Nathan at 20 months and boy do they look alike!

All I can think about now that Nathan is 20 months is that when Christian (my now 3 year old) was 20 months, I was 8 months pregnant with Nathan. Holy cow, what were we thinking!? I am pretty sure when Christian was 20 months and I was pregnant, he seemed like such a big boy, but when I look at Nathan and him being 20 months, I keep thinking that he is still a baby.

Nathan, has really transitioned into the "little boy" stage and parts of me (mainly my shoulder, arms and back ) are so happy, but then other parts of me (mainly my heart) is very sad that he is becoming more independent and wanting to hang with daddy and big brother's Joseph and Christian. Now when Jeff gets home, it isn't just J and C who run to the door shouting, "Dada's home," it's Nathan too. As soon as Nathan hears the extremely loud garage door open, he looks up at me, with pure excitement in his eyes, and says, "Dada!" and drops everything to greet him at the door. So cute!

Another thing that Nathan does now that is a sign he is becoming a little boy, is at bed time, he doesn't want me to take him to his room to read his book, he wants to go with the older boys and read with them and Dada. Just last night, I went to get Nathan to take him to go read, but he let me know he wanted to stay in Joseph and Christian's room by closing the door on me.

Nathan, at 20 months you:

• You aren't as good of an eater as you have been in the past. You aren't crazy about meat right now. Part of me thinks it's just a phase, the other part of me thinks you are trying to work the system. You will sometimes refuse to eat dinner and we don't really force you to eat so we will let you down, but then you will go straight to the pantry and ask for a cookie or granola bar. Ummmhhhmmmm.
• Some new words: cookie, popcorn.
• One of my favorite words you say is, "helpull." You are trying to say, "help," because you say this word every time you are trying to get up onto something.
• You have started running. This is always a cute milestone for me. I love watching your cheeks (face, not the rear kind) bounce when you are running. I always loved watching Joseph run at this age because he would put his hands straight back and his (face) cheeks bounced big time. Then Christian, I still remember the day he figured he could run and suck his thumb at the same time. So cute!
• You love being outside!
• When you are outside, you love to catch frogs and play with Joseph's frog habitat.
• You are an animal lover!
• You are in size 4 diapers, but I think we are going to have to move you up soon.
• You wear 18-24 month clothes.
• Size 5 shoe.
• You love basketballs!
• You really enjoy playing with your older brother's cars right now, but your favorites are their fire trucks and ambulance.
• You can do a Cookie Monster impression!
• You love to watch youtube videos of Sesame Street (more specifically, one's with Cookie Monster in them.)
• You really like the book  Five Little Monkey's and sometimes you will get this book on your own, open it, shake your little index finger and say, "No no no."
• You raid!!!! the pantry now. If I leave the door open I will often find you helping yourself to a snack.
• You give hugs a lot during the day and as much as I love them, I think is way cute when you go love on your brother's.
• You LOVE skyping with Mimi and Papaw. When you see me sit down at the computer you will say, "Papaw, Papaw." You love to entertain them while we are talking to them.

Nathan, you are becoming such a sweet, fun, joyful little boy to have around. As difficult as it is to see you grow and not be so 'babyish,' I love the little toddler that you are becoming. Love you NayNay (Yes, we still call you that....often)

 BUSTED! Raiding the pantry!

Several people have always said that Christian and Nathan look exactly alike. I tend to agree just for the sake of the argument, but have never really thought they looked EXACTLY alike....until this past weekend. Now, I have always thought that you could tell their brother's because of their coloring (they are both my olive skinned boys), they have darker eyes (C has light brown/greenish colored eyes, actually his eyes look exactly like my dad's, and Nathan has big brown eyes). I have always thought Nathan and Joseph favored each other more because of their features. They both have the big heads, big ears, big smile and big, round eyes. Now that I just described those two boys they don't sound that cute, but I promise, they are some good lookin' dudes.

This past Saturday, my mother in law took the boys (younger two, the older one had a booboo tummy), and twice after they got home I had mistaken Christian for Nathan. I came out and told Jeff how much they were looking alike that day and decided to take a picture. For the first time in 20 months, I thought, "Wow, they do look a lot alike."

VBS 2012

This past week, Joseph participated in VBS at one our good friends churches. I kept meaning to take a picture of his little entourage that we carpooled with all week, but I kept forgetting, then the last day when I remembered, his cousin June wasn't able to come. But here is Joseph with one of his best buds, John.

