Rain, rain, go away!

4th of July in Hilton Head
This was before the rain began.
We watched fireworks from the car in a parking lot fairly far from the actual fireworks. What you do for your 3-almost-4 year old. He liked them, but wouldn't even get out of the car he was so scared of being any closer.

Then for the rest of the week it just rained and rained. And we spent a lot of time in a small-ish condo with small children :) We tried to get out and figure out some adventures to take. At one point I was in the pool as it rained (no lightning) because I just needed to tire Tucker out before bedtime. We still had a fun week of family bonding!

Sweet cousins... Cia LOVES "baby Mac" and follows Tucker everywhere. It is so awesome to watch their friendships grow.

We did a joint birthday party since Cia turned two at the end of June and Tucker will turn four at the end of July.

Above: Bubble machine Tucker has been wanting for months.
Below: Snuggle time with Uncle Bri.

Lots of swimming time. Some beach time. Lots of raining time.

He loves George

Wildwood Forest

Tucker had a REALLY fun week doing VBS at Southside Methodist (his preschool). I called it professional VBS because there were 350 kids and it was high energy fun the whole time. The teenagers were up on the stage leading praise songs with all the kids jumping up and down singing... and that was just at the 9am drop off. It was wild & crazy & fun! We have listened to the CD of the music they learned only about 1, 045 times since two weeks ago. Kyle and I have the songs and motions permanently burned in our memories.

Road Trip '09

Mama, Tucker & Mac drove up to St.Louis for a couple weeks in early June. By ourselves. It was surprisingly GREAT. The boys were happy and patient for the entire MANY hours! On the way up, we stopped in Atlanta for 2 days. It was a highlight of the trip to play with Olivia, William & Marjorie!

We hit the ground running when we got to St.Louis. The first morning we headed to Grant's Farm with CIA! The face below is Cia's present "signature face." She is adorable and she and Tucker were sweet friends.

Tucker saying "Don't worry, Cia... I've got the map. I'll show you where to go!"

The goats at Grant's Farm are intense. Tucker handled it in the pin for awhile, but when he started getting attacked we got out of there and Uncle Casey helped him feed them outside the pin.

Above: Tucker with Herbie
Below: Our fantastic visit with Adam & Andrew. Deena's family was visiting from Cincinnati the first week we were there. I was so happy that we made it to St.Louis at the same time. Deena and I have been friends since we were 2 or 3 and it makes me a little weepy to watch our 3 year olds play together!!

"Cia! I can pick you up!"

Another big part of the trip was Tucker riding everywhere in my Mom's new convertible!

Above: My precious Grandma holding Mac and Below: My grandparents brought over some of the toys we played with at their house years ago... Tucker loved this boat!

Cia getting some special loving from Mac... eventually he has a death grip on her ear and she is begging for help!

Two more

Tucker is all about writing everything himself these days (with spelling help, of course!) He also has a fantastic imagination... While at Nan and Pop's he made a cookie store up in his room during "nap"time. He created this "Cookies For Sale" sign and put it up outside the door.

Also forgot this picture of Uncle Brian ("BMac") with Mac.

Mac at 6 months

For the virtual baby book:

* 16 pounds, 4 ounces (25%)
* 28 inches (80%)
* sitting up
* moving everywhere without formally crawling
* loves to "talk"
* great napper - morning and afternoon naps are 2ish hrs.
* still not perfect overnight (digressed during St.Louis trip - almost back to normal)
* loves his Daddio... huge smiles, kicking, etc when he sees him

Our Daddio

is incredible. He loves us so well. He works so hard at work and then comes home and plays hard with us. He is SO intentional with us and teaches us all the time. He gives the best hugs and just loves all over us. He will do anything goofy to make us laugh. He wrestles when we need to wrestle and snuggles when we need to snuggle. He just gets us.

So we make him cookie cakes with candles and crowns to wish him a Happy Father's Day!

Then we took him to Ponte Vedra for an awesome breakfast. Although my little brother Mac was annoyed we didn't let him take his morning nap, so he was a bit temperamental for the breakfast.

Then he set up my car wash in the yard.
In case you forgot about the car wash he made me last year...

now I bring my favorite umbrella in to it. And the car wash will be making another appearance for my 4th birthday. Because I want the exact same birthday party as my 3rd birthday. Yes, really. He is AMAZING at making car washes with me. Out of "VPC pipe" or blocks or legos... any medium will work.

I made him put on the crown again (this is my crown from my school "fake" summer birthday party in May) to finish off Father's Day 09. We love you Daddio -- Tuck & Mac

we think he is really cute

first bite of food -- the picture above this one shows his true reaction after the first bite. he is quite the eater already and it has been about 10 days!

our dear friends grace & rob had kyle's baptism blessing to the boys made in to a sign that we have above mac's bed. i love reading it every day and i think it is one of the best gifts we have ever received. so very thoughtful...

mac's crib. we moved the TER letters and stars over Tuck's bed on the other side of the room.

we think this one is really fun

Roll Tide. He is well on his way.

He now takes pictures on the SLR.

Loves to build incredible train tracks and then ask for hours on end "Will you run the trains with me?"

Every night we wake him up before we go to sleep to go potty one more time. He is so out of it every single time. This was at Mimi's house. I sent him to walk back to his bed and he fell asleep on the way!

The chameleon we caught... Tucker picked this up himself after chasing it through our living room. We made this "natural habitat" for it and then released it back to it's family the next day. It was actually gorgeous. Bright green with blue eyes, but on the oven it turned dark brown, etc.

"Tucker Time" (i.e. nap time) often is entertaining for me. On this day, Tucker brought his red chair up on his own for a little big man reading time!

I put the chair back down but that night we came in and found him like this.