Summer happenings

Oh my! So much has happened this summer already and I'm so behind on posting. I'm posting a few pictures to catch you up on Callan and our summer so far. Let's see...I left off with Mother's Day. I guess the next thing to happen was Father's Day. I got Will tickets to Yankee Stadium in New York to watch the Yankees and the Red Sox play this summer. This is the last year for that stadium to be open and I knew it was on his "list of stadiums to see before he dies". He was pretty shocked. He actually found out even before Mother's Day because the guy I bought them from on Ebay left me positive feedback and it showed where I had bought the tickets. He came running in the living room thinking someone had stolen our identity and bought the tickets with our money but it was me. It was a little more than I would have normally spent for a holiday considering we are going to have to buy plane tickets and a hotel, etc. but I wanted him to know how special he is to me and Callan. He was so good to me during my pregnancy and delivery that I wanted to do something special for him. He is an amazing father and I love to watch him with his baby girl. Those are some of the most precious moments. Anyway, we can't wait to go on our first trip together with Callan.

Callan has just turned 3 months old which is unbelievable to me. She is doing so good. We feel so blessed to have such a good, calm baby. She sleeps through the night now and has been for several weeks. She sometimes sleeps almost 12 hours. It's amazing. I pray that if we ever have another, it will be this good. She is more alert and interactive now. She is awake more often and smiling lots. We both heard her laugh for the first time the other day. That was a fun moment. It is amazing how you can get nothing accomplished during the day but not even care because you spent it just talking and playing with your kids.

We got to see Todd & Betsy while they were home and introduce the girls. The boys played golf one day and the girls (me, Callan, Betsy, Gabrielle, Joan, Christy, Sienna, Ellie, Holly, Alex & Lilly) all had lunch at Robert Trent Jones while they played. We found out that Todd & Betsy are having another baby this December!!! So exciting! Gabrielle is unbelievably adorable by the way!

Amy and the kids came for almost 3 weeks and just left Thursday. It was a tearful goodbye as we said bye to all of them and baby Carley. Carley is due to arrive September 18th and I finally understand what it is like to have someone very close to you have a baby very far away from you. Amy just experienced that with us and I guess she is paying us back by being in Florida. While she was here, I had a surprise baby shower for her. It was so much fun! I have had to keep lots of secrets in the last few months and I'm so glad they're over. I told Amy that we were going to eat lunch at Ricatoni's and she should come pick me, my mom, and Callan up but when she got here almost 30 of her close friends and family were here to help her celebrate. It was exciting. She got lots of fun things.

We also celebrated my neice, Faith's, 1st birthday a week ago at Shannon and Shannon's new house. She is an absolute doll! She is walking pretty good now and always smiling. It is always fun to be around her, her older sister, Alexis, and Shannon and Shannon. We played a little guitar hero after the party and celebrated father's day with my dad and his wife. We always have fun together.

The last celebration was Jo Anne's birthday. Her actual birthday isn't until July the 4th, but we celebrated this past Thursday because it was Amy's last day here. We grilled steak kabobs and made a carrot cake (Jo's favorite) and presented her with the last surprise of the summer. Amy had an idea of doing a scrapbook for Jo since it was her 60th birthday. We got in touch with a lot of family and friends and asked them to do a scrapbook page for a book that we were putting together. Some were funny, some were sweet, all were memorable. There were lots of old pictures of big hair and extremely big glasses, but it was so much fun to collect them all and look at everyone's different memories of Jo Anne. We bought one book and 2 refill pages with totaled 40 pages. We ended up with 90 pages and 3 books. We decided that was a testament to Jo Anne's friendship and kind heart. We worked on it several different times while Amy was here but we had a hard time getting away from Jo Anne so Amy finally called Ken and made him ask her to come in to work one day so that we could finish it. It turned out great and I'm pretty sure she loved it. I'm so glad I don't have to secretly hide scrapbook pages that I get at church anymore!

Let's see...we added 2 more new babies to our SonSeekers class. Ava Claire and Luke Judson were born within 5 days of each other. We visited both at the hospital and they are precious. Callan is so glad that she has another girl friend at church now. We are going to have to have a few more girls to match the boys born this year.

I guess that is a good long list of what has been going on in the last month or so since I posted. We are hopefully going to take it easy now that the secrets are over and Will's softball season has ended. Hopefully now we can just enjoy our time as a family!