As far as I know, Joseph had a good time. I don't know if it's his personality or being a boy, but everyday when I asked if he had a good time, he would just reply with a simple, "yes." A part of me thinks that the lack of elaborating is a boy thing and not his personality, because those close to him know that he.can.talk!!

For the rest of us, it was a good trial run for what school will be like. I have been dreading that day when I take Joseph to school and not have my helper, my talker, and Christian's best bud around. When we dropped him off the first day, we weren't home but about 30 minutes and Christian was wanting to go pick Joseph up. Christian was so blah without his big brother around. I honestly don't think he knew what to do. Christian's mood changed (a little) when I told him I had to go run some errands and he could pick out a toy. He perked up and then told me, "I don't want to go get Joefuff."

It's been a fun week for all of us and I am looking forward to when Christian can go to (once again, he was to young to go)VBS. I love that their are so many ways that we can get the word of God into these little guys at such a young age.

Commenting Challenge: Day 4

Of all the years that I have blogged, I don't think I have ever blogged four consecutive days. This has been enjoyable for me participating in the blog commenting challenge from Jenna's Journey.

For the past four days, Jenna has put up a topic to blog  about as a means to maybe connect other bloggers. Today's topic is about my hobbies and what I like to do in my free time.

As many of you could probably guess, being a mother of three boys, 5 and under, there really isn't much free time. I am in no way complaning or grumbling about that. My husband and I have always wanted kids, so we know the craziness of our schedules and the little down time is only a season and will pass before we know it.

With that being said, we do get pockets of free time here and there. In fact, twice a month, we have date night. Just me and my hubby, no kids! It is something we look forward to every single month. When we have date night, one of our favorite things to do is eat! With only one income being brought in, eating out is a real treat for us and something we choose not to do much being a family of 5. We have tried restraunting with the boys, but it isn't that much fun. I mean, the boys behave, but it's just crazy trying to keep three boys seated for an extended period of time, make them eat and not waste the $10 meal that is in front of them.

Some other hobbies are: hanging out with my husband, Jeff. He is my best friend and I enjoy his company more than anyone else's. We 'get' each other and it's so much fun being around a person who you quote your favorite shows to and they will get it and just plain be yourself and you don't have to worry about being judged.

Reading, well, I am not what you would call a 'reader'. I mean, I can read, and if I get my hands on a good book, I have difficulty putting it down. However, I can start a book and it can take me a year and half to finish it. I love non-fiction books the best. Some of my all time faves are: What was asked of Us, Between a Rock and a Hard place, Quiet Strength, Going Public, and anything Mark Driscoll writes.

One of my favorite things to do after the boys are put to bed, is to sit down and watch a DVD of one of our favorite shows: The Office, Scrubs and The New Adventures of the Old Christine.  I seriously could watch these shows over and over. We also enjoy watching documentaries from NetFlix streaming. Some of my favorites are military documentaries.

Playing, doing some kind of activity, or going/watching sports is also something I love to do. Even though I am not a huge fan of professional sports, I won't turn down free tickets or an invite. Unless, of course, we have scheduling conflicts. I do however, enjoy playoffs for any professional sport. I feel by the time the players get to the World Series, Superbowl, etc, the players are playing their game for what it is and not about their selves. My favorite sports to watch are college football and basketball. Every Saturday in the Fall, we have our tv on with some college football game. My boys really love this! Then when March Madness gets here, I am always super stoked. Some of my favorite teams to watch are: Texas A&M (Only because I went there...), Duke, and Kentucky.

I also enjoy playing tennis, putt putt, arcades, pool, and bowling. Some date nights, Jeff and I will go do some of these things just because they are so fun and a little more difficult to do with three extra little bodies. We have also gone to an indoor trampoline park and a water park for dates and getaway weekends.

Even though I don't devote a lot of my time to these things, I really do enjoy doing them: photography and crafting. I love pintrest, so when I see something cute on there to do for my house or to have as a keepsake for the boys, I will usually try to do it. As for photography, when our 3 year old was 8 months, we finally took the plunge and invested in a really awesome camera. I have really enjoyed having it, but have never taken classes to really learn how to use the camera well. It has been more of a self-taught thing and it seems like everyone nowadays has their own photography business, and I have several relatives and close friends that are very good with their cameras, so they have taught me little things here and there to help me take decent pictures.

