Joshua's Little........

BROTHER will be here before we know it!!!!!

We are thrilled to say that we will be welcoming another baby boy into our family! We feel so blessed! Our newest little boy looks great and healthy, and we are so thankful!!!

He kept his precious little feet crossed almost the whole time. You can kind of see it in the picture above. I just couldn't resist posting a picture of his feet from the side view. I think we have another cute little boy on our hands!

Praise the Lord for this wonderful gift! We can't wait for November!!

Father's Day Weekend 2010

We celebrated all weekend long! First off we'll talk about Derek, Joshua and baby #2's awesome daddy! I really couldn't get through life without my husband and best friend. He is such a great father! There are many nights when he gets home from work and immediately starts wrestling with Joshua in the floor.....dress clothes and all! He is very hard working and takes care of us. Joshua simply adores his daddy and often asks where he is when Derek is not home. Joshua usually answers himself, though, when he asks where Daddy is. His normal two answers are either work or church. I guess those are the two places he goes to the most....ha! We sure do love him lots!! For Father's Day this year I wanted to do something that would totally surprise Derek and make his heart happy. We don't usually buy big gifts for each other for birthdays and holidays. We got a charcoal grill as a wedding gift five years ago, so we just used that and never gave a lot of thought to buying a gas grill. This past Spring our charcoal grill finally started giving out.....as in the bottom started rusting out. Derek spent many hours researching grills on the internet. He wanted so badly to get a Weber grill because everything he read about them was good, and they are suppose to last a long time. He even took me to Home Depot to show me the exact one he was thinking about. We went back and forth a lot trying to decide if we could really afford to spend that kind of money....especially with a baby coming. We had kind of settled on just getting another cheap charcoal grill to get us through the next five years. I in no way had anything to do with convincing him we just couldn't afford a big fancy grill right now....hahahaha! I knew exactly what I was going to get him for Father's Day (and his birthday and Christmas and our anniversary and next Father's Day.....). I arranged for a friend to take Joshua and me to buy Derek his grill while Derek was at church one Wednesday night. We picked up the grill and hid it in plain sight in our garage. Well, it did have a beach towel hanging over it. I simply couldn't wait to give it to him! We were planning to go visit family for Father's Day and would be out of town for most of the weekend, so I decided Joshua and I would give it to him on Friday as soon as he got home from work. Derek walked in the door from work and went to our room to start changing out of his work clothes. Joshua followed him because that's what he does when Daddy gets home. I couldn't wait any longer, so I went into the garage and started yelling for Derek to come in there. Derek thought I was stuck or hurt or something....ha! I was standing in the middle of the garage with my camera in hand by his new grill when he walkedin. His mouth fell open and then he got a huge smile on his face. He was so surprised!!!! I think that will be a Father's Day we remember for a long time.....like every time we use that awesome grill. We have put many a miles on it since we got it!

Saturday morning we got up and headed to Albemarle to celebrate with Derek's family. We had a yummy lunch and were pleasantly surprised when his grandparents ended up being able to come. They aren't really able to get out and about much anymore.

We ended our day with some pool time at Derek's aunt and uncle's house. Joshua had his first experience with a diving board there and absolutely loved it! That kid is seriously a fish and isn't scared of the water what so ever!

On Sunday we went to church with lots of Derek's family. It was his grandfather's wish that he have the chance to go to church (since he and Grandma can't get out much) and that his family would join him. After church Poppy decided he wanted the Chinese buffet for lunch...ha! Now that's some kind of big fancy family meal to enjoy for Father's Day!

My friend Ashley invited us over to her parents house Sunday afternoon for some pool time with her and her husband Brandon.

We went to play for a few hours and then headed home. What a great weekend we had celebrating the fathers in our lives!

I can't write a post about Father's Day without saying how much I miss my daddy. He was such a wonderful man. This is my sixth Father's Day without him. That's hard to believe. I wish so badly he could meet my sweet boys. I know they would have loved their silly PawPaw Philip. I love you Daddy. Hope you had a great day celebrating with our Heavenly Father!

5 Year Anniversary Beach Trip

Derek and I celebrated our five year wedding anniversary on June 4th!! It's hard to believe that we've been married that long and even harder to believe that we've been together for over 9 years! (And no, Derek, I'm not tired of you yet...ha!) We headed down to Oak Island for the weekend to celebrate. We debated leaving Joshua behind but decided we wanted to take him with us, so we did the next best thing and invited YaYa to come so she could babysit! We got to enjoy some special family time on the beach and then headed out on a fun date Saturday night while Joshua got spoiled by his YaYa! For all of the years that we've gone to Oak Island, which for me is 8, we have never eaten at the Fish House Restaurant at the marina on Oak Island. Where in the world have we been??? That was some of the best food we have had in a long long time! After dinner we went to play putt putt (and I won't mention that Derek lost to me) and then for a stroll on the pier. It was a much needed date for us!! We stayed and played on the beach on Sunday and didn't head home until about 6:00! To say we were sad to leave would be an understatement. It was a great weekend! Thank you YaYa for going with us!!

Strawberry Picking

We headed out one beautiful Saturday morning in May with Greg, Nichole and Ayden to pick some strawberries. This was a first time experience for Joshua, and he thoroughly enjoyed himself! He ate and ate and ate 'til his little heart's content. He also helped do a little picking for the bucket, although he liked to go for the little strawberries that were usually green. Oh well! Derek and I did enough picking to fill a bucket, and we enjoyed ourselves some chocolate covered strawberries after dinner! What a fun memory! Hopefully we'll make this a tradition to do every year with our growing family!