Journey South

After Holy week, all 4 of us were itching for a chance to get refreshed following the eventful season of Lent and Easter. We loaded up and headed to GA for a night with Emily and Josh, then to Mississippi to visit our beloved Chase, Steven, and baby Wake (just about 8 wks old at our visit). While the camera was never where it needed to be to catch the 'good stuff', there are a few nuggets.

Things I learned on our trip:
-We have amazing friends and family.
-Seeing anyone transition to parenthood is so special and being able to visit Steven and Chase (seriously, having a family with 2 young kids come stay at your house when your firstborn is 8 wks, WOW) was something we 4 are so grateful worked-out.  Little Wake is getting some awesome love.
-And last but not least: I get way more stressed-out with 2 noisy, curious, sweet but rambunctious boys when I'm overly aware of every single move they make. As in the case of not being at home. Whew.

On APril 6th Jacob turned 5! We'll do a devoted post on that sweet boy.

On April 7th my sisters(Emily on the left, Grayson on my right) and I ran the tough mudder. It was 11 miles and 25 obstacles. It was the muddiest location that they do...and it. was. epic.  'Ma' was our cheerleader and photographer; the spectators didn't really get to see the mud as it was all in the woods. We army crawled through mud and under barbed-wire, we ran through dangling electrically-charged wires, and we climbed over 8' tall walls.  And we bruised, we laughed, and we showered several times before the water ran clean.

Pre-mudder

Mid-mudder

Tough Mudders!

 I would absolutely do it again- gotta have a team, though. Gotta love my Chellax team.

That's just about catching us up on life!

Home sweet home...in 3 weeks.

We NC Pugh family of 4 close on our first house on May 20th (because everything will just go as planned, right?!)

From the front:

 Hallway with doors to the 4 bedrooms + 1 bathroom + wall closets:

 Little boys doing their thing in the "office":

 

Boys being 'proper' (close as it gets) in the dining room:

(family room is room to the right while double doors behind Jacob lead to screened in porch)

 JDP and Mosty's rainy-day playland. Our garage/basement:

 Backyard plants getting roughhoused already:

 

We are SO thrilled about finding and miraculously getting this gem of a house. Is it move in ready, oh yes. Did it pass inspection with flying colors. Yes it did. phew.

Great neighborhood within 1 mile of both boys school(s as JDP's elementary school is even closer than their current preschool!).

But, lest you think we might be bored, there is this gem to share.

 

and this

 

(That apricot-ish color is not the lighting but the actual textured paint color.)

 

We are so excited to get going on making it our own home and thankful for all those who have helped us get to this point!!

Getting back

Learning how to post with the iPad. I realize it is unhealthy how long it is taking, but truthfully, there isn't enough time in a day.

We'll work to be more like the intentional bloggers of our past. Lots of exciting things on our front including buying a house (we close may 20th and will have a separate post about this), 3 job interviews in 3 weeks for me plus a recap of our recent past including a trip down south to visit family and friends so-close-to-family and LOTS of mud.

Apple changes everything.

To explain the title of this post: we entered the world of apple products. Our laptop and our notebook computer both died/broke within the same week in January- days before Daniel was headed to Florida for a week-long conference. We researched and after much discussion (apparently I take awhile to make decisions and I am fine with that), the iPad became our newest family member.

This is all relevant, I promise. There are 2 ways it affects the blog; first, we don't take as many pictures on the camera but rather the iPad and the pictures we do take with the camera, we can only upload to our desktop via the printer. So many steps. (Yes, I hear the laziness, too). Secondly, most of the people directly badgering us for pictures or updates also have apple products and frequently receive messages with pictures and videos.

All this is to say that we want to keep this blog going, we're just learning how to do so with where we are in life (and technical endurance for figuring out all the quirks).

With that being said....how do I get pictures from the iPad onto the blog? Hints?

Thanks for bearing with us!

How we roll....

I know. It's January 14th meaning more than a full month since the last post. We had a busy and great holiday season (including family together for Thomas' birthday, first Christmas at our home, and Texas time with the entire Pugh family). How about a quick but cute, silly, informative Christmas recap?
 I doubt Jacob gets this happy about this kind of gift during his next 15 years....

Thomas just wanted to eat, kiss, or pet all of his gifts.

