I am SO sorry it’s been so quiet on here, friends! But, I finally get to tell you all what I’ve been working on every chance I get (which isn’t too often with these two busy boys!!).

Coming VERY soon to a Kindle near you, it’s my newest novella!! I’m very excited for you guys to meet Jane and Sam. 🙂 As soon as I have a release date, I will let you guys know!

In the meantime, how about a quick contest for a free copy of Return to Chocolate when it releases?? Leave a comment telling me what your favorite indulgent treat is and I’ll pick a winner on Wednesday!

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🙂 Have a great Monday!

We listen to a lot of KLOVE in the car, mostly because I don’t really want Nathan repeating some of the words heard in my favorite country radio stations. It’s hilarious though because Nathan thinks they are saying “Caleb” every time they sing their little jingle about “KLOVE” and it just makes me laugh.

They were doing their pledge drive recently and I wasn’t paying attention at all to the radio but all of a sudden, Nathan starts yelling, “Mom! MOM!! Get your money and call those guys!! CALEB is STUCK in the RADIO!”

We’re thankful they let him out. Uncle Caleb is well loved around here. 😉

We have been in a very, VERY smiley mood lately so it’s been the perfect time to take pictures of our Parker Bear. 🙂

I think the sleep and the routine and the lack of thrush is helping, don’t you?? 😉 Seriously. This face is just the joy of my heart!

Jon played football at the park with some guys this last weekend, so I dropped him off and then got the boys out for a little impromtu photo session. I don’t know what got into Nathan, but he was just being so so weird. 😉

 Seriously. I took 116 (yes – literally) pictures and these are pretty much the only ones that turned out semi-decent. (And by the way, check out the bruised knee caps on my big boy – let summer begin! 😉 )

 Love this one. 🙂 Parker’s eyes are SO blue – just like his brother’s.

Nathan looks about fifteen to me right here. When did he get so big?? And how is Parker already a baby instead of a newborn??!

And as for the rest of them…

I don’t even know. 😉

BREAKING NEWS, folks. Last night, my precious Parker Bear slept for FIVE HOURS straight, nursed, went pretty much right back down and then slept another FOUR.

I am a new person. A new mother.

I have coherent thoughts again! 😉

I thnk the biggest reason we’ve started getting more sleep (other than someone’s tummy growing big enough to hold a full-sized meal!) is that now that we are past the six week mark and my milk supply is definitely established, I’ve been able to get him more toward a schedule during the day. So he nurses every 2-3 hours now and we’re usually able to stretch that to a full three.

So I have high hopes that things will get back to a good routine around here! 

Here’s what we’ve been up to lately:

Lots and lots and lots of reading. LOVE that my big boy loves to read! We’re training Parker to like it too. 😉 This picture just makes me laugh. Nathan gets so into any story that we read and he was just very sad about the terrible fate that met the Gingerbread Man. Parker? Not so much. 😉 We are now reading through the Magic Treehouse series. Nathan can’t get enough of it.

First time back at CFA with friends since baby brother’s arrival! Can we tell someone was a little bit excited about this? 😉

Dressed up for BSF. We managed to catch the last two sessions! We have absolutely LOVED our time there.

The brothers. I heart them.

This face. Love it. I swear, I kiss those cheeks so much I’m amazed he still has them. He was so chatty and happy and smiley that day while Nathan was doing rest time, so I just put everything aside and talked with him for a long while and then…

He just conked right out. Nothing beats this. I held him for a good 1.5 hours while he just slept on me. Babyhood goes by too fast to miss these moments.

I’m finally cleared for working out, so I tried out the stroller with both boys this week! I absolutely love being able to fit both of them in there at the same time!

I have no idea how he can sleep like that, but I guess he was comfortable because he napped for almost an hour in there!

This kid just cracks me up.

We put sidewalk chalk in one of their Easter baskets so Nathan decided we needed to try it out that afternoon after Dad got home and Jon went to town. Ten minutes later, we had this:

I will never draw with Nathan again if this is what he expects now. 😉 Little known fact about my favorite guy: Jon is a crazy good artist.

Lunch Bunch at Julia’s house! We love our dear friends!

Someone discovered his thumb this week. We yanked it out and shoved a pacifier in. 😉 You can take those away when they turn three, you can’t take away thumbs! We’ll see if it works…

This is how pictures go now. One is always smiling and one is always frowning or totally not looking or yawning or blank faced or you name it.

My office mate always falls asleep on the job. 😉

My boys!!

We went to a little festival at Jon’s school last night and someone got a Spider-Man painted on his arm. He had big plans to keep it “forever” but it had smeared by the time we got in the car, which led to a rather big breakdown. Can we tell who is the favorite superhero right now??

And in very sad news, our enemy Thrush is back. 🙁 We got rid of it a few weeks ago, but I noticed Parker’s tongue was white again this past weekend and the nystatin wasn’t working this time. So, we went to the doctor today and they painted his mouth and tongue with genetian violet. Which turned his lips violet. And I mean VIOLET. It looked like we picked him up from Willy Wonka when we left the doctor earlier.

