Felicity's Flashback Friday

I was cleaning out pictures on my old iBook (first generation!) and I found a few gems that I thought some of ya'll might enjoy...

my senior picture

Summer after senior year. I worked as a camp counselor at a sleep away camp in NH with my sisters Charity (pictured) and Tamar. This, friends, is what I look like without make up . Frightening I know.

Working at Baskin Robbins w/my best friend Theresa sometime during our Soph/JR years in college. You will notice that we coordinated our socks.

Sophomore year cheer team.
Senior year cheer- posing w/my roommate who was on the danceteam Our uniforms greatly improved each year. The highlight of this uniform was "Otters" which was embroidered across the back of our "spankies". I think that's how I hook & reeled Nathaniel.

Picking out/being fitted for my wedding dress!
And last, but not least... our engagement picture.

There ya go.. a totally random assortment of pictures for you! I have some fun ones of William that I'll be sure to get up soon.

Baby Talk

Last week I managed to get some footage of William saying some of his words and animal sounds without him attacking the camera. Unfortunately, there is still a lot more of me talking than him and it's kinda long... but I'm happy that I got so many on one clip anyway!

are you lookin' at my belly?

Belly Lookers.

So today at Target I was walking along looking for a new crockpot (yay!) and quite obviously talking on the phone when this woman interrupts me to ask me how old my son is and then asked me when I was due. The genius worked up the math real quick and the look on her face was entertaining, but not enough for me to bother with anymore distraction from my phone call. What's the deal, lady?! I'm on the phone. Maybe I should just wear a shirt that says:

"Yes, my kids will be 18 months, almost to the day, apart. No, this was not an 'accident'. Yes, I know I will 'have my hands full'." :)

I'm absolutely adoring having my little (ha! by 15 months!) sister in Baltimore for her first year of residency. Yesterday William and I took advantage of the gorgeous weather and Charity's rare day off and went to hit up the inner harbor. Lucky for us it turned out that there was some anime/comic book convention going on so there were more sights than boats in the harbor! I tried my best to be tactful though and didn't take any pictures of the many sailor moons, spider men, and numerous other creatures parading through the city. Charity did her best to be tactful while still taking a picture by pretending to text message. She captured a picture (not appropriate for the web, I promise) of a woman wearing only her strapless bra and underwear with cotton balls stuck all over it. *shudder* I'm not sure I want to see the movie with the character she was dressed as.

In ANY CASE... we finally got that belly picture all ya'll have been asking about. Looks about as big as I feel, but when I look at myself I don't see my belly as that big! haha. Oh well! just over 7 more weeks, friends....7 more weeks.
A few weeks ago we finally bought a jogging stroller. Coincidence or not... about the time in my pregnancy that I start to get mentally distraught/frustrated over my freakishly expanding frame and figure, my ever-active darling husband gets on a "get fit" kick. In his defense soccer season is starting up and he wants to be 18 again on the field... so he's doing his best to feel there. Anyway... so here we finally got our jogging stroller. I totally love it and wish we'd gotten it sooner. It is so terrific over bumps and doesn't catch like my adored maclaren does. William is probably the stroller's greatest fan though. If he sees it, he simply MUST get in it and hang onto the steering wheel. Here is W lounging on his tour through Baltimore (dressed the part in his oriels shirt) while suckin' on a dumdum.

View of the harbor boat. Wish I could say I took this with my fancy Rebel, but these were all taken with my nikon point & shoot. Pretty impressive, no?

Last weekend we went to a zoo (pregnancy memory at work here...) with the Mitchells! It was so much fun to get together with them again. We've been really missing all of our friends who have moved away!!!

Can I just say that me squeezing into that log was more challenging then it really should have been...

About 15 minutes after we got there it started to RAIN. We figured that we'd already paid and none of the kids were crying so we'd stick it out until they did (good parenting, right?)! William and Max are such fun pals. They both loved these deer. In the picture you can kind of see a pose from Williams "I'm very excited and/or sleep deprived" dance.

So sweet! W wouldn't hold anyone's hand but Max's and he kept looking for Max when he would run ahead.