As far as hobbies go, that is about it for me. Nothing really exciting, for now anyway.

See you tomorrow....

Commenting Challenge: Day 3

Day 3 of commenting challenge from Jenna's Journey blog....

 

 

This is going to be a pretty short post today since I don't have a lot of social media. I try pretty hard to not get on the internet to much during they day, but with three boys, I don't have to do much to keep that from happening, they do that for me. Then in the evenings, I try my hardest to devote that time to my husband or catch up on my bible readings if I didn't get a chance to do it during the day.

 

However, when I do find the time to sit in our comfy computer chair and search away, I will usually check out Facebook and pintrest. For me, having a FB account is a love/hate relationship. I hate that when I go sit down just glance at it real quick, I end up spending 30 mintues looking at friends pictures or my friends, friends pictures. Such a waste of time! As much as I hate FB, I love it because it keeps me connected to all my best friends from high school and college, my parents, my siblings and extended family who unfortunately don't live near us.

 

As far as twitter and all those other networks, I don't even bother. Between email, FB, pintrest and my blog, my social networking life is packed!

 

Thanks for stopping by for Day 3 and I must admit that I have really enjoyed posting everday.

Commenting Challenge: Day 2

I am linking up again today with Jenna's Journey for the Commenting Challenge. Today's topic is about why and how I started blogging.

I first started blogging in August 2007, when our oldest son was 8 months old. I had a few family members who blogged about their families and would have updates on what their little ones were doing, so I thought "why not?" I was a little hesitant at first, blogging about my family and posting pictures of my children, but my experience with blogging has been pretty positive.

I have wanted to give up blogging several times, along with Facebook, just because it takes too much of my time, but it seemed like everytime I was about to throw in the towel with both networks, my aunt from Indiana, my parents or really good friends would tell me they enjoyed reading my blog and seeing updates on the boys. So of course, I couldn't let them down. After having my third son, I went sabbatical with blogging for about 6 or 7 months. I never found the time or energy to sit down and type away. After our family trip last year to Florida, I really felt the itch to get back into it and have been pretty consistant with it since.

I really have never used this blog to connect with other bloggers, as a political platform or any kind of podium for that matter, to put receipes on (however, I do go to other peoples blogs for delicious food ideas and for that, all of my boys bellies thank each and every one of you.), or to give parenting, marriage or any kind of other advice. This is just your typical, "Keeping up with the Jones" blog (Our last name isn't Jones, but if it was, it would have been perfect for that sentence.).

I use this blog to keep a record of my boys and the seasons we are in. I have tried to sit down and write out things in cute little journaling books, but every time I start writing, I would get serious writers cramp. I found myself writing less and less about what my boys were doing, because I found it to be very time consuming. Sitting down and typing away and loading pictures digitally seemed to be much faster. The second reason as to why I blog is to keep my parents and sister, who both live in the Dallas area, posted on what's going on and so they can see pictures of their grandsons and nephews. I also do it for my extended family who all live in Indiana and any other family members who may read our blog. As for Jeff's family, we are blessed and fortunate to live about 5 minutes from his parents and both his sisters and their families so they get to see the boys more often than what my family does, but I know my mother in law loves to see pictures of 3 out of 11 (soon to be) grandchildren too.

Even though blogging about my boys is my main purpose, I sometimes will blog about things I feel like God has been putting on my heart and when I get free time, I will post about it. I have posted about being a worrier, why we chose to go with public school, rather than homeschool this next year, and random things, like living with three, crazy, but normal, boys. That's the great things about blogging! I can talk about being worried as a young mother and to have friends read my post and encourage me, give me scriptures they have stood on and prayed over their family. Blogging can also be a way to encourage other mother's that what your child is doing is completely normal.

I have really enjoyed blogging and I really enjoy looking back on our different seasons to see where God has brought us from, seeing how much the boys have changed and to explain why the heck I am so exhausted!

Until tomorrow...

About Me

This week I am participating in a 'Blog Commenting Challenge' from Jenna's Journey. Today's challenge was to write about myself, so here it goes.

My name is Lindsay. I married my husband, Jeff on New Years Eve 7 1/2 years ago. Ten days before we celebrated our second year of marriage, we welcomed our first son, Joseph. Twenty-five months later, we welcomed another little boy, Christian and then twenty-one months later, we welcomed our third son, Nathan.