I’m not sure it’s really his color. 😉 It faded a little after he ate, praise the Lord. Though, I won’t mention what ELSE is now violet.

Um. Yes.

I guess it will take a day or so to wear off and it can stain anything he touches with his mouth or spits up on. And since my boy is super talented at spitting up, I’ve got my grossest clothes on, my couch is covered in towels and we’ve been boiling pacifiers and trying to get anything that potentially touched his mouth while he had the thrush cleaned so it doesn’t come back again. Poor baby.

It’s never boring around here!!

I couldn’t resist. 😉

Last week was Jon’s spring
break and we spent the entire week doing nothing but adjusting to the
new routine of taking care of two boys and it was wonderful. I
got a nap most of the days, we ran a few errands, Jon and I had a date
night with our tiny third wheel and the week went by so fast that I
honestly am having trouble remembering everything we did!

We
spent Friday at the zoo. We hadn’t been in forever and so when we told
Nathan on Thursday night that we were planning on going there in the
morning, he was SO EXCITED that he could barely stand it and by 7:15 the
next morning, he had dressed himself to go:

Backpack and all! Ha!

We
finally got there and he was just beside himself with joy. I’ve never
seen him so excited to be there – the weeks of being cooped up in the
house with Baby Parker’s birth have taken a toll on my active boy, I
think! 😉

Parker spent most of the zoo like this. 🙂

This kept Jon and I in stitches the whole day – he had packed a tiny, keychain
pretend camera that was a stocking stuffer this last year in his
backpack and he pulled it out at every exhibit to take pictures and then
he’d stuff it back in his pocket. SO funny – I was dying.

Family picnic!

This little smiley boy finally woke up for about twenty minutes. 😉

We
did it up right since it had been so long since we were there, so Jon
and Nathan got ice cream and then we went on a train ride. 🙂

Then it was Easter! We went to the sunrise service, I cried
through most of it, we packed up baskets and everything Easter-related
and headed to Gammy and Pops’ house. One of my boys was VERY excited
about his basket.

😉

The other wasn’t too impressed.

Egg
hunting. 🙂 That’s all I’ve heard about for the last few days since.
“Remember when we went egg hunting Mama? That was REALLY FUN.”

This
week has been all about figuring out our new routine, finding out how
long it takes to go places (we have yet to break the 2 hours and 15
minutes mark when it’s just me and the boys from when we start getting
ready) and learning how to live on very little sleep and still function
during the day. I feel like I’m in survival mode a lot of the days and I
hate that feeling so I’m very ready to get back into a schedule!!

Last year on Easter, we learned that our second IUI after over a year and a half of trying to get pregnant had failed. It was a horrible day – I was so certain it had worked because of all kinds of “symptoms” I was having and so I spent the Easter sunrise service crying on my dear friend Leigh Ann’s shoulder.

If only I could have looked ahead to this year when I yet again cried through the service but this time, it was from total, complete joy.

He is risen, friends. He is risen and He is good. Oh, how good He is!!

I honestly cannot CANNOT believe that our precious boy turned one month old on the 16th!! As fast as Nathan’s babyhood went, Parker’s is flying by a million times faster…which I absolutely hate.

He is such a precious boy! For the most part, he is very easy going and content – unless he’s hungry and in that case, I’ve got about six seconds to get him eating or he gets quite upset with us. 😉

And speaking of eating, that is his absolute favorite thing to do. He is still nursing on demand and he will nurse every hour sometimes – though I think about half the time it’s more for comfort than actual nutrition. 😉 He’s getting a little faster at eating – in the beginning it would take an hour for him to eat, now he’s closer to about thirty minutes. Nursing has been MUCH easier this time around but I’m back on a low dose antibiotic for the foreseeable future to ward of the mastitis again like they finally did with Nathan.

He’s still in newborn clothes and diapers but they are starting to get tight! It’s so funny to see the differences between my boys – Nathan was SO long and skinny that he outgrew his clothes lengthwise very quickly. I think he was pretty much in 0-3 month clothes by this point. Parker is not as long as Nathan was but he’s got the CUTEST chunks I’ve ever seen – I could kiss his cheeks and thighs all day long!

Parker is not a very good sleeper yet – for most of this month he’s been basically nocturnal. It’s been quite the adjustment for me this time around. With Nathan, I could sleep during the day when he was sleeping and that’s just not possible now with my super active big boy up all day. So I’m gradually learning how to live on just a few hours of sleep every night. Concealer, friends. I have a layer the thickness of an IHOP pancake under my eyes every day.

He is becoming VERY smiley which I just adore. He absolutely loves his big brother and Nathan is smothering in his affection for Parker. A good and bad problem to have. 😉

We just can’t imagine our lives without our sweet boy!!