Sorry fella. Not sure that this camo outfit is working so well for you.

I know.. totally random picture. But this is William with his "nigh-nigh". I love how attached he's gotten to it and that he has a name for it. Granted that multiple words in his vocab have many meanings... like every animal on earth is a "dog"....but still.

William's growing like a weed and sleeping like a champ (12 hours straight at night 90% of the time). He (and Mommy) are finally adjusting to just one nap a day. This week he's learned how to sign "thank you/merci", how to blow a kiss, and how to fold his arms for a prayer. I love it! I'll have to try to get some footage of him using his words. He's growing up so fast! I'm not sure how he's going to enjoy sharing his time with a brother... but I AM sure that once baby brother is a bit active and mobile he'll be ever so happy to have him there...most of the time.

Playing with the camera!

We had a pretty good weekend! Just busy... but don't ask me what I did. That whole pregnant=forgetful thing is 100% true for me. I lost my watch this week and then found it after I washed the whites... IN the washer. Honestly. I feel like my brain is slipping away the closer I get to the due date. Oh well! Other than that I feel great, just big! I swear I'll get a belly picture up soon.
I've been trying to find moments when William is distracted so I can take his picture without him trying to attack the camera. Here are some of my favorites. Though I still generally have no clue what I am doing, I'm having fun.

This picture looked good on the little screen... but if you'll notice, his left elbow and arm are in focus while his head is blurry! Oh well. He's my sweet piano loving child. He doesn't even (always) just sit and BANG. He likes to pick out notes to try to copy Mommy. He's been very into copying lately... My favorite was trying to copy Daddy putting pomade in his hair.
To kill time in evenings and to beat the heat (and water the lawn... look how multi-tasking we are!) I turn on the hose and let William have at it. He thinks it's hysterical when the water hits him in the face and especially when it hits Mommy in the face.
Pointing at the camera.
Looking at the airplane.My attempts at being artistic... I just set the camera to the automatic macro feature for this one. It's off-centered... but in my defense I was dodging a toddler with a hose.

In the summer time when the weather is hot...

On Wednesday morning William and I arrived back home completing our 2 week trip to Utah/California. It was fabulous to visit friends and family but the actual traveling and 2/3-hour time change was rough.
William is growing up so fast and learning new things every minute. His vocabulary is impressive (to his parents, at least), including "bbbboo" (shoe), "wada" (water), "ni-ni" (used to say 'goodnight' and for his blanket)... those are just some of my favorites.
Alright.. so the good stuff. Here pictures from our trip:

Seeking relief from that last nasty 12-month molar that's cutting.

William LOVES shoes. These slippers are too small and the jacket is obviously huge but he insisted on wearing them both.
A bit before we took off on our vacation we had our last dinner with some of our favorite people, the Johnsons. They've just moved from the area and I can't tell you how sad I am or how much William will miss his best friend William.
Hanging out on Grandma's front porch. I know my head is cut off, but it was too cute of W to skip over.
My sister's dog, Timber, all decked out to watch the 4th of July parade. Probably the best dog I've ever met.
Watching the parade with Grandma (who has bribed him with a dumdum that is hidden in his fists).

I love this picture! W had so much fun playing in the kid toys at Grandma Julie's house.
Grandpa Ralph getting involved in the 4th festivities. What you can't see are his awesome argyle socks!
Nathaniel is such a great activity leader. He headed up a group of family to hike up to Timpanogos Cave. (There's a little belly shot of me. I promise we'll get a 'good' one soon.)
The "heart" of Timpanogos cave.

Hancock family minus Jared & co.
My nephew monster... I mean Preston. You can't help but love him.
Aren't we sweet?
Trevor & Natalie had us over to their house for dinner and I mentioned that I'd never seen N chop veggies. He had me take this picture so now I've seen it and so have all of you.

After our trip to Utah N flew back home for work (noble man!) and W and I took off to Cali for some more fun. This is a sweet picture of Poppy (my dad) and W up in the redwoods at my dads' house.
This picture of W playing in a little stream was taken moments before he decided to climb IN the stream to try to get into the little pond. yuck!

