of course you hear mostly wind, but oh well!  Enjoy!

Blogger "Face Lift"

So I decided to change things up again on the blog as you can see.  I liked the other template design that I had that showed one picture for each post, but wanted to add a new "gadget" to the sidebar and it was difficult to see any of those on the old template.  For those of you that may want to be notified of when I post anything new, you can now "follow by email".  There is a place on the right sidebar that has as spot where you can put your email address in to "follow by email".  This will send you an email each time I put up something new.  You won't receive any kind of spam mail from this.  It will only let you know of new things posted.  I know when I first set up this blog I was able to select up to 10 email addresses to send notifications automatically.  So our immediate family members have been receiving emails each time I post something new this whole time.  However, I wasn't able to add more than 10 so when I saw this new "gadget" that can be added now I wanted to give that opportunity for you all.  Having this now means I will be cutting back more on sending out group emails to let you know when I've posted things.  I will probably now only send out our typical e-card on holidays with a reminder of our blog address through that.  Therefore, if you'd like to still be able to keep up to date with our "adventures" then PLEASE be sure to input your email address in this section to the right!  By doing so you are not signing up for a blog or anything.  It will ONLY let you know when I post new pictures and videos.  No spam!  I promise! :)  


Also, you will notice at the end of the right side bar there will be the archive of old posts that you can look through.  Then below that will be "Popular Posts".  This section just shows posts that have had a lot of views .  So if you have missed things and want to "catch up" with what we have been doing, then that might be a good place to look to get a quick look at some posts others have been viewing.


I plan to take some 3 month pictures of Ryley soon with my camera so I'll be posting those and maybe sharing some old 3 month pictures of Grayson as well.  Always fun to compare the two and see their similarities and differences!  We hope you all are doing well!  We love and miss you all!

Finished projects... and an unwelcome visitor

We managed to get some projects done around the house the week my sister and nieces were here.  I just never got pictures taken to show them off!  I finished painting the playroom that week with my nieces help on the tree.  They also brought some wall decals from Eric Carle's "Brown Bear" and "The Very Hungry Caterpillar" books.  We used the stickers in the playroom for finishing touches on animals that I was NOT about to attempt to draw! :)

  

We also had the house pressure washed (there was a lot of mildew on the side of the house!) as well as the porch stained, railings painted, and carport repainted.  Will was planning to take care of the staining himself, but with all the time he had scheduled to go out to the field, he realized he wouldn't get around to it until summer... and who wants to be doing a task like that in summer here?!  I put a picture of the back porch when we first moved in followed by the new pictures.  

The house when we moved in...

and now with a new stain and paint!

A new coat of paint on the door as well! :)

We cut down two dead trees back here and planted a dogwood tree in the middle

Our garden beds with peppers, tomatoes, green beans.... and whatever else Will planted!

I had the itch to paint more around the house, but not sure if I want to change colors in any rooms or not.  I like the neutral paint color throughout the house, but Will and I both are not too happy with the fact that it's a low grade paint so every mark Grayson makes on the wall with his sticky fingers doesn't wash off well at all!  I think our next big task will probably be to repaint the walls throughout the house in a semi-gloss paint so they're easier to wipe down if needed.  Just a matter of figuring out if we want to change any colors to any rooms!  :)  


