GrOwInG uP!

Shaef has come alive the past few weeks! He is talking like crazy and will try to repeat anything that you tell him to say. It is so much fun to see him do new things and explore everything! Here are some of the fun things he has done the past few weeks!
Splash park at the zoo - he likes to try to drink the water! (Gross I know but he looks so dang cute!)

Pull the DVD's off the shelf, open them, and take out the disk... his favorites right now are:

Elmo- "Melmo", Nemo- "Memoo", Cars- "Vroom", Toy Story- "Tory", and Bugs Life - "Bugs"!

He loves wearing Dad's hat!

Finger painting with pudding after a Mac N' Cheese lunch! He loved it and it was everywhere!

He has started this thing where he lays with his head on the couch and puts his feet on the ottoman and makes a bridge - he thinks it is so fun!

He is constantly making funny faces and silly noises!

This is how we swim these days!! With his gear on he can kick around the pool no problem and mommy doesn't have to hold him :)

He also has a new friend - Tanner "Nanner". He loves him! (I think having the same name as his uncle makes him that much more special!)

When life gives you lemons....

I have been having some "Lemons" in my life the past few weeks and I constantly feel stressed and overwhelmed. (Anson says that I even wake him up in the night because I am tossing and turning and even grinding my teeth.)

Yesterday my sister told me a quote and I don't know who it is from or the direct quote but it says something like this - "Heavenly Father won't ever give us a trial we cannot handle, but he will give us trials we THINK we cannot handle."

So in hopes of finding some sweet Lemonade - I will be listening to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, General Relief Society Broadcast to feel of my Saviors love and get spiritually energized to battle my trials! I know that my Heavenly Father loves me and is aware of me!

Our special guest and Labor Day!

We had such a great time this past weekend! My brother lives in Philadelphia and we don't get to see him too often. We are excited to be in the same time zone as him and be at least on the same coast as him! He decided to buy a plane ticket down here and come see us! He got here on Sunday and left on Wednesday - not alot of time - but we had alot of fun!

On Labor Day, we took him to St. Augustine. We love the history there and the feel of the little town. Unfortunately I don't have any pictures - my battery was dead! But thank goodness for chargers because I was able to document the rest of the weekend! After St. Augustine - we went to North Beach. It was a new beach for us, and we were quite impressed. It was not very crowded and really beautiful. We even were able to see some sea turtle nests!

Shaef and Tanner are such good buds! They laughed and played so much! Shaef calls him "nanner". We wish that "Nanner" could be around more to play!

The next day Anson was busy with school so he studied while we explored downtown Jacksonville. My brother is good at just going where he wants and finding amazing things. We found the Landing and found some really amazing/interesting things:

Like this sweet statue of some sailor!

An amazing blue bridge - we actually drove over this one!

Us with the sweet bridge behind us!

At night, because it is high tide, people bring their nets and bait and catch shrimp. There were people who looked like they were doing it to survive and people doing it for fun! This is a picture of shrimp on the deck right after they were shaken out of the net.

Here is a close up picture of the shrimp. I actually think they might be crawdads or something because they are in a freshwater river.

Sometimes they even catch things like this - I don't know what kind it is but it had a freaky spike on its back!

We talked to a bunch of the people and it was fun to learn about some Jacksonville happenings!

We love you so much Tanner and miss your face!!

Rise and Shout!

Living across the country cannot stop True Blue fans! Right now we are listening on the Internet to our Cougars playing! Listening is nothing compared to being in the stadium, or even watching them on the TV - but Florida cable doesn't cover this game and we don't have satellite.

Regardless - we have donned our cougar apparel and are sitting on our bed listening to the game...and I am LOVING every minute of it!