Saturday, May 26, 2012

Sprinkler Fun

First Checkup

Gunnar had his first checkup this week. He weighed in at a whopping 12lbs 4oz, and was 23 inches long! That means that in 5 weeks, he gained 4lbs 2 oz, and 2 inches! He is in the 95th percentile across the board for his size. I don't know what it is about our big boys! But at least Gunnar waiting until AFTER birth to be huge, unlike another little boy I know. 

He is doing absolutely wonderfully and (obviously) is a great eater! He really is a wonderful baby and only cries if he's hungry or tired. He's such a sweetie and loves to cuddle. My other two rarely cuddle so hopefully he keeps the desire to snuggle with momma!

First Haircut

Thursday, May 24, 2012

Fun at the Aquarium

Greg had Wednesday off of work, so we all headed up to the NC Aquarium. The last time we took Hunter to one was in Arizona, and he was only 2 years old. It was so fun to take him now and see his face when he saw all the different creatures, and Kylee enjoyed it too...even if she did call everything a "dog." Gunnar enjoyed a nice nap while we enjoyed the aquarium. :)

Enjoy the pictures!










Thursday, May 17, 2012

Good Morning

He's so smiley! I love it!!

Wednesday, May 16, 2012

Tuesday, May 15, 2012

Our April Date

While I'd love to take the credit for this at-home date idea, it came from this webpage.

I asked Gregory what dessert he'd like me to make if he could choose anything. While he loves ice cream floats and simple desserts like that, he didn't mess around with choosing when he knew I'd make anything.

His answer? Strawberry shortcake.
I found this recipe that I used, and my goodness, was it delicious! The wet ingredient in the cake was heavy cream...it was destined to be good.

My choice were lemon bars, and I used this recipe. They were really good too, although I suggest sticking with the 2 lemons suggested in the recipe and not adding a third like some commenters suggested.

Anyway, we each chose our desserts and then we each picked a game to play. He chose the dice game, and unfortunately he won...

My choice of a "game" was taken from the webpage where I got the idea for the date. I printed out these questions and we went through them one by one and gave our answers. The questions were anything from "What's your favorite drink?" and "If you were president for a day, what would you do?" to "Where do you want to be in 5 years?"

It was so awesome to just sit and talk. We haven't had conversations about something other than the kids, bills, work, etc. in a long time and these questions sparked some awesome conversations for us. It would take us 20 minutes to answer one question because we'd go off subject, but that's exactly what was supposed to happen, I'm sure. :) We stayed up way too late, considering Greg still had to get up for work the next day, but we were just enjoying talking so much.

It was an absolutely wonderful date that made me fall in love with my husband all over again, and it was at home and totally free!

Sunday, May 13, 2012

Saturday, May 12, 2012

April Goal Recap and May Goals

April Goal Recap
*Have a sweet baby boy with no epidural. Success! If interested, you can read my labor story here.

May Goals
*Make a stroller canopy. Jenny found us an awesome deal on a Phil & Ted double stroller, but it's missing the sunshades and they don't make the stroller anymore so the manufacturer doesn't have a replacement sunshade. So I will be attempting to make my own...
*Make a clothespin holder.
*Schedule dental appointments for both Hunter and me, (and possibly Greg if I can twist his arm to get him to go.)
*Finish reading The New Strong Willed Child by Dr. Dobson.
*Go for at least 3 bike rides to ease back into exercise.

I know I'm way late with posting these, but better late than never, right?

Thursday, May 10, 2012

Wednesday, May 9, 2012

Soccer

Our church here in New Bern participates in Upward Soccer, so Hunter has started his first soccer season of his lifelong soccer career (if his father has anything to say about it.)

He absolutely LOVES playing! Here's a picture of him at his first game.


And here's an action shot of him playing.
He says he likes it because he just tries to get the ball from the other team. And this past Saturday, he scored his first goal!!! I was so proud of him. Unfortunately, I didn't get a video of it, but I'll try this Saturday when Greg is there to help with the other kids.

Friday, May 4, 2012

8 Years

Today marks 8 years of Greg and I being together. I can't believe it's been 8 years!

For those of you who don't know, Greg and I met at his brother's and my sister's wedding. Well, while they were dating, the four of us had gone bowling together. I guess that's really where we FIRST met. (Sterling Lanes will always hold a special place in my heart.) We flirted (or I did, at least) at the bowling alley, but I was 16 and he was 25.

