July 4th

We spent our 4th of July at the beach house of course:) we did get to stay for almost a week which was wonderful! brian had the week off of work and i took some time off as well. The 4th is my favorite holiday to spend at the beach house. you can literally see 20 different sets of fireworks going off at one time from our house. It sticks really far out on a point in the sound...so you can sit on the porch and see topsail, surf city, wrightsville beach, holly point (the list goes on and on) 's fireworks....not to mention all of the other random people shooting them off, up and down the beach! its so amazing! we tried to keep Brody up to watch them, but he was exhausted from a day on the boat. however...our crazy dog (who is all of a sudden terrified of fireworks) runs down the hall to find a place to hide, busts into brody's room, knocks over something onto the pack and play, and of course wakes him up. So, since he was awake at this point we brought him outside to see them. he wasnt too sure at first but ended up loving them. he called them "booms":) the next morning he looked outside and asked if there were going to be more!

Brody also got to ride the tube for the first time. yes, i know he is only 19 months old! he rode it WITH brian. AND you have to understand that i come from a family where my brother and i were water skiing behind the boat, all by ourselves, at the age of 3!!! so hes got to get used to being behind the boat at a young age! He definitely did not LOVE it.....but after he rode it for awhile he started waving and blowing kisses. So its a start:)

Row Row Row your boat...or something like that

Brody is getting a pretty good vocabulary down...he doesnt put 2 words together yet, except the occasional "bye bye, Momma". We were heading home in the car on sunday (fathers day) and Brody said something like "boat, boat, boat, (pause) daaaaay!". i thought it was cute that he was actually babbling a little bit....but then he said the same exact thing again...and then again. So i thought id better pay attention and try to figure out what he was trying to say..or come to find out, SING! i will spare you all the details of how we tried to find out which song it was, but it was "Row Row Row your boat". the "Daaaaay" on the end is his version of "Dream". I dont really sing this song with him much, so i called my mom to see if she sings it with him...nope! so i was pretty baffled at how he picked up this song out of all of the ones we constantly sing with him! Come to find out, that when my sweet friend Sara was keeping him one day for me this past week, she sang it over and over for him....he apparently asked that she sing it alot :)

Father's Day

Let me just start by saying thanks to my sweet husband for being such an amazing daddy to Brody. Brody is so blessed to have him as his daddy! One of my favorite things to watch, is Brody trying to "help" his daddy around our farm. He wants to ride on the tractor everytime Brian is on it...he wants to help feed the horses...he wants to pull weeds from the garden...pretty much anything brian is doing Brody wants to help! i love that Brian knows it will probably take longer to do it if Brody is "helping", but he lets him help anyways:) Thanks for being such a great Daddy, Baby! we Love you!

We got to be with both of our dads on father's day this year! we are so blessed to have such Godly men as our dads! Thank you both for raising us to serve the Lord and seek Him in all we do!

I forgot the best parts....

So i totally forgot to blog about 2 of the funnest parts of the beach trip for brody! first thing...he got to ride go-carts for the first time! he LOVED it! i guess the kids are suppsed to be 2 years old before they ride with a parent, but they let brody go anyways since hes such a big boy! he had a blast! he turned his steering wheel the whole time brian was driving....i really think he thought he was driving himself! everytime they would come by the deck i was watching from, brody would get a huge grin on his face and wave really big at me...he was so proud of himself:)
The other thing brody had a blast doing on the trip....We went to Big Al's (a burger place) for dinner. In the middle of the restaurant there is a dance floor and juke box. Brody got out on the dance floor with his 3 yr old cousin, Madison and had a ball! they danced up until it was time for our meal! Gotta love something to entertain the kids while your waiting for dinner! brian took some pics on his phone...i will have to upload them later! oh how i wish i had had the video camera!

Nags Head

We got to spend 4 glorious days at Nags Head this past week! Brians parents rented a house for all of us.....brians brother, his wife, their 3 kids (9,7, and 3 yrs old), brians sister, her husband and little boy ( 10 months old). It was such a great trip! he had a BLAST with his cousins! they were our permanent babysitters and great entertainers for Brody. Its always nice to have everyone under one roof for a few days to spend some good quality time together! Brody of course loved the beach and had a blast at the pool as well! Brody learned how to say "Meme" right before we left to go to Nags head, so everything was "meme this" and "meme that"! He asked for her the whole way home too! He loves his Meme:)We had a great vacation but we came home EXHAUSTED....Brody woke up so early every morning ready to play with his cousins, and we stayed up pretty late spending time with the family.

First Picks from the Garden!

i know that when you plant a garden the end result is of course lots of veggies..or so you hope! So why am i actually shocked and excited to find them? Today when we got home from our beach trip we thought maybe there would be some veggies ripe enough to pick. when we went to the garden we were shocked at how much everything had grown over the past few days we were gone! it was so fun lifting up the leaves and finding fresh, organic, produce right there on our own property....i love treasure hunts! we had a zucchini bigger than brians forearm! we picked some squash, zucchini, green peppers, and green beans. i have to admit..i was very skeptical when brian wanted to put in a garden. i knew it would be alot of work...but it was something he wanted to take on! and boy, am i glad he did! some pics are posted below of brody with some of the veggies. later i will be posting pics from our wonderful trip to NagsHead with brians family!

18 month check-up

At Brody's 18 month check-up yesterday he was 29 lbs 8 oz (85th percentile) and 36 inches tall... which is pretty much off the charts height-wise! (greater than the 97th percent) So he definitely got the tall genes from his daddy and his PopPop!