Monday evening I found an unwelcome visitor in the backyard!  I had just gotten both the boys in bed and went to take out the trash.  There sitting in the bed by the back steps was a copperhead snake!  I'm not even sure how I saw it.  It blended in with the straw in the bed and was small.  Also, it was tucked up next to the edge of the porch under the rose bush.  I had merely glance in that direction thinking about needing to turn on the sprinkler to water the garden when it caught my eye.  It hadn't moved or made a sound yet somehow I managed to see it sitting there coiled up.  I quickly threw out the trash, came back and looked at it from the top of the steps.  I'm not a snake expert by any means, but my gut instinct and remembering one thing I learned in Girl Scouts YEARS ago was that venomous snakes typically have a triangular head shape.  I noticed this one had so I grabbed the camera to take a picture to compare online.  I posted the picture on Facebook to see if anyone knew right off hand what it was and while talking to a couple friends on there about it I saw through researching on the web that it was copperhead which is indeed venomous.  There was no way I was going to just let that thing slither away and have me worry about where it went in the yard, nor was I going to be killing it on my own!  Of course both the male neighbors were gone (Will was still in the field of course!) but I talked to the lady next door and her dad was on the phone.  He suggested I call the fire department because in his area they'll come take care of things like that.  The fire department is literally around the corner so the neighbors high school son stayed at the house for me while I drove over there to let them know about the snake.  The two fire fighters at the fire station came, and then police backup met them at the house.  Too bad Grayson was already in bed because he would have been thrilled to see the fire truck AND police car right outside our door! :)  They all confirmed that it was a copperhead and the firemen killed the snake by pinning it down with a hook on a stick then killing it with a shovel.  While I feel better knowing that it didn't slither away, it definitely has me worried about Grayson playing in the backyard on his own!  We may be doing more research to see if there's anything that will be safe to put out with Grayson playing that will keep snakes out of the yard.  Just another unfortunate part to living in coastal GA is having snakes and poisonous spiders to worry about!  I hope this doesn't keep any of you from visiting though!!!

The Little Artist and His Helper

Grayson is obsessed with painting these days!  His favorite thing to do is to sit at the kitchen table and paint with his watercolors on coloring book pages.  Of course he'll paint 4 or 5 things on the page, then ask for another page.  I have a big stack of pictures now that he's painted.  Don't be surprised if you find one in the mailbox! :)  

He was painting a cute little bear picture the other day and was being a silly boy... as usual.  He looked at me with his hands in a fist by his face and said "Oh no!  I scared!  Scary bear!"  Then he just laughed and said "I silly mommy!"

  

 This Friday was his last day of art class at the Roundhouse Museum.  The kids got to paint outside on large square boards.  These boards are going to be hung up in the new Children's Museum that's being built.  Their artwork will be the first group of kids displayed.  I made sure to paint Grayson's name on it so when the museum opens we can go and find his painting a whole lot easier.  Two year old's paintings all kinda look the same unless the parents add a little something to it to make it unique. :)  That day they staff was also letting goldfish in the pond outside the classroom.  Each of the kids got to catch a fish with the net and let it into the pond.  There were some leftover after everyone had a turn so Grayson got the chance to catch the last fish in the bucket.  The first one swam right into his net, but the last one was a lot harder to catch!  Of course with the fish there, Grayson wanted to spend most of his time looking into the pond rather than painting.  I managed to get him to paint some more though when i asked if he was going to paint me some snakes and dinosaurs.  We managed to get his board painted most of the way then.  Once we were done painting, he decided he wanted to color one more train picture inside the classroom and had fun coloring with another little girl that was there.  

Later that afternoon before dinner, Grayson wanted to paint some more so I fixed up some sidewalk paint for him to paint outside.  Of course Ryley came along and hung out in his bouncy seat, enjoying the weather, and chatting away.  :)  We painted Daddy a message and sent it to him in a text so he knew we were thinking about him.  The great thing about the sidewalk paint is that it stays for a long time!  Especially when it doesn't rain a lot here!  Daddy actually got to see his message the next morning when he was able to come home for a few hours from the field.

"knock knock knock!"

 These last pictures aren't of Grayson doing any art.  Just fun pictures of my cute little boys in their matching Elmo shirts. :)  I can't get over how big Ryley is getting!  

Now we have been fighting colds and possibly pink eye since these pics were taken.  Grayson has had a lot of congestion over the last week and started getting a blood shot eye with drainage over the weekend.  Then middle of the night I woke up with a gunky eye as well and pain in my ear.  We went into urgent care this morning to get checked out.  The doctor wasn't sure it was pink eye, but probably more due to the sinus infection Grayson has now and the cold I'm getting from him.  She gave us eye drops though just in case and thankfully Grayson will lay down and let me put them in without having to hog tie him down to do it!  The house smells of Lysol and the washing machine is constantly going with bedsheets, towels, blankets, etc.  I'm determined to get this cleared up and germs out of Ryley's way before he gets it too!  Of course telling a two year old not to love on his baby brother is hard to do!  We've got a bottle of hand sanitizer on the kitchen counter and when I don't have Grayson in the bathroom washing his hands, he's constantly getting sanitizer on them.  Hopefully Ryley will be in the clear!