And just for some fun comparison…

Nathan and Parker both at one month old… precious boys! Do you think they look alike??! 🙂

Bryant and Nicole’s wedding was absolutely beautiful!! What a wonderful time celebrating my dear brother and his sweet new wife. 🙂

Wednesday night before the wedding, the four “original” siblings all went out for dinner  –  plus a little who accompanies me pretty much everywhere. 😉 We had such a fantastic time! I was working on three hours of sleep that day and it was so needed. I love that we are still all so close – God blessed me beyond measure when He gave me these three.

Friday was a day spent preparing and especially preparing Nathan because he was totally convinced that the ring bearer’s job included a solo – specifically, “We Wish You A Merry Christmas”. No idea where he got that but it would have made me laugh really hard if I hadn’t been so terrified. Ha!

We started the day with an early morning trip to Joann’s to attempt to get some material to help make it easier for me to nurse in my bridesmaid’s dress – and yes, Nathan is in his jammies. Actually, we ALL were in our jammies. Oy.

Snuggles from Nama. 🙂

On our way to the rehearsal!! I got to sit in the back with my boys. We have fun.

He did so great in practice and didn’t sing a note. Ha! Love my dad with the camera filming him in the background. 😉

I soooo wish I’d gotten pictures at the rehearsal dinner – we had so much fun! We had country dancing and Mexican food and tons of family and friends and it was just absolutely wonderful. I loved every minute of it!!

Saturday morning, we tried on the tux for the last time – love his sweet face here. 🙂

Me and my beautiful new sister-in-law during pictures! Nicole looked so so so beautiful!!

This boy agreed. Every time I turned around, he was staring at Nicole or telling me how pretty she was or picking dandelions to go give to “the prettiest girl”. 😉

Getting an uncle married is hard work.

The wedding was PERFECT (and didn’t include a solo from the smallest boy in a tux!). We were dancing it up at the reception before we even knew it. 🙂

My beautiful sister. 🙂

Bryant sang Nicole a song and made everyone cry. I cried through the entire night.

I love this guy. 🙂

Smiles for Pops. 

All of my loves!!

Bryant, Jon, Caleb and two of the other groomsmen did the BEST dance ever – we were ROLLING.

Photo booth fun. 🙂 Love that we crammed all seven of us siblings into the booth!

The DJ said to grab someone special for the last dance – so I did. 🙂

Love this picture!!

I am so happy for my sweet brother and sister-in-law – praying so many blessings on their marriage!! I can’t wait to see what God does through them. 🙂

(I’ve updated the Paige Turned contest blog with the winner!)

We are operating on some little sleep over here so I do apologize that this blog has taken the brunt of it. I had completely forgotten how time consuming newborns are and it’s been interesting adding in a very active three year-old on top of the sleep deprivation. I also had my first bout with mastitis this time around last week – ugh. REALLY praying that is the first and only case! I had it over and over with Nathan until the doctor finally just put me on a low-dose antibiotic for the rest of the 13 months that I nursed him.

So here’s our last few weeks in pictures… 🙂

Dad and his boys. 🙂

Love their morning chats. 🙂

He wanted to read to Baby Parker. Love that he picked “Just Me and My Little Brother”.

Sweet face

My nap buddy one afternoon.

Sweet little jaundice baby had to spend quite a lot of time in the sun his first two weeks of life.

Nonnie and Papa O came to visit!

We did not appreciate our first bath at home.

Sweet alert baby boy.

Someone is very into holding his baby brother.

Working on his dance moves for Uncle Bryant’s upcoming wedding this weekend. 😉

“Don’t worry, Mama. I’m keeping an eye on Baby Parker.”

We are cord (or “plug” as Nathan called it) less!!

Little worried boy. I have no idea why he would be concerned.

Never mind. 😉

I successfully made it through our first grocery shopping trip alone with both boys!!

Happy baby!!

Gammy and Pops love.

LOVE this sneak peek of our session with the wonderful Sarah!! 🙂

We all stayed late at family dinner on Saturday night and practiced our country dancing for Bryant and Nicole’s rehearsal dinner this weekend. Love this. 🙂

And this weekend, we get to celebrate these two!! Such a wonderful, wonderful time coming up!! 🙂 SO SO excited!!

I really meant to have this up on Tuesday but I got a terrible case of mastitis. So I spent Paige Turned‘s
release day in bed with a 103 degree fever. 🙁 Yuck! Thankfully,
antibiotics seem to have cleared it up and we are back to plug-free,
fever-free nursing.

So (in delayed news), guess what’s now available?? 😉

I
think that is a great reason for a contest for an autographed copy! And since someone in my
house is VERY into all things super heroes right now, you can enter the
contest by leaving me a comment with either your favorite super hero or
maybe what “super power” you wish you had. 😉 Nathan will love hearing
your answers!

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Also, I apologize that I have been so SO behind on this blog and
in replying to you guys on email, Facebook and Instagram. Please know I
LOVE reading all your messages! I’m so thankful for all your precious
prayers right now!!