Washington...Here We Come!

We finally purchased our tickets for Washington last night. Since Steven will be leaving the 101st for a few months to go to the Captain's Career Course at Ft. Knox, he has the opportunity to take quite a bit of time off to transition in late March. We're excited because that gives us a chance to go West to visit his whole family. We'll be splitting time between Long Beach, a cute little touristy town on the Washington Peninsula where his mom, cousins, aunts & uncles, etc live, and Woodland/Longview where his Dad and Grandma's live. It's been a year since we've been there, and we are looking forward to another nice visit. All you WA folks...I think Grandma Shirley is planning a get together over the weekend of the 27-28th...stay tuned for details, it would be wonderful to see everyone!

We will drive up to Fort Wayne, IN first to visit with my family for a few days. We'll leave Lacy to stay with Grandma and Grandpa Dowling and then fly out of Indy on March 23rd. We'll be in WA for a week and fly back to Indy on the 31st.

It's going to be a great trip, but the question is...how will James do on the airplane at just 3 months old? I am a little nervous about all of that. We'll have to check his car seat at the airport and we'll be praying the whole time that our luggage doesn't get lost! Plus, I just don't want to be that lady with the baby who screams the whole trip! If that happens, I'll just hand James over to Steven and go sit by myself! hahaa...just kidding!

So Spoiled!

We are so blessed to have a few friends who have some major skills in the photography arena. Last week, Erin took the awesome pictures of me and James, and this past weekend my other friend, Regan, took these pictures of all of us. When everyone offers their expertise, it would just be foolish to say no! We want to offer sincere thanks to both of you wonderful women for spending so much time and effort! These pictures are so wonderful!

So, Saturday afternoon we went out to Boy Scout Park here in Clarksville, and the weather was perfectly overcast and a nice 58 degrees. James was in the middle of his nap time, so getting him awake without screaming was quite a job. However, Regan rolled with it and did such an amazing job! How do we choose?

It's so funny...when we got home and were looking at the pictures, Steven said, "Man, we look tired!" So true. James has been sleeping decently at night, but the 3 hours in between feedings means only about 2 hours of sleep at a time! We also think he's going through a growth spurt because the last two nights he's been super fussy and wants to eat every 2-2.5 hours...it definitely wears on you! We are really looking forward to the day he sleeps through the night. I know we need to keep things in perspective...James is only 5 weeks old...but one can hope!

On the bright side, he is being quite a bit more vocal, which is so fun. He makes these adorable little noises and is having more alert awake time! We cannot wait to see him smile! hopefully that's not too far away.

Peek-A-Boo. How cute is James peeking out over Steven's shoulder?? I love this one!

I think one of these last two is going to be a mantle picture. You know it's us...but it's more of a piece of art and a little less intrusive for a mantle piece. What do you think?

Photo Shoot

James and I went to my girlfriend Erin's house on Saturday morning to take some photos. Erin got this amazing camera for Christmas and she wanted to practice using it...we were happy to be the subjects! She did a lot of research on infant photo staging and had all of these great ideas for us. As you can see below, they turned out so wonderful! Erin, thank you so much! The hard part now is deciding which photos to put up in the house...I'm sure many will make the cut!

Which ones do you like best??

Loves his pacifier

We yanked the pacifier, and James is not happy

and now he's really mad!

Old Man James