Lots to update on this week.

Most importantly, our car situation. The Honda is officially gone, and letting it go was somewhat bittersweet. Don't get me wrong, we were more than happy to see the car gone after the headache it has been for the last several years. However, there were lots of memories that went with that car. We had it when we got married, had Josh, it moved with us to CT, survived an attempted car jacking, had Jack and moved to GA. And so much in between.

We ended up getting a Nissan Pathfinder on Monday evening. We love it! Not only is it a great family car, but there are so many features about it we love. We plan on having this car for a very long time and we both are very happy with what we got. And of course my studly husband got an amazing price on it too. We feel very blessed! Especially after having that Honda, it feel like we are driving in the lap of luxury, although that may be the seat warmers : )

There has been a ton of rain down here a lots of flooding. So far we have been unaffected by it other than the occasional travel inconvenience. It's made for a nice mellow week since Josh's soccer practice and game were canceled as a result.

I got to take Josh to see the Cloudy with a chance of Meatballs movie today, which he loved. On the way back home he was talking about the boys in his class and how they play together, and I asked him if he played with any girls. He told me no he didn't, since they are bad guys. Well what about mommy I asked? He said he could play with me since I'm his mommy. What a relief. He is full into the whole good guy/bad guy concept right now. He's been learning lots at school, and most recently is starting practicing writing. He's gotten through A's and B's (lower case and upper case), and knows how to write his full name (which is a big deal since those s's have been hard!).

Jack had his 15 month doctors appointment yesterday. He was 25% weight, 50% height, and 95% for his head. That's my boy. Almost all of his appointments have resulted in those statistics. I love this age he's at right now. I've always said my favorite age range is the 1-2year time frame (although I'm loving age 4 more and more). I love watching his little personality emerge, and boy is it ever. I was working on something the other day and he crawled up on the couch and kept flinging himself on my lap. He is getting more and more outgoing, as well as talkative. He doesn't put up with Josh's stuff, and if Josh takes a toy from him Jack will yell at him and try to take it back, while throwing in a few hits at the same time. He's very sensitive to any sort of discipline, much more so than Josh was. Josh would laugh at us and do whatever it was we had told him not to while Jack either listens, or at the least bit of reprimanding pouts or even cries. He has such a sweet and loving disposition about him.

The last couple weeks have been stressful so it's been nice to have this one calm down a little bit, and have the peace of the car situation being taken care of. Other than a lack of sunshine right now, life is good.

Time for the Kelly Family Sports Rundown.

This time of year is kind of like the mecca of sports I think. Baseball is at the peak of it's action with the race for who's going to win the division title, and football season is in full swing. It's rare to see anything but some sort of game on out TV during the weekend, and the TV seems to be on almost constantly, even if no one is in front of it (that way when Chris walks by it he can see the scores).

So here is where we stand.

Baseball:
Our first team loyalty is with (and always will be with) the St. Louis Cardinals. If this game is on we more often that not will be in front of it. I have a whole soap box on why they're the best team in baseball, but I think most of our readers are in STL, so no explanation necessary.

Our AL (american league) team that we pull for is the Boston Red Sox. We liked them before leaving STL, but living in CT and going to a few games only intensified our appreciation. As much as we like the Red Sox however, if they are playing the Cards... forget about it.

Chris will also occasionally still root for the Giants, but seeing as how they pretty much stink, and the town of St. Louis and I have indoctrinated him with enough Cardinal love and loyalty, these happenings are few and far between.

College Football:

This is practically a religion down here. It is insane how crazy people are about their football down here. Shortly after we moved down here we knew we just wouldn't fit in if we didn't have an SEC team we pulled for. After weighing the pros and cons, and Chris going to a game, our alliance now lies with the UGA Georgia Bulldogs.

I also pull for Mizzou.

NFL:

Let's be honest, the Rams aren't really a STL team. Not only do they stink, I'm just not a fan of the organization and how they run it. On the flip side, I've been really impressed with the Falcons organization and how they run things. Especially when the whole Michael Vick thing went down, I thought they handled it very gracefully (and that was before we moved to ATL), between that and the fact that they are actually good, we root for them.

Chris occasionally roots for the 49ers, but again, seeing as how they stink, it's not usually given much TV time.

So that's the lineup. Josh knows almost all of our teams by names and can recognize them. He was yelling for the Falcons Sunday afternoon, and the Cardinals on Sunday night (thank you ESPN). He gets into the games, it's pretty cute.