The next time we saw each other was at the wedding weekend. I remember setting up the fellowship hall at the church for the reception the day before, and seeing him walk in. He was wearing an orange Abercrombie & Fitch shirt, with a leather jacket over top that had spikes coming out of the shoulders. My first thought was, "that's quite the combination!"

He pretty much teased me the whole evening. He stood up as the best man and I was the maid of honor, so we walked down together. He told me he was going to keep his eyes closed so he didn't have to look at me. Quite the charmer, huh?

The next day, we just kept flirting with each other. I remember coming out of the bathroom, all dolled up for the wedding, and he looked and me and said, "You look beautiful." He was the first man (aside from my father) to ever tell me that. I basically got weak in the knees. And boy, did he look handsome in his dress blues! Here's the very first picture ever taken of us. Doesn't he look thrilled to be standing next to me?

We flirted the whole evening. I kept asking him throughout the night how old he was...I knew he was the oldest of all the siblings, but I didn't know his age. He kept giving me sarcastic answers.

Since there was no dancing for the reception at the church, we all went to a nice restaurant afterwards that had a dance floor. During a slow song, Gregory grabbed me by the hand and pulled me to the dance floor. I never had such butterflies in my stomach as I did at that moment! We talked as we danced, and he said he never thought he'd get married. He said he would be the grumpy old man who sat on his porch and yelled at kids to get off his lawn. I remember thinking that I hoped he'd find someone, since even with the little that I knew of him, he seemed like such a wonderful man.

We continued to talk throughout the evening, but I knew that he was only visiting from North Carolina, where he was stationed in the Marine Corps. I decided to give him my number "in case he ever wanted to talk." He gave me his too, though I knew I'd never have the guts to call him.

Two days later, he returned to North Carolina. And four days later, I got a phone call from him. I couldn't answer it when it rang, so he just left a message. I was so nervous to talk to him on the phone that I intentionally called back when I knew he was at work, haha. Eventually though, we did get a hold of each other. Our first phone conversation was over 3 hours long, and was only cut short because we both had to work. We talked every single day from that point on. If I wasn't in school, or we weren't working or sleeping, we were probably on the phone.

Then one day, about a month later, a guy at school asked me out on a date, and my response was, "I don't know." Greg and I hadn't talked about what our intentions were, but I didn't like the idea of going on a date with someone else. I came home from school and told Greg what had happened. He said he couldn't tell me not to, yet it seemed like it bothered him. The next day at school, I told the guy "no" and then told Gregory that I did. It was then that we had the conversation about where we were headed. We decided to make it "official" (even though Gregory laughs at me when I use that phrase.)

That day we had that conversation was May 4, 2004. We dated long distance for a year and a half, and for 6 months of that, he was deployed to the Middle East. Because we only saw each other for 6 long weekend trips before our wedding, we don't have very many pictures of us dating. Here's a few I managed to collect though. Please forgive the quality of some of them since it's a picture of a picture.

This was the first picture taken of us as a couple. We were so young!



Fun in the mud

Our first Marine Corps Ball together

About a year and a half later, we got married, and this is what our ceremony programs looked like, inspired by that first dance:
click on the picture for a bigger view

It's been 8 years since that phone conversation. We've lived in 5 different states (and one of them twice!), 7 different houses, and had 3 beautiful babies amidst the craziness. But it's been the craziest and happiest 8 years of my life.

I love you Gregory Wehrman. I wouldn't change a thing.

12 Months of Dates

 This blog post is way late, but better late than never!

For Christmas, I gave Gregory a homemade gift. We hardly ever go out on dates. We average no more than 3 per year, seriously. Finances is usually the reason, so I decided to make a list of dates that were either free or really cheap. Since we have awesome friends, we can always find a free babysitter.

I presented it in a fun way for him, because I'm corny.

Here was the outer envelope:
Inside were 12 envelopes, each labeled with a month of the year. He opens the new envelope on the first of every month to see what our date is.

Some are at-home dates, and some require going somewhere.

Here was March's date:
This month we're off to Emerald Isle
For mini golf to make you smile.
Afterward, we'll have ice cream
Where you can cry because you got creamed. 

Here's a picture of us enjoying our date. It was so much fun! And I had the higher score, so I totally won.

We'll be doing our April at-home date tonight (a little late because of having a baby.) I'll blog the details later. :)

Clothesline

I've wanted a clothesline since I've been cloth diapering and I finally got one (thanks to an awesome friend!) Yay! I love hanging my diapers out to dry, and I especially love not having to run my dryer on high heat for an hour when it's 90 degrees outside! In addition to saving on energy, the sun also naturally bleaches the dipes AND kills germs!

Wednesday, May 2, 2012