Rain, rain, go away...

No really...go away rain. We get it Mother Nature. Now can we please get a break? We've had almost a solid month of at least one storm per day. Sounds fun, huh?

Anyways, we've had a busy summer. Honestly, it's probably the busiest we've ever been. We seem to have something planned every weekend. It's not a bad thing, we've been getting in a lot of family time, which has been awesome.

We've had a few park visits and sprinkler hours...

 A visit to Meme and Papa's house where Aidan got to play on the play set, hang out with cousin Lawrence, make lots of messes, and even do a little driving! Totally kidding, he didn't really drive, but he does love sitting in the driver's seat with the car off : ) 

 

We got in a few early morning tickle sessions, accompanied by play doh because, I mean, what kid doesn't love play doh at 6:30am? And we even got to fit in a "sleep on mommy" day, which I love! Those days don't happen enough anymore, but they still melt my heart every time they do come around.

Sometime in between then and "the rain," I got to pull a few green onions from my garden (first of the season!) and see my first yellow lily bloom!

And then this came...

 And didn't stop...for a very long time. So, we resorted to taking walks through the mall to get out of the house. Hubby bought me an awesome new coffee mug, so I enjoyed that as well. Sticking to my one cup a day, of course!

We did get out a bit though. Aidan's friend David turned 2 at the end of June, so we went to his party and had an awesome time!

And, praying that it wouldn't rain, we took a trip to the beach for the day. It was cloudy and extremely windy, but it wasn't too bad. Aidan likes the sand better anyways.

 And, when the forecast called for a clear night, we happily made our way downtown to the 4th of July celebration. For the most part, we had a blast, but we probably went a little too early. We were all a little burnt out by the time the fireworks hit and really just wanted to go home.

 Last weekend, we spent all day Friday at Wet N' Wild. We had SO much fun. Aidan was actually able to go on some of the rides this year so he had a blast as well.

As for me? I'm doing great! Trucking along in this pregnancy. I'm almost 24 weeks now, 3 weeks away from the third trimester! I'm going to try to start updating more and post more about health and fitness, since it has become such a huge part of our lives.

Stay tuned!!

Catching Up...Again

Well...I didn't wait quite as long as I did the last time I updated my blog. It's a start!

As usual, it's been a busy few months. Life of a family with a toddler, right?

I'm pretty sure I need to back up to Spring here...

In April, we celebrated Aidan's 2nd Easter holiday! We really want to make sure he's raised knowing what Easter is about and why we celebrate the holiday every year, but at this point, he's still too young to do a lot of what we want.

We woke up early that morning and let Aidan see his Easter basket, which was absolutely adorable by the way **whoop whoop to an Etsy find!**. We stayed away from a lot of candy this year. He got a lot of little toys, some bouncy calls, a "grow your own" basil kit for kids, goldfish (always a toddler staple), and a few eggs with speckled chocolate eggs and m&m's in them. Thank goodness we went easy on the candy because kidd-o LOVED the m&m's. I thought I was going to have a nervous breakdown when the crying started after he ran out of them. It was short lived, of course, once he figured out he could go outside and play.

And, of course, we had an awesome Easter lunch after we got home from church. Burgers, hot dogs, salad, potato salad, coleslaw, deviled eggs and chocolate peanut butter pie. YUM. I always cook enough for a small army.

 We did have a ton going on in the month of April, which, honestly was kind of nice. My birthday came and went and I'm officially 27. Normally, I'd be a little depressed, but I'm pretty happy. I have an amazing husband, the sweetest little boy in the world and we get to raise another little one come November. Of course, there were the not so awesome parts of the month. My grandpa was continually getting worse and we knew he wouldn't be around for much longer. But another positive, my awesome cousin got to come visit! I haven't seen her in over a year and we were best friends growing up...it was definitely long overdue!

She got to see Aidan for the first time since he was 9 months old, see our house, and we spent quite a bit of time walking around downtown and finding a good NC BBQ restaurant for her. She wasn't so much a fan of the vinegar BBQ...which makes me thinks she's slightly crazy...but she did love the food!

April finished out pretty uneventfully and we were putting the final touches on Aidan 2nd birthday plans. I know. My baby is 2. What.the.crap. When did this happen?! **Sigh** I digress. My big man turned 2 during the week and we planned his party for the following weekend. Of course, we HAD to do something on his birthday! So we decided on the park and ice cream. He got to pick his own ice cream and, true to form, he went with vanilla with M&M's. Aunt Jenn would be proud.