What team do you pull for?

I have two very snuggly boys today. And I love it.

I'm not sure if it's still not feeling 100% normal with Josh, or if it's being in school and having time away from mom that is making him want to spend more time with me, but whatever it is, I will take it!

He was snuggling with me and I asked him if when he was as tall as daddy he would still give his mommy hugs. He said yes. I said what about when you are playing sports in high school and have a girlfriend? Yes. What about when you are married, and have kids? Still yes. Sweet, but I told him that I wouldn't ask for them at weird times and would draw healthy boundaries. I figured it's a fair exchange.

Josh also memorized his first bible verse for school today. Genesis 1:1. I'm so proud! He is also working on writing the letter "A". Upper and lower case. We are also working on lower case "s" because it's in his name, which he needs to be able to write, and apparently it's quite difficult for him.

So that's our life. Glad to be getting back into somewhat of a routine now, and not wondering about the unknown.

The Toyota is fixed and we are looking for a "new" car to replace the Honda. RIP Honda.

Lord have mercy, has it been a week.

I think it has probably been one of the most crazy weeks of my adult life.

There has been some high points, and some very low points.

Recap time:

Monday- doesn't count because it was labor day

Tuesday- Josh's first day of preschool, he will be going four days a week from 9:30 to 1:30. Big stuff. He did great, and he loved it, I was so proud of him.

I also had cupcakes that I had to deliver that day, as well as making some more for my bible study the next day as well as an appetizer. I also had to write up the recipes for a book that we are making for our bible study group.

Chris noticed his car acting funny, and made plans to get a ride to work the next morning, so we dropped his car off that night at our mechanics.

I noticed Jack wasn't feeling very well.

Wednesday- drop Josh off bright and early, he was a little bit more apprehensive the next day, figuring out the routine, but was great as soon as we pulled up. Rushed over to bible study. Rushed home to squeeze in an hour nap for Jack, rushed to pick Josh up (I am so thankful our preschool is less than a mile away from our house!) and rushed home again.

Upon getting home, I had to feed the kids, get Jack down for another nap, get them packed up for the evening, and prepare for my small group girls that night. I also had to leave earlier than normal to go pick up Chris. During that time we find out that Chris's car is pretty much toast. So now we have to get a new car. A year earlier than thought we would need to.

So I picked up Chris, and we grabbed a quick dinner at Chick-Fil-A. He dropped the kids and I off at church and headed out to the music store where he could pick up some things he needed for the lesson he has been teaching on Friday night. Pick us up at 9:30, and head home. Exhausted.

Thursday- relaxing day. Drop off Josh, go to Target, Costco, and Kroger, and get home in time to get Jack a two hour nap before Josh's pick up time. Awesome. Finally feeling some of the benefits of having one kid in preschool. Pick up Josh and head home. Jack finally acting like he's feeling a little better, but I can tell Josh is on the downhill slope, but still hoping it won't hit him that bad. I get a call that I need to bring snack and drinks to the soccer game on Saturday. Except there are nut, dairy and egg allergies (?!) on his team. Start racking my brain for options. Pack picnic dinner, go pick up Chris again (since we shouldn't drive his car) and head to soccer fields for practice. Pick up a DQ treat and head home. Josh crashing hard.

Friday- Josh wakes up with a fever and I decide to keep him out from school, and make a doctors appointment. Head to the doctors. Am there a long time. Pick up Panera for lunch and head to Walmart to search for snacks to feed team impossible. Home to get the kids fed. One of my small group girls comes over an hour or so later, all the while I'm staying updated through texts and facebook about the impending arrival of my new niece or nephew. We hang out while the kids run around and I try to get dinner made, waiting for Chris to get home from teaching his lesson. We all hung out over dinner (chicken and dumplings with the kids and Chris being under the weather) and then after dessert rejoiced over the birth of our new niece, Anna Leigh Kelly. Chris was a rockstar and got the kids to bed while I hung out a little more.

Saturday- Everybody wakes up early feeling lousy. We decide to scrape together and head to Josh's first game. Josh doesn't eat any breakfast, and is obviously feeling lousy. Jack has three teeth coming in and is ridiculously cranky. It's going to be a rough day. We get to the game and our assistant coach is out. Our head coach asks Chris if he'd be willing to help out, and of course rockstar husband steps up. The game is in direct sunlight and it is bright, hot and humid. The boys start going down fast. Thankfully the game is only an hour. In the last 10 minutes of the game Josh comes off the field crying. He was done. He also didn't understand why daddy couldn't pick him up on the field. His team did win though.

