Trip To Paradise - Turks and Caicos 2011

My family
The ENTIRE GROUP

My boys

Chad's family

Dawson's favorite part of the trip was all of the sesame street characters walking around

(poor people in those hot costumes)

Chad and Jett enjoying the ocean

Me totally relaxing while Lisa took care of my kids :)

This year over Thanksgiving we went to Turks and Caicos and stayed in Beaches resort to celelbrate Ivard and JaNeen's (Chad's Granparents) 50th anniversary and enjoy a Budge family reunion. IT WAS AMAZING! I would imagine that place is pretty much exactly what heaven is like... I WOULD TOTALLY GO BACK TOMORROW! When I am totally rich, I plan to move there (ACTUALLY LIVE IN THE RESORT) and lay on the beach, float in the water, swim with the fish, have all meals prepared for me, have someone clean my room daily and do my laundry, check my kids in whenever they are driving me crazy and have no responsibilities whatsoever. SERIOUSLY what a life! Anyway, in all seriousness, there is just something special about the Budge family. I TOTALLY enjoy every single person and appreciate everyone for completely different reasons. What a neat group! ANYWAY, some day I would like to return and relax on the beautiful beach and be pampered.

The Rumors Are True...

We are buying a home!! We are very excited to have a space to call our own. I NEVER realized the amount of time and paperwork that actually goes into this process. We are set to close on August 19th but things have been going so quickly. I am hoping that will be moved up a bit so that we have more time and cancan slowly move everything without the stress of getting everything out of one house and into the next within the same day.

We LOVE Summer!!

We have loved the summer this year so far! We enjoy the pool that we have here at our complex just about every day. My boys love running around with little or no clothes in the sun. I get Dawson ready and he wants to take his clothes off after about 5 minutes. My boys are really starting to enjoy their time with one another. The FUN time is almost ALWAYS ruined by a jealous act and ends in tears and time out. I LOVE these little stinkers so much!!

Dawson's Pre-School Interview

Today we had "the interview" the dreaded "I hope my child behaves perfectly with each given scenario and responds appropriately to every question asked" situation. Well... I guess as can be expected Dawson was a little shy at first which I was a little annoyed by BUT okay with. Almost too quickly though, he became comfortable and began to show off in a not-so-awesome way. He was so crazy. Here I am trying to prove to Ms. Michelle that my child is ready, 1 year early, to attend pre-school and NOW he has reverted back to throwing crayons, running in circles and talking in baby babble. Luckily, there were a few moments where he showed his potential namely the moment where she asked him what he had drawn for her and he explained that his spirally crayon mess was "a house with daddy standing next to it" AND when she handed him a book and he instantly began to identify each object, carefully turning each page one at a time explaining in detail what was happening on each page. At the moment when I thought yeah this is starting to go well... he jumps down from his chair running in circles. Honestly, I kept thinking to myself "she has got to be more impressed with sweet little one year old Jett who was behaving (in my opinion) charmingly". URG! Dawson, what a stinker... I think she could tell that I was a bit frustrated by the situation because she kept assuring me that it always ends up working out and the children usually do better when their parents are gone. When we arrived home after the interview I found myself feeling upset and overwhelmed by frustration with the situation that had just occurred. AND THEN... I was reminded that he is STILL only 2 and that I was possibly expecting too much out of him. The thing about it is... that he has moments where he SO MUCH impresses me with how he behaves, what he says and the things that he somehow knows, that I forget that he is still just a toddler.