"When children are doing nothing, they are doing mischief." - Henry Fielding

So Holden is bolting toward the "Terrible Twos." No holds barred. Winner takes all. Be all you can be. Bolting.

Ask him to do anything and he turns and sprints the other direction. Almost daily, he empties the dirty clothes bins - onto my living room floor - and raids the cereal cupboard. He unplugs the television, just because he knows how to. And after any given ten-minute interval, it looks like the inside of my house exploded.

The other afternoon while I took a shower, he let himself down into the basement, turned on some lights, ransacked the place, and was playing Jared's drum set when I got to him.

Yesterday he dumped our burn bin and ripped everything in it to shreds. Just before he let himself into the fridge and took a bite out of every apple in the drawer. And one orange.

Oh, and he tried to climb the bookshelf.

Yea.

Anyway, I've actually been snapping pictures here and there for awhile now of some of the stuff he does, and I realized this morning - after yet another "Apple Incident" - that I have quite the accumulation of "Ornery Holden" photos. Evidence, I guess.

Drug out a broken down box we had saved and decided to play in it

Helped himself up into his brother's swing

Picked himself a cantaloupe from the garden

Melon Heads :)

Found and helped himself to all of Mommy's hair "stuff" - and a headband

"Eating" another one of the apples this morning that he can help himself to now that he
can open the fridge on his own.....

... And all the spit out pieces on my floor he decided he didn't want to chew anymore.

Indy will only eat so much apple, this I've learned.

Chocolate cereal, however, the dog will eat all day long. Thankfully.
Since there's really only so much I can do when I'm sitting and feeding Bridger to try to get Holden to stop....

Grouchin' about something. And totally dirty.

Oh my.


Terrible Twos, here we come.

All in the Family♥

So... I've been asked several times now about who Bridger looks like. And after looking back through some photos, I'm pretty sure I think my babies look like brothers :)

Here's a few of the images that made me realize it.

On the left are baby pictures of Holden. Bridger is on the right. (And I know they're pretty small... I think if you click on them you can see them bigger!)

(Sidenote: I did this Striped-Sleeper-on-the-Brown-Couch look on

Bridger on purpose to see if he would look like Holden.)

......And since Holden's baby/toddler pictures look just like Jared's baby
pictures....

I guess I'm just going to have a household full of handsome men♥

(Here's a couple of Jared's baby pictures just so you can see. I'm thinking it's "all in the family" with these boys :) )

Bath Time♥

Last Thursday, Bridger got his very first bath... in the kitchen sink :)

His umbilical cord finally fell off (thankfully. yuck.) and Mommy got to give him his first "real" bath.

And, of course, we had to take a few pictures to remember the occasion. And the cuteness♥

He loved sitting in the warm water

Looking around

Look at those cheeks and lips.... the boy gets at least a hundred kisses a day♥

Relaxing after bath time... all clean and snuggly

More Birthday Celebrations!

Last week we celebrated Grandma's birthday, and this past Sunday we got to celebrate even more.

Holden's cousin, Naomi, turned 3 years old!

So after church (which was Bridger's first time, by the way, and thankfully he did just great) we all went over to Grandma and Grandpa's for lunch and a birthday party! Aunt Shanti and Uncle Tyler were even able to come.

"Holden" gave Naomi a candy bar and some sidewalk chalk, and after she was all finished opening her presents, everyone went outside to try out her chalk.

It was a really nice afternoon and we had lots of fun just hanging out and visiting with family.

Then after nap time, we went over to Holden's Mimi's house for dinner, where we actually celebrated even more birthday fun. Sunday was also Holden's Pap Pap's birthday!

(I used to think May was a super busy birthday/anniversary month for our family, but August is quickly giving it a run for it's money!!)

Holden playing with Naomi's birthday balloons

Present time!

Holden and Hannah sitting with Grandpa

Bridger, Uncle Kevin, and Isaac

Bridger meeting Uncle Tyler

With Aunt Shanti

Everybody trying out the new sidewalk chalk!

Uncle Tyler demonstrating his artistic skills for Isaac :)

The birthday girl covered in chalk :)

The fam♥

Party #2 for the day - Holden sitting with his Pap Pap

Helping blow out the candles

Mommy and Bridger... waiting for some more birthday cake :)

“Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another, 'What! You too? I thought I was the only one.” C.S. Lewis

We all met because of an on-campus job at a residence hall front desk.

Much has changed since those college days (Oh, how I miss them sometimes...), and yet, seven years later, I still feel very much like I found some of my best friends working there at the Tri-Desk.

This past week, the stars aligned (haha) and everyone happened to be in Ohio and free on the same day. So Kat, Christina, and Megann all came to visit!!

I had such a fun time seeing everyone again. And all together! Hearing all about their lives now, everything they've done and all they plan to do, introducing them all to Bridger, and finally getting to meet Megann's beautiful little girl, Gianna.

It was so great.

Holden had lots of fun being the little ham, too. The boy loves an audience :)

I'm so very glad they were all able to come and visit, and share, and reminisce. I love that they were all able to make time in their busy lives to come out to our little "country" home for an evening.

I think maybe I didn't realize how much I missed them all until they were here♥

"Aunt" Christina and Bridger

"Aunt" Kat, surrounded by the babies, blowing up the punch balloons she brought

Holden loved the balloons :)

"Aunt" Christina making silly faces and playing with the babies

"Aunt" Megann and Baby Bridger

Holden loved "Aunt" Megann
(I'm thinking Gianna's Puffs helped pave the way :) )

Gianna, Holden, and Megann.
Holden pretty much stole Gianna's Mommy for a while there.....

"Aunt" Kat and Bridger. He got so much love that night!

And then Kat taught Holden a new trick. Ready....

.....TOUCHDOWN!

♥♥♥