Happy Birthday!

Happy Happy Birthday to my wonderful husband!!!

I am so proud to have this amazing man in my life, and so very thankful that our boys get to have him as their Daddy! Justin, you are an incredible person, and I love you more than you'll ever know!  

The boys ADORE you, and like I say to you so often, they just don't realize how lucky they are (yet) to have you as their Daddy! You truly are their SuperDad!

I hope you feel very special and loved today!  You are the best thing that ever happened to me, and I'm so blessed to be your wife!

Happy Birthday, Babe!

PS--Glad the world isn't really ending today!  We have many many more years of birthdays to celebrate! ;-)

Since we've been home...

(I finally posted pictures from our cruise earlier tonight.  Click here if you missed that post!)

We have been busy doing not too much of anything around the house!  It has sure been nice to be home, getting back into our routine, and getting our shopping done for the holidays! 

This little girl sure missed us and seems to be happy we are all back together!

The boys have SO much fun playing with their Daddy! This was them on a space adventure last week... they were in their space helmet going to the moon! 

Just makes my heart melt to watch them play!

He definitely gets his workout when he comes home!

Their new favorite--Daddy Horsey! 

Cuddles with Jack

Happy Will

 The boys got these adorable train overalls from Mammaw and Pappaw at Thanksgiving (that post is coming soon!) and they love wearing them!  They call them their Choo-Choo pants!

The other day the boys wanted their glasses as we were leaving, and they wore them all the way to Bible study!  Don't they look studious?!

They LOVE to play in the leaves--that have finally all pretty much blown off the trees and into our garage!! We played in this pile for quite a long time!

Couldn't resist posting a picture of my Big Elf from our lifegroup Christmas party on Saturday. I put the bow on his head, and of course, he made a silly face! Don't kill me for posting this one, Babe! =)

And last but not least... we are starting to experiment with and get to know our potty chairs. They got them for their birthday in September, and were nowhere near ready for potty training yet (or maybe it is just that Mommy isn't). Lately though, they come into the bathroom with me every.single.time I have to go.  And just this week, Jack decided he needed to sit on my lap as well. He says, "Mommy potty, Jackie potty."  So even though our downstairs half bath is pretty small, I thought it was time to let them practice sitting on their own potties--fully clothed for "practice". 

Good thing we are practicing too, because we have a lot of rules that need to be established before "for real" potty time.  I hear myself saying these things quite frequently: 

"We don't put our ______ (hands, feet, face, etc) in the potty!"

"We don't touch the water in the potty!"

"Toys do NOT go in the toilet."

And so on...

 But who can resist these adorable faces?

Jack

William

My babies are just growing up WAY TOO FAST! 

Our Siesta Cruise

I think my motivation to blog has still been on vacation... it is the 10th day since we've been home, and I'm finally making myself get this blog done!! Sheesh!

This was, hands down, the most relaxing week of our whole entire marriage. Seriously.  We didn't think we were really that exhausted, but we literally took a nap every.single.day. (And some days 2 or 3 naps! Crazy!!) What a perfect vacation!!

Get ready for a LOT of pictures--I'll try to make the explanations brief, but I definitely want to remember the details!

We spent the night in Galveston the night before our cruise

View out our hotel window 

Breakfast in bed... can you say VACATION?!

Right on the water!

Peek-a-boo!  Can you find our cruise ship? =)

Day One--Monday (check in--exploring the ship--eating!)

In line to check in...can you tell we're excited?!

First up-close view of the GIANT ship!

On our balcony, ready to go!

Our room was huge--in terms of a ship!

A few photo ops before we cast off from Galveston

Isn't he handsome?

And for a little scale!

Some tugs...

And something a little bit bigger! =)

And a few John Deeres waiting to be shipped out!

We didn't know that we ran an onboard spa!

So Justin tried it out.  We tried to get a discount because of our name, but it didn't work! 

The view from the deck as the sun was setting--so pretty!

Our first dinner on board--Holy Cow there was a lot of food!

Lots of oil rigs as we sailed out into the gulf

And gorgeous clouds and sunsets!

Pool/waterslide area

Center of the ship--11th floor looking down!

And looking up!

