Backing Up... Remembering When...

It's a Girl!!!

For those of you who have not already heard...

Carys Desse-Anaya LeCureux was born on June 3rd at 2:15am. She is precious and beautiful and a wonderful addition to our family!:)

Labor and delivery went very well!

Here are a few pics for your viewing pleasure.:)

Memorial Day Weekend

These photos were taken by a friend - it's kind of nice to be off picture duty for a few days!:)

We experienced our first Bellaire Memorial Day Parade last week. You could see the beginning and the end at the same time!:) But it felt nice to be involved, even if only as a spectator, in a small town event.

Caedmon loved watching the trucks, his new fascination, and the dogs in the crowd. He wasn't at all phased by the guns that went off.

We opened up the church for bathroom usage and had coffee and donuts for those interested. Our church is in such a great location, right downtown. We hope to take advantage of our location in many ways in the near future!

I believe he's saying "truck" here

He looks like he's directing traffic:)

After the parade, the guys went to the park
while I went and checked out a new boutique in town:)

Corey has been bringing me flowers from our garden lately and Caedmon's caught on quickly. Corey told me that the other day Caedmon picked up a flower off the ground and said "mama."

For some reason, I love this pic!

Family Visiting

Corey's brother is in the Navy and hasn't been home for 2 1/2 years. He finally got some time off and came up from SC this week. But he's up at the parents, so they all came over to visit yesterday since I'm not traveling these days. Caedmon took awhile to warm up to all the people here, especially since they arrived while he was taking his nap.

He warmed up to Anthony's girlfriend pretty quickly, asking her for "up," and taking her books to read to him. Anthony was pretty jealous, but he finally got Caedmon to play and read with him as well. :)

We enjoyed the time spent with all - it was especially nice that Anthony was able to spend the night when they decided to use our car for the next few days.

Caedmon found someone to hold him.:)

We found out that Nanna has the entire Cat in the Hat memorized!

Anthony finally found a book to lure Caedmon over - he could care less about the book as a whole, but there's a fish on just about every page and he's obsessed with fish right now!:)

Oh the Joy of Dirt!:)

Corey has been so ambitious lately, planting flowers and starting a vegetable garden. Planting's never sounded like all that much fun to me, but I love looking at the flowers and I'll enjoy the veggies if they actually grow (our soil isn't the greatest).

Needless to say, Caedmon totally loves playing in the dirt while Corey works!:)

Nana and Papa's

We took a trip up to the grandparents again the third week in May. Once again we had a lovely time and were well taken care of. A few people couldn't believe I was "across the state" two weeks before my due date, but I was pretty sure this baby wasn't going to come till June.:)

I absolutely love their back porch - we totally enjoyed a morning in our pj's out there - I'm so envious!:)

Trip to the Playground

Corey seems to be enjoying the playground as well!:)

New Toy

I went to a Mom-2-Mom Sale a few weeks back and found some fun things for Caedmon. I've found that it's very difficult to find boys' clothing anywhere (except brand new), but we found some fun, cheap toys for outdoors.

Wildlife in Our Yard

I love the wildlife we have come through our yard, just about as much as Caedmon does!:) I've always enjoyed watching the birds and we finally got some feeders up in our tree. Today I was excited to see a bird I'd not ever seen on our feeders before!

A Pileated Woodpecker!

Mother's Day

Corey announced it was time to go Sunday afternoon (Mother's Day) - to where I didn't know. We ended up in TC and he got me a swing that I had been wanting to purchase with the money I'd received from the end of the bowling league season. He surprised me with a lovely wooden swing - I had been looking at the metal kind with the padding and awning, but this one was a better deal and will last a lot longer! Then he took me to Olive Garden - yummy! Poor guy had planned on taking me to Pizza Hut since it's my favorite pizza, but when he pulled into the place (I didn't know where we were going for supper), I complained about having had pizza the night before and I really wanted Olive Garden...can I blame being pregnant?:/ He should know by now that you better ask a pregnant lady what she's in the mood for when it comes to food! It changes often and quickly! He was a trooper and although I'm sure he wished he'd left me at home (we then pulled into Olive Garden and I asked if there was some place else we were going while in TC 'cause I wasn't yet hungry and so he pulled back out while sighing and rolling his eyes and went to Meijer for the swing) it turned out to be a lovely time!

Then on Thursday, the UPS guy arrives at our house with a package for me! Corey got me an Anne Geddes book! I've been obsessed with her stuff lately! Totally in baby mode!:) Love her photography!

Thanks babe for making me feel special!

He put my swing together the next day and
the same evening he started right in on coating it with a sealant.
It looks great and I'm enjoying it immensely!

Multi-tasking

Now that is impressive!:)

Babysitting

I've been babysitting for some friends whose regular daycare person had to get her greenhouse business going for the spring/summer. It's been challenging as the ages of their children are almost 3 and almost 1 and Caedmon is 20 months. Caedmon and their little girl have a tough time sharing, so I feel like a referee a lot of the time. But they have some sweet moments and I was able to capture a couple of those.

36 Weeks (9 months)

This was almost two weeks ago now (I'm always a little slow about this blogging thing...). Anyway, this coming Tuesday I'll be 38 weeks. It's hard to believe I'm nearing the end...and the beginning!:)
Caedmon's been obsessed with babies lately. One day he carried his doll out the door, into his carseat and into the store with him! Hopefully this is a good indication! I think it will be tough for him to have a sibling taking away some of the attention he's used to getting, but we can only hope for the best!:)

Our Anniversary Trip

We took our anniversary trip a little early this year considering my due date. A couple in our church gave us their time share again for two nights. I was sooo excited just to get away (even if it was only 30 miles!:)) and do some relaxing. I wasn't all I'd hoped for...Caedmon isn't a baby anymore. We're discovering that last year, toting him around wherever we went still made for a good time. This year though...we'll have to figure out how to leave him behind next time! We had to deal with tantrums and crankiness. Oh the joys of parenthood!

We definitely had to add something new to our repertoire of things to do - parks! Caedmon can only take bookstores and coffee shops in small doses!:)

Eating at our favorite coffee shop/cafe in Petoskey -
it was a short meal - one of the times Caedmon didn't do so well...

getting some reading in while Caedmon enjoyed the sandbox

enjoying our little patio

Sweet Tooth

I was making pound cake last weekend for strawberry shortcake as a special treat Sunday morning for Mother's Day and Caedmon pointed to the beaters. It cracked me up that he understood that he'd be getting something sweet if he got to lick it. Can you tell I've been baking a lot lately?!:)