We all had a lovely Christmas morning in our house shared with Ma and Pa.
Thomas received the gorgeous birth sampler hand-made by his Great Aunt Lois; as seen below, he adores it. It now hangs next to Jacob's birth sampler in the boys' bedroom and Thomas frequently requests assistance for a closer look or touch.

Jacob got some Mario paraphernalia and was quite the happy boy!

After a brief respite in Raleigh, we began the Texas portion of the holiday. Words don't even describe how much giggling, chatting, playing, dancing, and bubble-bath enjoying occurred. (Unfortunately just the kiddos got the bubble baths).
We got 5 of the 9 in for racing their Didi to the finish line (me). Clearly the ultimate goal for each kiddo was different!

We're missing Samuel (5.5yo) but here we have the boy cousins Parker (4), then Mos, Caleb (2.5), JDP, then Colby (4.5). Clearly, they had been playing hard and were worn-out!

Everyone was such a good sport during the trip. For instance, Uncle Trent was a pony. And since there were 9 kids 5 and under, these two (Thomas and Sofia) saved time by 'riding' together.

Not pictured: Between Thomas mounting Trent to the next picture, Trent carried both kiddos around the room and got loads of giggles along the way.

As Jacob received a Mario game for Christmas from his Didi, for better or for worse, all the cousins have now heard of and seen Mario in action.

While highly abbreviated, perhaps this post will suffice for now? I do aim to get more pictures and videos up soon as these boys are growing and changing fast! Thomas is now actually 'conversing' with people and Jacob is fast approaching 5 years old, also known as the age where he just knows everything but is still cute enough to not completely be ridiculous. Fun boys!

Second year Thomas

Oh Thomas. How our baby is 2 years old on Thursday, we have yet to figure out. He has so drastically changed our lives that it's nearly impossible to recall the previous version of this family.

Thomas is an avid modeler; currently Jacob is 'reading' a DVD case while lying on the floor, so you'd better  believe Thomas grabbed a DVD and is nestled on the floor right next to his brother 'reading'. Most toddlers learn via modeling but Thomas appears to soak up every detail, then reenact the task perfectly (Jacob, on the other hand, was too busy trying to make people laugh and didn't start detail mimicking until about last year at this time).

(Mosty mos is the red shirted kid down on the right front, hanging with Jacob and his friends from school)

Since last birthday, Thomas has evolved into an impressive though generally slowish eater. Around 14 months old, food seemed to actual begin appealing to him and when he is well, he can't get enough. His all time favorites are pretzels, popcorn, pasta (hello carb kid), along with all vegetables minus tubers, and fruit smoothies. He continues to need dairy-free, be picky with meats, and requires absolutely no peanuts (yet tree nuts are fine...huh).

 

Have I mentioned he has a mean sweet tooth? (And finally got his first full-head haircut about 2 weeks ago to minimize the low humidity-induced fuzzy fro.)

His vocabulary is hilarious. He has followed an interesting learning path with speech and didn't start caring about nouns until about 3 months ago. His interest has been in the inflection and number of syllables; after mastering those details in a phrase, he then moves on to articulate the individual words.  -And he finally calls Jacob something- either baydub or waydub depending on which consonant emerges!

His current Thomas-isms include:
-constantly asking "Why?" to me, Daniel, his teachers at school, anyone who makes eye-contact with him while he has a question, etc.
-demanding we wake-up when he does in the morning by declaring "No sleeping, all done mommy, Up" or just repeating loudly, "Eat! Eat, mommy!"
-With an accompanying hand gesture, instructs others to "come on" when they are desired by Thomas (or if Jacob is falling behind)

From the Christmas pageant last weekend at church: our Donkey and little star- who stole the show by wandering around and pointing at 'baby Jesus' the WHOLE time.

  -Sliding a chair across the kitchen, up to the counter, then standing in it to ask, "what you cooking, mommy/daddy?" This is usually followed by extra spoons, fingers, spatulas, cars getting shoved into whatever is being prepared/cooked as Thomas offers his (adorable) help

Thomas continues to be fascinated by trains (no, he doesn't really know about Thomas the train yet) and cars, simple tools, musical instruments, books, and very recently fell in love with puzzles.

He is our cuddler, our yeller, our inquisitive engineer, and our little brave firecracker. We love this boy yesterday, today, and all of tomorrows.