Day Two--Tuesday (At Sea--we seriously ate and slept almost ALL day! Who knew that we could take 3 naps in the same day?!)

We did play one game of Bingo, and this was one of my two pina coladas during the week.  Sadly, we didn't win any big bucks! No bingos for us!

Justin enjoying our deck--we had our balcony door open most of the cruise. I think the sound of the waves is what made us so sleepy!!

Dinner--night 2. We shared a table with 3 other couples and had so much fun!

Comedy show after dinner!

Day Three--Wednesday (In port: Progresso, Mexico--Mayan Ruins)

The ship was SO big!!

These ruins were called the Dzibilchaltun (zee-bul-chal-toon), and we spent about 3 hours exploring them!

This was Shibata, our Mayan guide, who gave us the truth about the Mayan calendar. Phew--the world ISN'T going to end on Justin's birthday this Friday! =)

There was a cenote (sin-oh-tay)--a sinkhole pool-- that we could swim in after exploring the ruins.

We didn't swim, but stuck our feet in for a bit. There were tons of little fish that 'kissed' our feet--tickled! 

Justin takes such pretty shots--angles that I never think of!

Justin striking a pose 

The temple--fun day exploring these, but we were tired after getting back on the boat.  So what did we do?  Nap of, course!!

Day Four--Thursday (In Port-Cozumel: America's Cup Sailing race)

I just thought this map of our route was neat!

Our excursion we signed up for in Cozumel was getting to be part of the crew of an America's Cup Sailing ship race!  We were on the True North, a former racing ship from the 80s. 

After arriving on the ship, we got our assignments. Justin and I were the primary grinders--in charge of the front sail as we made turns.  I know there are technical terms for what we actually did, but I can't remember any of them! After a few minutes of practice, we raced the Stars & Stripes, another sailboat with another crew made up of cruisers.  

And we won!!!!  Here we are in our position (see the grinder handles in front of us?) with our crew.

Captain Steve with us--we are professional sailers now! Yeah right!! ;-)

What a FABULOUS time we had!  We would so do this again, and were so happy that we chose to spend most of our day in Cozumel learning to sail!

We were sitting in a little restaurant at the port after we sailed--looking out at our ship docked in the beautiful, crystal clear water!

While we were in port in Cozumel, we counted 7 huge cruise ships  also docked! Here are just 4 of them!

Day Five--Friday (At Sea-heading towards home-and More Naps!!! =)

A cool view as we got going again--headed back towards Galveston. 

On our way back home, the sea was glassy and just beautiful! It was sure a lot choppier going toward Mexico that is was on our way home!

Can you say relaxed?!  This is heaven!

And a few more things that I had to include:

So I checked ahead of time and both the ship and our hotel in Galveston said they had hairdryers... Well, this was the ship hairdryer...

Let's just say that I was super thankful for our balcony and the great breezes out on the water--my hair definitely wouldn't have gotten dry with this "hairdryer" only! =)

Each night while we were at dinner, our steward came in, turned down our sheets, left us the next days schedule, chocolates, and these adorable towel animals!  I just had to get pictures of them each night!

Seal

Pig

Rabbit

Elephant

Sting Ray--aren't they adorable?!

Last Day--Saturday (Galveston-Home!)
We docked early Saturday morning, and once we got off the boat and shuttled back to our car, we headed north toward home.  We were definitely sad that our vacation was over, but were ready to see our boys!  The good thing about taking a trip away from your 2 year olds is that they really didn't realize we were gone. Our incredible parents did an amazing job taking care of them, entertaining them, and spoiling them like crazy!  We didn't worry at all about our kiddos while we were gone, and that gift from our parents sure made this an amazing get-away for us!  But there is nothing at all like walking in to see these faces:

And once we gave them their souvenirs (miniature blue and green maracas), Mommy and Daddy (and obviously Jack's pants) were forgotten again! Hah!

What a perfect trip this was!  I'm so glad we chose to get away--truly away--to celebrate our 10th anniversary.  I feel like we both got to fully disconnect with every aspect of our normal life, and just enjoy each other! A cruise is sure a fun, easy, and pretty inexpensive way to have a great vacation!!  Happy 10th anniversary Justin!!  I hope we get many many more trips--just us again--in the future! Let's start planning now! ;-)