more family to meet!

We had the opportunity at the end of August to travel up to Maryland to see some of my dad's side of the family that we hadn't seen in quite awhile -- more importantly, this was family that still had yet to meet our sweet boy!

 

The drive is just under 7 hours travel so it was the longest trip we've taken so far (driving).  Deacon did really great in the car.  I won't say he's the best car rider, even for short trips here and there.  But what am I saying?  There are never any "short trips" for us -- we live so far out in the boonies.  :)  Well, I take that back.

 

It's a pretty short drive to the beach.

 

I guess we can forgive all others.  :)

 

Aaaaanyway, back to our trip.  We went armed prepared with some toys, his blanket & lovey that he sleeps with, and a DVD player with fresh new movies to watch.  But actually, he slept a lot of the time and was just overall a good rider.  Praise Jesus!

 

On the other side of our trip, my aunt & uncle and grandmother (Deacon's great grandmother), and my two cousins and their families were waiting to meet Deacon.  It was a whirlwind trip but we got to spend some good time with everyone...

 

[reading with Aunt Janie]

 

[sleeeeepy boy...Uncle Bob's deep rumbly voice almost knocked him out!]

 

 

She enjoyed Deacon so much!  And he was so sweet with her.  He liked reading books with her and just climbed right up in her lap here.  I know she ate it up!  She tried to get her fill of kisses and "love yous" when she had the chance.  :)

 

 

[life of the party right here, baby!]

 

Mirah, my cousin's daughter, turned 12 the day we arrived so we were able to celebrate with her with pizza and cake, yum!  Christi, Ted & Mirah all thought Deacon was fun.  :)

 

 

And this is my other cousin, Melinda and her husband, Matt.  They enjoyed Deacon, too, but in a different way, I'm sure, considering that they are expecting their first child in January, and they found out a couple days before we got there that their little peanut is a BOY!

 

I am so glad that we were able to get up to see this side of my family.  We certainly don't get to see them as much due to the distance, but it was special to be able to spend time with all of them while we were there.

fishies!

 

We took Deacon to the NC Aquarium a few weeks ago when my brother & his family were visiting.  I posted about it on my camera blog so click here to see how much fun we had!

sweet, sweet moments...

I have some more photos to share with you from our time in Lexington a couple weeks ago -- some special moments shared by a grandparent and their grandchild.  Some of these made me choke up a little...

kids at play...

So I was looking back through my photos from last weekend, when we went to Lexington to celebrate my niece's 4th birthday.

The quality of my photos has gone a little, um, downhill, if you will.  My photos used to be so much sharper & crisper.  They used to be much better quality  back when my son and my brother's 2 kids were younger.  I guess it's because they used to sit still.

Not so much anymore.

But it kind of doesn't really bother me because in the blurriness, you get a sense of the personality of our kids -- how busy and active they are, how into everything they are.  You can almost hear the noise of them playing so well together...

And need I even lament on how hard it is to get a photo of all of them looking at the camera??

Well, whether they look at the camera or not, they sure are cute.  :)

busy little chatterbox...

Turn up your volume -- you don't wanna miss this!

Happy 4th!

We had a nice, relaxing day off yesterday for the 4th.  Jeff worked on (and finished up) a project in the shop in the morning.  I did a little crafting (and cleaning).  Deacon played and napped, as always.  :)  And then we went to a party in downtown Wilmington to watch the fireworks.

We were right on the water (the river) to watch the fireworks later on, but before that we hung out with lots of friends, the kids played, we ate gobs of yummy food and got a few games of volleyball going.  It was a good time, despite the ridiculous heat.

The fireworks were good; we were kind of curious about how Deacon would react since he was only 8 months old for his 1st fireworks display.  He did okay, but was kind of fidgety.  And it was late and he had played hard so he was tired, too.  Thankfully, the fireworks didn't last longer than 20 min or so. 

I took my camera but didn't get the first photo taken.  Deacon is just so busy, and being in a place with lots of stairs (decks) to climb, piers to wander out on (read: edges to fall over), I didn't have time to grab my camera, let alone carry it around with me.

I did snag this photo of him yesterday morning while we were playing, and even though it's kind of blurry in parts, I kinda like how it turned out:

[20 months]

summah-tiiime...

Whew, it's hot.  We are most def into summer around these parts.  And taking advantage of our proximity to the beach...

::  photo cred goes to my sister-in-law, Jill, for all these great shots ::

Deacon is definitely warming up to the beach now.  Ha, ha!  Get it?  Warming up...?  Aaaaanyway, he enjoys the beach more now that he can run around.  He's not so fearful of the waves and actually enjoys having his feet in the water with the waves rushing over them.  Every time we go, he gets a little braver.  He's a lot of fun to watch.  :)

And, as always, he's very friendly to everyone we see.  To the point of awkwardness, I think.  Of course, he charms everyone, but as his mama, sometimes I have to pull him away for being so, um, friendly.  Know what I mean?  Playing with other kids' toys, eating other peoples' snacks, tuning other folks' radios...  Okay, that last one hasn't happened, but we came pretty close one day...

AHK-WARD.

I guess it's okay at this age, though.  I'm hoping he'll grow out of the "overstepping boundaries" thing, but will keep that charming, friendly, kind disposition for all of his days.  It's one of the things I have prayed for him since we found out we were going to have this precious child.

And I do mean precious...