We come home and pretty much crashed the rest of the day.

Sunday- We miss church because we didn't want to expose anyone else. Lounge around morning. Mid-afternoon we finally motivate ourselves to get out of the house. We decide to go look at an SUV at a dealership (since we are in need of a car). Halfway there our Camry (the reliable car) starts making a really weird noise. Chris pulls over and checks it out, and while we can't figure out what it is, we know it's not good, and decide to head home. While praying. While on the way we hatch the plan for me to jump out real quick and grab the Honda to follow him to the dealership right around the corner. As soon as I jump out of the car, there is a loud click and the motor dies. I motion to Chris asking if he did that and he replies no. Stink. Our neighbor with a truck towed us over to the mechanics.

So that is how our week ended. First week of preschool in the books, first soccer practice and game in the books, two broken cars, and a new niece, and a sick family.

I am glad this week is over.

My kids are awesome.

Seriously.

I know I realize that I am biased because they are mine, but I've seen people that don't even know them get a huge kick out of watching them.

Sure they have their faults. Who doesn't. But as a whole...they rock.

They have tons of personality. They are very expressive. They (well, Josh, Jack's not quite old enough to tell) have a passion for the Lord. They both have some of the best smiles I have ever seen. They listen, not always willingly, but eventually, they will listen. They both have sweet dispositions, and like to snuggle. They have both shown a curiosity and hunger to learn. They are hilarious, and love to make people laugh. They enjoy interacting with people and like to have fun.

I love my kids, and I think they are great.

I don't like being in situations where people don't look for the good in my kids.

Good Night.

We started off kind of rushed, but ended with a bang. Wednesdays are crazy. I have bible study in the morning, and youth at night. Chris has to leave right at 5pm (a rarity these days) to come help me feed the kids so I can get them out the door by 6pm with me. It gives him some down time, and the kids get to play with their friends. Any how, getting in the car is always a big relief.

I had a great night with the girls and the kids were in great moods, and didn't cry at all when we had to leave. They were being so good I thought I would do a fun mommy splurge, so we stopped at Krispy Kreme on the way home. We rolled down the windows and rocked out to some Lincoln Brewster. I love that Josh is thrilled with loud music and a beautiful night blowing in the windows. A boy after my heart!

We walked in the door to the song "Don't Stop Believin" by Journey blasting and Chris vacuuming. Now that's sexy. I dropped the donuts, and the kids and we all joined in singing and dancing. After about 3 more repeats and a quick sugar rush, it was off to bed for the boys.

Good times in the Kelly house.

Right now I am sitting with the sweetest baby snuggled up in my lap, and typing one handed. But it's worth it for the snuggles. He has his legs around me and is laying his head on my chest. It smells like the cinnamon oatmeal he had for breakfast. I love that Jack still loves to snuggle so much. For some reason I thought that once we hit that 1 year mark it would all be downhill.

Thankfully I was wrong. He still wants me to rock him before he goes to sleep at night, and he will still fall asleep on me. When I've been away for a little while, all he wants me to do is to hold him. It's awesome. And the reason I need to have a girl. I'm way too addicted to this whole snuggling thing, and I may be wrong, but I'm pretty sure after about the age of 5, my boys are not going to be down with the amount of snuggling their mom wants.

Josh has been cracking people up with one line, that bears explanation. There is a commercial for some oil company where a guy walks around and slaps people with the oil dipstick from a car and says "start thinking with your dipstick, jimmy." Chris thinks this commercial is hilarious, which of course means Josh does too, so he's been running around telling people to "start thinking with your wipstick jimmy". The best part is his face when he says it, he mimicks the face of the guy on the commercial, and it is hilarious! He makes kids and adults laugh with this one.

We were taking off in the airplane, and got through the clouds when Josh looked over and told us:

"I can see where God and Jesus live!"

I made ravioli tonight for dinner. We sat down, and Josh asked for some "rolyoli" (read, rolypoly without the "p").

Generally I try to encourage him to proper English, but that one was so cute, we let it slide.

Jack's favorite thing to do in the car right now is to howl like a coyote. He's really loud and he thinks it's hilarious. We'll look back to try to tell him to be more quiet (because it's seriously ear piercing) and he just cracks up when we turn around and then it's impossible for us not to laugh, and the whole process starts over.