I am a Texas A&M grad with a degree in Elementary Education. I taught at a private school for two years before becoming a stay at home mother. Even though I'm not bringing in a pay check every two weeks, I still put my degree to good use raising, teaching and mentoring these three little guys.

I love anything that involves activity or competition. I love watching college football and basketball the best, but will go to any sporting event when given the chance. 

I am so thankful for this opportunity of raising these boys with my husband and thanking God for entrusting us with three, healthy, happy boys.

Father's Day 2012

It seems like yesterday that Jeff and I were sitting at Brennan's celebrating our first year anniversary and talking about when was a good time to start a family. We knew we wanted 3-4 kids and we wanted them close. I just remember the butterflies in my stomach just thinking about all the responsibility that comes with having a child and raising them up to love and honor God.

The first time I ever really saw Jeff interacting with children was after we first got married and we were around our 2 nephews at the time. Yes, there were only two kids on the Kirklin side of the family, now it is going to be 11 in January! Jeff was such a great uncle. Tender, loving, playful, everything you would want for a "fun uncle."

When he first became a father, December 21, 2006, I never dreamed of how amazing of a father he would be. When I had complications during delivery and Joseph came out looking horrible, Jeff kept it all together and remained calm and encouraging. With the circumstances, I wasn't able to hold Joseph right after he was born. He was carted away to the NICU for evaluations and more intense care. As soon as Jeff was given the chance, he went to see his first born and immediately returned with a camera full of pictures so I could see our son and talked about how beautiful he was. It was love at first sight for this first time daddy. That love, peace, and joy has continued from that day, unitl now and I am certain it will continue for the rest of his life.

 This past Father's Day, I kept thinking of the country song by George Strait, "It's a love without end amen." There is one part of the song, that says, "Father's don't just love their children every now and then, it's a love without end amen." This songs reminds me of Jeff and how he father's his sons. He is their hero, mentor, playmate, coach, disciplinarian, teacher, reptile catching buddy (cause you know I ain't touchin' them things), fishing buddy, and friend. These boys love their daddy so much, and our hope is that their love and respect that they have for their earthly father will mold into a relationship with the same amount of love and respect for their Heavenly Father.

So, to comemorate this special day, we tried/attempted pictures and it was a huge success. Yes, a success, because they are all three in the picture and sort of all looking in the same direction. That is a successful picture nowadays.

 Big brother's are awesome! Trying to help with the little ones and keep them seated long enough for me to snap the picture.

 It can get a little rough sometimes. Like, pushing his head down so he will stay seated.

 My pouty three year old. He wanted to close his eyes for the pictures and I frown upon that.

 This is the interaction I had with my three year old for the picture below:

Me: Christian, sit down, I can't see you.

Christian: Yeah you can.

Me: No, I can't.

Happy's Father's Day to an amazing Dada!! This house full of boys wouldn't be as peaceful and smooth sailing if it weren't for your presence.

Summer is here

  We are super excited about our summer and everything that we have planned. Even though VBS, our vacations and some other exciting day plans won't officially begin until about another week, this past weekend, we had a good kick off to our summer.

  Last Saturday was Joseph's last coach pitch/t-ball game. I can not tell you how proud I am of Joseph! The very first game was a little rough because it was a first for all of us. He was a little timid and shy, so he had to learn how to overcome that and we had to learn had to handle it. The six games that followed, we saw Joseph do nothing but blossom, mature and overcome timidity and fear. Jeff really enjoyed having the opportunity of coaching him and the other seven kiddos (well eight, if you count Christian ;-) ). I really enjoyed taking him to the school once a week to work on hitting, fielding and simple techniques. I would have to say our first organized sport was a success and we are looking forward to many more.

Jeff handing out trophies and of course, Christian helping out.

Waiting patiently, in the hot hot sun to receive his trophy.

Go Cheetahs!!

 Another thing that has kicked off our summer is having completed swim lessons. We were supposed to do swim lessons with another instructor that was this week, but I had received an email from them saying they needed to find someone with a pool. I really didn't want to wait around to see if they would find one, so I started asking around for other good swim instructors and I was given the name of this wonderful lady in Friendswood. I didn't know this at the time, but the first day of lessons I had an Aggie shirt on. The instructor asked if I went to school there and I told her that I did. She then began to tell me that her son went there, so I asked his name, never expecting to recognize it. Well, her son is Jaxson Appel. He was this awesome football player for the Aggies when Jeff and I were there. I couldn't believe it!
  Now on to Joseph and his swim lessons. He did great! By the end of the first day, he was swimming! Each day, you could tell he became more and more confident in the water and I would have to say that he is officially a swimmer.

