Sweet Friends

It's taken me awhile but I wanted to post these special photos of my dear friend Heather's visit recently. We don't get to see her and her family often since they live in Boston. It was so great to get to see them with the Spencers and the Koulouris family and get all of our boys together.

 So fun watching the boys enjoy their cupcakes!

 And a little over a month later...Anna Elizabeth Koulouris has joined the crew! Here's my beautiful mommy holding her on her birthday.

                             And her beautiful mommy.We're all so excited to have a girl!!

Our new "pet"

About a week before Haley died, I was thinking about how a year after we had to give her away, Embry joined our family. We are all just so enthralled by him. He truly is like a new pet to us. The older boys adore him and laugh at every move he makes. Every time I get the camera out, he looks at me and grins. He makes us all smile!!!

 

 Ashton and Collin love to hold Embry first thing in the morning on my days off.

Here they are piling all Embry's toys on him.

                                               He never seems to mind what they do

I found them like this one day.

 Here's out little guy yesterday. You can see he's on all 4s just rocking! He'll be crawling any day now. Below is Collin one day when Ashton put a sticker on his diaper. I had to throw this in.

And last is a pic of 2 new family members...the goldfish Thomas and Diesel. Ashton brought them home from school on Wednesday. By Thursday, Thomas had "left us" but the boys didn't even realize it. Daddy took them to a pond where they are much happier!

Haley

 Today I got a call that our sweet sweet Haley had passed away. I'll write more later but here is my photo tribute to her. She will always have a giant place in our hearts. Our lives were so touched by you sweet girl...

Haley loved keeping me company while I was pregnant. I think she just sensed it!

Fourth of July 2009. This was our daily path by our condo on Haley's walks.

This was at the park on our last day with Haley. Collin was about 9 mos old. He was just starting to pull Haley's hair but she was always so patient with the boys. We loved taking her here. Wes and I used to hike all the time at Henderson Park with her. once the boys came, she was content to hang at the playground with us

Our last family photo with Haley. I can't believe I was smiling. Wes and I both cried most of the day.

This was Ashton about 9-10 mos old. Haley was truly his buddy. They would sit side by side all the time either at "Haley's window" in our condo (as Ashton named it) or on our back porch.

This was Collin's first walk with us. He's probably about a week old or younger.

Beach trip before Collin was born. Haley and Ashton shared crackers on the beach the whole time. He loved feeding her!

Ashton's first trip to the beach 2009. I think Haley went with us on about 4 beach trips.

Christmas 2010. She was so sweet even when the train tracks were beginning to take over our condo. She just dealt with it.

Loving the snow although she was so dainty and did not like wet paws. In fact, my mother-in-law found her some boots for the rain but she didn't like them.

Lay anything soft on the floor and she thought it was hers to nap on!

Driving home from Augusta one night when Ashton was a baby

6 months!

As promised but a week later, I'll post some recent photos.

 This is Embry's 6 month birthday. I wanted to continue the tradition of all 3 boys getting to swing at a park for the first time when they turned 6 months. He seemed to like it!

                                         Here's Collin's first swing at 6 months in January 2011.

                                                  And Ashton in February 2009.



 Before the park visit, we had been to a York family reunion and the boys had a good time in the country visitng Royston and Wes' dad's childhood home.

 This is Ellen who was the flower girl in our wedding almost TEN years ago!!! Now she's holding our third born. How sweet is that!!

 Ellen's siblings, Mary and John who were so sweet with our boys and played with them. CHeck out this awesome wooden swing hanging from a trree.

 Wes' uncle also has a golf cart which my boys adored! They wanted to ride it the entire time.

 This is a random picture from finger painting last week as a reward becuase both boys stayed in their own beds all night without waking up (which seems to be a big deal lately around here). Unfortunately rewards are now expected all the time to do that. They seem to settle for "tattoons" as Ashton calls them. One day I bought them halloween placemats as a reward. The other night Ashton said, "is my treat going to be a toy or food...or another placemat?" too bad. I thought it was an awesome reward.

I love the photo because it shows their personalites so well even though they are also 2 years apart. Ashton was carefully painting the giant train and car stamps in a neat row and Collin was just banging the car over and over on the paper. I will say neither one really loved having the paint all over their hands even after I showed them how to really use their fingers to paint.

 This photo of course shows Embry sitting up which he can do now for a few seconds. Ashton loves watching him sit and then fall to the side.

 He is also loving his exersaucer at 6 months. All 3 boys adored this. I remember Wes groaning when I registered for it saying it was sensory overload.It is but has the most toys of any I could find and they love it!

 look at this adorable grin of his. I just love it!

And for fun, here's Ashton about the same age in it.

 

                                                  Notice carefully playing with the toys

                  And I've always Loved this photo of Collin playing in it at 6 months!