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Go Daddy! Go Mommy!

Grampy and Masie came up this weekend to help us cheer on Mommy and Daddy for their first half-marathon. We're not sure how far that is, but judging by how tired Mommy looked at the end, it must be a LONG way.

It was really cold, waiting for Mommy and Daddy, but we were troopers!

Yay Daddy! Yay Mommy!

Apple Picking 2010

As is our custom, we went apple picking with Uncle Kev and Aunt Emmy last weekend. This was a banner year, as we let the boys romp around the orchard, as opposed to taking the stroller. They had a blast, and they were troopers with having to go to the back of the orchard to find any apples.

John's ready with his basket!

This apple looks yummy!

Whatcha doin', Mommy?

Just the right height!

The boys - all 4 of them!

We love Aunt Emmy!

The long walk back - we're tired!
But not too tired to enjoy our annual Apple Cider Doughnut.

Hello?

Yes, we're still here. We have a ton of pictures to post, which we'll hopefully get to soon.

The boys are rambunctious as ever, and they are testing the limits of the "Terrible Twos." We keep reminding each other that it's just a phase.

They are speaking in complete sentences now - you'd never know they had to have speech therapy a year ago! John is starting to be able to say his "L"s, and it's really funny to watch him try to do it. He sticks his tongue out so far, and "yellow" comes out sometimes as "lellow." Their teacher told me this morning that she has noticed a big change in Will socially. Apparently he is much more interactive with the other kids in the class, and he's very affectionate. Now if we can just transfer that to home!

Pix to come...

Sunday Fun - Devildog Style

A couple of Sundays ago, we went to a party celebrating the arrival of Jacob, a 9-year-old boy who my school friend and his wife are going to adopt. The boys had a ton of fun playing with all the big kids...all future TRHS Devildogs? We'll see!

Love this pic of the boys...mischievous, much?

This is Will. He looks so much like me at this age that I thought it was John. They keep us guessing!

Future Devildogs? It was pretty amazing that we were able to keep all of these kids still long enough for a picture! Ages range from 12 to 2.5!

Fun at the Sibleys

Fire Truck, Fire Truck

One of the boys' favorite songs is "Tractor, Tractor" by Randall Goodgame and Andrew Peterson. The video is quite amusing, too. Part of the song deals with fire trucks, and it just so happens that our neighbor, Mr. Randy, is the captain of one of the local fire stations. We took the boys to see Mr. Randy yesterday, and it was like Christmas!

We got to play all over the big trucks! Mr. Randy's friends even turned the lights and sirens on!

John up to no good, of course.

Firefighters in the making?

Will looks like a natural!

Love this shot of John. The boys had perhaps the most fun running around the station and playing in water puddles.

Thank you, Mr. Randy!!!!!

Happy July 4th!

Better late than never, right? I figured Bastille Day was a good time to post our pic of the boys on the 4th.

Compare to this picture from last year, taken by Auntie Em. Amazing what a year does!

BEACH!

Yes, we've been home from the beach for over 2 weeks now, and I'm just now posting pics. We went with Grandma and Grandpa (or as the boys call them, "Mama and Papa"), Uncle Stan and Aunt Michelle, and cousins Grace, Sallie, and Parker to Cherry Grove Beach, SC. The boys had a blast, and they did really well being away from home for so long!

Will was quite the seashell-searcher

Daddy and John solve all the world's problems while playing in a tide pool.

4 of the 5 Stone cousins, minus baby Parker. L-R: John, Grace, Will, Sallie

John is deep in thought, trying to decide which shell to get next.

Will loves the beach!

John: "Mommy, put the camera away, already!"

Will: "Hey wait, John! Mommy wanted to take a picture of us together..."

And that's the best I got of both boys together. Such cutie-pies!

Our new sleeping arrangement

Need a bodyguard?

Their Father's Sons

The pictures should explain the title:

Yes, Will LOVES to line up his trucks in straight lines. Before we know it, he'll be arguing with Daddy about whether to organize his books by author name or volume number.


Don't worry, John likes to organize things too. He's just a little more creative in his ventures:

This is serious business! Will is NOT happy that John is trying to mess up his nice, neat line of trucks. And John is NOT happy that Will isn't sharing his trucks so that he can make a nice, neat lines of trucks, too:

But, after all that seriousness, there's still plenty of time for fun. Whether it's stomping on the chest at the foot of Mommy and Daddy's bed:

Will

Or being tickled by Daddy:

Will

John

BOOTS!

Will decided it'd be really fun to put on Daddy's boots this morning. Actually, he thinks it's really fun to put on our shoes all the time. I couldn't resist...

Haircuts!

The boys got some much-needed haircuts today from Daddy. He used his clippers with the biggest guard we had. Look at our handsome young men!!

Will

John

John and Daddy having fun

It's hard to get them to stay still for pictures, so this is the best I could get!

Mommy's new(er) hobby

Grampy grows violets. Grampy has grown violets for as long as I can remember. I tried to grow violets. I killed said violets for as long as I can remember...until now!

Lately, I've been feeling confident in my violet-growing ability (thanks to lots of patience and teaching from Grampy), and R and I found some beautiful ones at a nursery not too far from Masie and Grampy's house. Check them out:

We're here!

Despite our long silence from blog-world, we're still here and kicking. We've been extremely busy, as always, thus the lack of updates. So, to make up for it, here are a bunch of pix from the past few months...

Cute boys in baseball caps


Our Hard Rock Kuwait shirts from Uncle Sage (really Mommy's cousin), who's moving to Charleston from Kuwait! We can't wait to hang out with him!



Our boys LOVE Spaghetti O's! And the mess that accompanies them...


John did a nose-dive off the chair, smack into an over-sized lego...first trip to Urgent Care resulted in Dermabond! He's a trooper! If you look closely at his forehead, you can see the round lego-mark.


Will at almost 26 months - happy as can be!


John at almost 26 months - he's hard to catch!



The boys' vocabulary has exploded! They are starting to form small sentences, and Daddy says that they sound like Yoda ("cow, bye-bye" and the like). My favorite thing lately that they say is from John. He has started to say, "bless you, Mommy" and "bless you, Daddy" whenever we sneeze, cough, etc. His favorite answer to everything is "yeah!" John pretty much starts talking the moment he wakes up and doesn't stop until he goes to sleep...Daddy would argue that he's like his mommy in that sense. John is also our climber. He climbed a small rock wall last night before we knew what was happening!

Will loves to tell people he loves them, and he loves to look for busses, boats, Jeeps and cows when we're riding in the car. He loves finding cars that look like ones he knows - Mommy's, Daddy's, Masie's... our smart little booger! He asks about boats and cars that used to be places that haven't been there in months...amazing. He loves to cuddle, too!