My kids may be extremely active and somewhat mischievous, but they sure are cute. And full of personality!

We were just cleaning up dinner and Josh walked in with my small bible exclaiming: mommy, I read this whole bible!" Intrigued Chris and I asked what it said, and here is the story that proceeded:

"God and Jesus were in the world fighting and a guy came and fighted Jesus and hit and made him bleed, but he (Jesus) got up and wiped it off, and then He (Jesus) got him(the bad guy)"

Interestingly, it's not too far off.

I should have updated on this a couple of weeks ago, but I have been really busy, and I didn't want to get ahead of myself. But I think it's official that we are a pull-up (for night time) and bottle free house! Woo Hoo! It feels weird to be without the bottles in particular since those have been a part of our lives for the last four years (Josh used an empty one to fall asleep until he was 3, reason #37 why Jack was never allowed to fall asleep with bottles).

My grocery budget in particular is happy to be without the pull-ups. Those suckers are expensive. I still have a pile of coupons if anyone is interested.

Jack is walking around everywhere and gains more and more stable each day. He's learning more new words and loves to play with his big brother. I pray that they will continue to be so close as they get older.

As much as I wanted a girl with our second pregnancy, I'm very thankful God had another plan. I don't think Josh would have known what to do with a girl just yet (we are at an overwhelming peak of the gun phase) and it's so fun to see them becoming so close, something I'm not sure would have happened right away with a girl. Plus this way I get to make them share a room. Muahahaha.

I feel like other than that there isn't much substantial to update on. I'm not sure if it's a lack of funny comments, or a lack of time to write them down. Maybe a little bit of both. Josh has been in a little bit of funk attitude wise for a little while and there has been more whining than jokes. Hopefully we are over that soon.

Yesterday Josh was eating lunch and told me that he was going to eat a whole bunch so God and Jesus would get really full.

Sometimes I think he gets his stomach and his heart confused, either that or he just thinks they are all connected.

I'll argue that theology at a later date. Maybe after Anatomy class. At least he was looking out for them, I guess.

After a lack of play dates with vacations, and even a hiatus from youth (where he goes and plays with his friends in the provided childcare) Josh got his friend fix this week.

Three of his best friends are Samantha, Jeremy and Annabelle. Those four love to play together at every youth function their mommies are at. This week Josh got a play date with them (and other friends) and got to see them during a small group leader training.

Tonight he gets to see his favorite babysitter too. Which mommy and daddy are pretty excited about! I think this will be the first time since STL that we are going to go out with friends. A night out is a pretty big novelty, but to do it with company is extra special. It will be nice to communicate without having to feed someone, talk over little people, or be interrupted with necessary disciplinary actions. Oh to be a real adult again.

Jack is walking almost exclusively now. He seems a little more unstable that Josh did at first, but it's cute to watch him quite literally toddle around.

Daddy is so proud because he is already throwing balls. We've got another one with a really good arm. Daddy is going to have to start restricting the throwing, no matter how proud he is though if he wants to keep his flat screen in tact!

Not too much else to update on. Just keeping busy with all the school start up activities going on for Josh (gulp) and me with the youth. This school year is going to bring lots of changes. I hope we all adjust well!

Two sick kiddos here. Supposedly just a bad cold, but at least for Josh it is one whopper of a cold. I haven't seen anything other than the stomach flu take him down this hard before.

All he wants to do is drink VitaminWater and lay on the couch and watch Bolt.

Currently Panera's chicken noodle soup is helping to make it all better.

He's funny even when he is sick though. Jack was about to throw something on the floor (which we have been getting onto him for rather harshly since I have estimated that I spend at least one hour every day cleaning him the chair and the floor up after he eats) and I yelled at him"no" to get his attention. Apparently I scared Josh too because he looks over at me and tell me that he had the "pee scared out of me".

Speaking of Jack, I'm not sure how that little trickster has become a master of stairs without even being fully stable on his feet yet, but he has done just that. He's stealthy too. We have to keep the gate up at all times. Chris came home from work and I had just brought Jack downstairs and left the gate down. In the course of going to tell Chris "hi" Jack had already crawled over to the stairs and gotten all the way up them. I run over to find where he is to see him sitting nicely at the top of the stairs grinning at me and clapping for himself. So much for the idea of less busy mornings while Josh is in preschool.

We also got a letter yesterday informing us that Josh will be playing for the Tornadoes soccer team this fall. He's going to look so handsome running aimlessly back and forth on the field.