Aidan's birthday party was a blast. I ran around like a crazy woman in the morning, and Aidan slept later than usual thus making us late for his own party but, hey, you roll with the punches right? We are so blessed to have the amazing family and friends that we do. Aidan was surrounded by all of his family and most of his friends for the better half of the day. He had SO much fun! We did a Yo Gabba Gabba party this year...which was great when he liked Yo Gabba Gabba. He decided about 1 month before his party that he didn't care about YGG anymore. Go figure. Whatever, his cake and decorations were awesome. And...get this...all of the kids at the party were so worn out that they every one of them fell asleep on the way home. Except Aidan. He's a baller and stayed up all day and most of the night. Which was fine, because he got to see his new splash table when we got home ; )

 The Sunday after his party, we went up on stage at Church and had Aidan blessed. It was something that Mike and I had been wanting to do for awhile now and I'm so glad that we did. I want Aidan to make his own decision about being Baptized when he's old enough. But having him blessed was more so for us. It was our promise to raise Aidan in God's faith and love and to bring him up in a God-loving home. Mike even let me put Aidan in a little dress shirt and vest/tie, which he refused before. But, come on...does it get any cuter?!

Maybe a week after the blessing, my cousin let me know that my grandpa was getting worse. He kept me up to date over the next few days and let me talk to my mema, who is an AMAZINGLY strong woman, but we all knew that it wouldn't be long before he passed. Early one morning, my sister called and I knew what had happened before I ever answered. My grandpa passed away early in the morning. In a way, it was bittersweet. He's always been so hands-on and outdoorsy, he hated being confined to the indoors. Since the cancer had come back, he hadn't been able to do as much as he used to and it was only getting worse. We knew that when he passed, that disabling, awful, disease was gone and he could walk again with God. I miss him like crazy, and I hate that Aidan will never remember actually playing with him, but I know that he's in a better place and he's pain free. My mema is doing better than any of us could have imagined, but then again, she has always been the rock in the Lee family. She amazes me in every way and I just pray that this gets easier to accept over time.

I wasn't able to go to the funeral, which sucked, but I did get to Skype with my Mema and that made everything much better. My sister had found some old pictures of my Mema and Papa while she down there and I loved them so much that I saved them when she sent them to me on my phone. How awesome are these?























So around the middle of May, Mike and I decided to take Aidan to the zoo. We had been wanting to take him for awhile and could never get our schedules to work. So, when Mike's schedule opened up on a Saturday, we jumped at the chance to take Aidan. If you haven't been, I HIGHLY recommend it. It was AH-MAZING! Aidan loved everything there. We went to the one in Asheboro and I really wasn't expecting it to be that big. It was monstrous. We only got to see about half of it before we had to head back. We chose the Africa side because, obviously, they had lions. And zebra. And giraffes. And Elephants. It was awesome. Of course, we missed nap time and big man didn't make it too long before he passed out. But he only slept for about an hour and then was up and ready to see more!

And for those of your wondering. Yes, I do put clothes on my kid : ) He pulls them off quite a bit and sat in juice at the zoo. And, who am I kidding, he likes to be naked. No clue where got that from **cough cough... Mike**

We got to meet up with the lovely Adrianna too, which was awesome. Her son, Gabriel, is the same age as Aidan so they got to play a bit too. And I got to hold my chunkster, Eliana. CANNOT get enough of that sweet baby's cheeks and legs!

We haven't done too much since the zoo. A few park dates and a lot of outside time. Aidan has had a pretty rough few weeks and trust me, you don't want to see the pictures. Two weeks ago, he was bitten by what we think was a spider. He's a tough cookie and never made a sound. When he came inside to eat lunch, I pulled his shirt off (because he's unbelievably messy) and saw the bit with the red circle around it. By the next day, it had at least doubled in size, probably close to quadrupled. We took him to the doctor and they immediately ruled out lime disease. He was started on some antibiotics, which took about 3-4 days to really kick in. The day after he got the spider bite, we were outside and he ran into an ant pile. He has awful reactions to bites, so his feet immediately started swelling up and blistering. **Thank God for children's Benadryl**. We got the bites under control and then Tuesday of the next week, he spiked a fever and we ended up having to take him to the hospital to figure out if it was related to the bite or not. Turns out, he also caught a virus, which in turn gave him a full out rash from head to toe. His pediatrician had no idea what it was. Similar to Roseola, but worse. It was awful. It's been almost 2 weeks since the spider bite and he's finally back to normal. We're praying it stays this way. He's been through quite a bit over the past 2 weeks : (

The good news? Mike and I had our anatomy scan almost 2 weeks ago. Ready? Baby #2 is...a...GIRL! Payton will be making her debut into the family in November :) So there you have it loves, our long, long update. On a happy note!

We, as usual, have a lot planned over the next few weeks and I'm not going to lie. I'll probably take forever to update this blog...again. But hey, something is better than nothing, right?

And so, my friends, I leave you with these gems...because he is just the sweetest little man ever!