As you can see, Christian has to do everything Joseph does. He wasn't even signed up to be in the lesson, but Joseph's instructor was sweet enough to let him join the last couple of days.

Christian had no fear of jumping off the board!

Joseph was a little more hesitant and everyday they lined up to go, he would say he didn't want to do it, but she someone convinced him to jump every time.

We are really looking forward to swimming and the water parks now that Joseph can really enjoy it. We are also looking forward to the Fall because Joseph has been asking to play soccer next (and guess who else is asking?), so that's probably what we will do. We want to take a break in the summer due to our crazy schedules, oh and the insane heat!

Nathan is 18 months

I can't believe the time is here, where my baby boy is 18 months old. The time with him has just absolutely flown by. At times I wish Nathan was an infant curled up on my chest, but then there are times I love the age that he is. I love all phases of childhood, infancy to toddler-hood, and one of the things I love about 18 months, is how much their speech develops, how they start becoming more mobile, start developing interest in certain toys and cartoon characters, I love it all. Of course, there can be some moments that are frustrating about this age, like having opinions about things and the ONLY way to share that opinion is to have a screaming fit. This is a difficult age because you can't reason with them, so most of the time you are left with two options: give the screaming child what he wants or ignore the screaming child.

So Nathan, at 18 months:

• You wear size 4 diapers.
• Your wear size 5 shoe.
• You wear 18-24 months shirts.
• You can wear shorts anywhere from 12 months-24 months (depending on the brand).
• You still love the water and bath time.
• You started walking since the last update I did on you. You started walking about week before you turned 17 months.
• You have been to the beach. You weren't crazy about it at first, but by the end of the day, you were in love with the idea of digging in the sand and crawling and sitting in the water.
• You love milk.
• Your favorite fruits are: banana's, apples, pineapple, cantaloupe, grapes and blueberries.
• You like carrots, red peppers and edamame beans.
• You are starting to feed yourself with a spoon.
• You are a pretty serious kid. You remind me a lot of Joseph. You both are thinkers and take your time thinking over things before becoming comfortable. You, however, are a little more out spoken about situations (this means you scream.....a lot!).
• You can say: Mama, Dada, ball, Bible, Joe, hi, bye, more, bite, banana (nana), Christian (Shinshin), Papaw, Poppy, uh-oh, no, yeah, hot, Cooper, down, up, help, cheese, thank you, poo poo, cat, dog, jump, car, frog, and why.
• You love balls.
• You have recently taken an interest in Elmo and Cookie Monster.
• Anytime we sit down on the computer, he grab our legs and spin us around because you want to sit in our lap. You love watching YouTube videos of Elmo.
• You are starting to interact more and more with Joseph and Christian.
• You are starting to want Dada more. Sometimes in the morning when I come get you, you ask for him first thing.
• You are still all about Mimi, but have recently started to go to Marnie even when I am right there.
• You are a little more strong willed then what I remember the other two being.
• You love to play with the cell phones.
• You still struggle with asthma. Thankfully we are still able to treat you with just an inhaler.
• You HATE to wear shoes. As soon as you get in the car, you are trying to take them off.

This was a special picture because as I was starting to take it, I said, "say cheese." And he said cheese and smiled!  

 Sup?

 You and Christian are really starting to bond. I am so thankful that you all love each other so much.

 Your BFF.

 We need to work on how to hold a Popsicle correctly.

Joseph:                                        Nathan:                                             Christian:

 26.50 lbs (57%)                         24.13 lbs (24%)                                I can't find his stats :-(

 32.75 in (60%)                          32.75 in (59%)

All the boys at 18 months. Joseph and Nathan have the same facial features, but C and Nathan have identical coloring of the skin and hair.

 I was trying to get pictures to mark this special milestone and Nathan wasn't too interested. We tried a nice grassy field, but at first, he didn't like his shoes on. So, I took them off. Then he didn't like the grass on his feet. So, we went by the house and I couldn't even get him to look at me. He let me know he was finished by walking away and telling me 'bye.'

 Oh Nathan, before we know it, we will be having your second birthday. You are a joy in our lives and you keep us on our toes. Love you!!