Now I have to go clean up the disaster in my kitchen that is the result of two sick kids eating lunch. I'd been trying to avoid it with blogging, but there is only so much a girl can say, and so much more that I've got to do.

School starts back here is less than a month. Geez. Normally that date wouldn't effect me, but this year it does. Not only do I volunteer with the high school ministry and the start date of school is correlated to the start date of small groups, but Josh starts school this year.

Mind you it is just preschool, but it's 4 days a week. That's a lot. I'm trying not to think about it because when I do it makes me want to do crazy things. And he's playing soccer. So while last year the start of school came and went without much notice, this year it will bring a busier schedule, trips to a soccer field for practice, lonelier days, and Saturday morning soccer games.

It's so funny Chris and I always talked about these days with excitement, but admittedly I'm getting a little apprehensive now that they are here. I'm sure it's mostly the intimidation of change, and I'll love the freedom and excitement of our new schedule. But like it or not, there is no more escaping the fact that Josh is growing up.

Normalcy for the most part has been restored in the Kelly household. I'm restocked on my usual grocery supply, after this afternoon the house will be completely clean (I use that phrase loosely, meaning that it will have been completely cleaned at one point, not that it still is), we are back on our typical eating and sleeping schedule and have already finished testing the boundaries.

I think it's a little crazy how it takes nearly as long as you were gone on your vacation to recover from it. Again using the term vacation loosely. If you have ever been on to youth camp you know what I mean.

Last night we had a lovely family evening. It's rare that we all have a really good night at the same time. Either Chris is stressed from work, or has something else on his mind, I'm thinking about what kind of cupcakes I'm going to make or how to explain apologetics to 15 year old girls, or one of the kids is fussing because of teeth, they are tired, or just because.

But last night the stars aligned. We had a nice dinner, of which everyone ate well, and then headed over to Dairy Queen to pick up a treat. We took it over to this area in historic Buford where train tracks run right through the historic area. On either side of it there are large areas of grass and benches. We took our treats there and the kids played in the grass, being incredibly sweet to one another while Chris and I got to hang out and talk. The boys got to see two trains go by within a couple feet of them.

We came home and Chris and the boys played with these little plastic army soldier guys (which I got in the Target $1 section, they have a bunch of great stuff for boys right now, those and foam swords). Jack joined in trying to make shooting noises which Chris coined as chemical warfare in the form of spit. Even bedtime went fairly smoothly.

These nights, however few and far between make it all worth it.

I'm home, we're home, and resuming a state of normalcy.

I'll try to do a quick summary here with more in depth posts later.

Camp was good, but for reasons other than I expected it to be, and it was a very different experience that what I had in mind.

Savannah was AMAZING! I don't know if I mentioned it or not, but since our honeymoon, Chris and I have never gone anywhere just the two of us. It was a much needed time away, and what a blessing it was!

It was great to come back home, I got quite the greeting from Josh. I don't think he stopped wanting to be close to me for the first 24 hours and even after that he will still randomly come up to me and tell me he missed me. Jack on the other hand wouldn't have anything to do with me at first. He refused to look at me and gave me a bit of an attitude like he was mad at me for leaving him. After the first couple hours though he was his normal self.

Now if I can get all the laundry finished, and the house all clean, we'll be in business.

We've had a problem recently with Josh occasionally picking his nose and then feeling then need to ingest the results. Gross I know, but necessary information for the story.

Chris had been getting onto him extra hard recently to help him try to kick the habit. After having the incident happen a couple of times today, Chris finally just asked Josh, why do you do that? To which Josh replied:

"Daddy, sometimes I just get hungry and I need to."

Our kid has an excuse for everything.


In other news, I leave Monday for camp, and then on Friday Chris is meeting me half way and we're headed to Savannah to celebrate our 5 year anniversary. Things will be silent for a little bit.

Hope everyone has a great Fourth of July!

I'm making fourth of July cupcakes today. Josh was asking why I was making red cupcakes, and I was explaining to him the holiday and why we celebrate it. I told him that not everyone gets to live in a country where they are free to worship and love God or whomever they want. He thought about it for a minute and then responded with a very sincere and concerned, "aw, that's sad". What's sad? I asked, wanting to make sure he got the concept. "That some people don't get to love God".

Yes it is.

Josh has been coming up to me randomly throughout the day to tell me:

"Mommy, your my best mommy."

I'm not sure what that means, but I like it.