W's favorite toy. What a big helper!

And... now we're home. I'm trying like crazy to get W back onto east coast time, but I tell ya what. It's a challenge. I hear him chatting in his crib right now. Gotta go!

Family Adventures

Well- it's a bit refreshing to know that our adventures didn't run out when we left Europe. This past Wednesday evening we packed up the car and took off en route for the outer banks of North Carolina. Here are some pictures (a bit out of order.. but oh well) of our trip as taken with my killer new camera! Please note that basically all I can do with the blessed thing right now is point and shoot. Our relationship (mine and the camera) is a work in progress.

The freedom of being 14 months old. Of course... we did end up with a poop on the beach, but what's an adventure with a toddler without a poop story?

Nathaniel and I may be biased, but we sure think he's the most gorgeous child ever.

A little back note: Abby (pictured above) is Nathaniel's youngest sister who has come to brave the month of June with us. On Saturday morning Nathaniel spoiled us with an aerial tour of the island and area where we were staying! We were nervous when we climbed into the tiny 4-seater plane, but it was amazing how secure and safe we felt throughout the entire flight. Here are some of my favorite shots from the air.

See our shadow? We also saw a little group of sting rays and jelly fish but weren't able to get pictures of them.
Cape Lookout lighthouse. Later that day we returned by ferry to the lighthouse and basked in the sun for 4 hours! (I'll put up pictures of that later). William is the only one who didn't get a sunburn.


On our way down to the OBX we stopped at a little children's museum. William was WELL past naptime, but was still a champ for pictures. What a poser.
Okay... fed up a bit with being a model.

On Friday we went to the Aquarium. It's apparently the biggest in NC, but compared the the Monterey Bay aquarium... it was lacking. Here is W pointing out the fish to his daddy.
Love it!

We're back!

Hi friends. It's been a while. We had some technical difficulties for a while there. I'm not sure what we'd do without our ever talented and generous friends the Mitchels!

Looking back through the pictures from the month it's amazing to see how busy we've been. It all goes by so quickly!

I'd forgotten how long William's hair had been! This picture was taken shortly after he took a tumble down the entire flight of stairs. Tough little monster. He actually barely cried. I think it might have freaked out me and Nathaniel more than him!

Sporting some new converse!

William's best friend, William, came over to play while his sister made her grand entrance. The two boys are so fun to watch when they're together!

Like his parents, William has taken to fudgesicles. Don't worry. They're Healthy Choice.

Prepping for summer W got some new swim duds and a frog pool for the back yard. It's a hit.

Thank goodness for Aunt Charity, who helped save mommy's sanity while Daddy was out of town for a bit.
Okay... look close. William carefully hunted and captured this caterpillar. He proudly showed me his prize with his fingers pinched tightly on the poor caterpillar's middle. I was so grossed out, but had run to get the camera. W had lost interest in his now non-mobile pet and had dropped it by the time I came back. Boys.


Another boy toy. Charity, William and I up and drove down to Southern Virginia on a quick day trip to visit my brother who was there before he took off on a submarine! This fun race car simulator was outside the Commissary.

My bro took us on a tour of the submarine! Oh my gosh. It's soooo cramped. This picture doesn't even do his "bed" justice on how itty bitty his living space is.

W was pretty terrified while we were in there. He had an iron grip on my shoulder most of the time. Towards the end of the little tour he started reaching for various knobs and valves in the hallways. Time for the end of the tour!

"Hmm. What's a 'lemon'?"
"Yuck! I think I'll stick with fudgesicles!" -see below
That's my boy! Yes! So... in order to clean up his sticky hands, I decided to fill up the frog pool...
which quickly became a whole body affair. So. Off came the soggy clothes...
Voila! Shoes were left on to protect from the stinkin' gravel "patio" which is now GONE.

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In more news! To the devoted (and possibly just bored) viewers... Today we found out that William is not only going to be a big brother, but he is going to be a big brother to a LITTLE BROTHER. We're so excited!
Profile shot of our very handsome second son.