Salvation and Sobriety

Congratulations to Ray, on over 4 weeks of being sober and being saved! Me and Joey are enjoying his company. Here are some pics. I'll update soon with Angie's homecoming pictures.
Working on my flower bed.

Joey with the little crab that Uncle Bubba and he caught at the beach one day.
So far on the checklist of creatures these 2 have caught:

Crabs: Check

Praying Mantis: Check

Grasshoppers: Check

Butterfly: Check

Lizards: Check

Frogs and toads: Check (many many many times)

Turtles: Check

And who knows what else!

Update on Earl

Earl had a good 4th of July in Iraq. He sent some pics and said I could share some on the blog. He grilled hot dogs and burgers for his guys and they had some good ol' American fun.

Earl's idea^



He even serves the guys^

He's doing well. Just about 3 months of this deployment left, give or take a couple weeks. That means we're on the downhill portion. Yay!

Independence Day

We went to a local park to enjoy the festivities and watch the fireworks. Joey and Kiara prepared by getting all dressed up in their patriotic clothes and eating salisbury steak and mashed potatoes.


^and apparently Doritos too.

We did some face painting when we first got there.

And hand painting.

At first Joey was just excited to be let out of the stroller, but that was before the fireworks started.

Kiara and Joey at first both held tightly to the mommies and refused to look.

Joey finally would watch, but only while hugging me close, with his head on my shoulder.

After about 5 minutes of me ooohing and ahhing and pointing out the different colors, Joey finally got into it. He started naming colors and pointing and saying"yay" and "Fireworks!" and lifting his head off my shoulder. I even got him to sit on my lap facing forward to watch.

I hated missing his facial expressions. He was so cute!
Once he remembered that Deja and everyone else was watching around him, he got more brave.

At one point, he even got up to follow Michael around.

Afterwards, we had a car full of excited and wide awake kids, singing and chit chatting the whole drive home (hoping we'd stop at McDonalds for ice cream cones). McDonalds was "closed" and we instead came straight home to have our store-bought cones and ice creams. Joey went straight to bed. He woke up talking about fireworks and everytime he sees pictures from last night, he says "fireworks!"

It was really so much fun...wish you were here Earl. I know you would have been as excited as I was to be with Joey the first year he stayed awake to watch the fireworks.

Despite staying awake until after 10:30 last night, Joey was still bright-eyed and bushy tailed at 6am.

Joey's Haircut!

It's hard to take pictures when he's sitting on my lap to get his hair cut. But here's what I got:


It was past naptime, so he was a little cranky.

I couldn't stop taking pictures of him afterwards. I thought I was going to cry when he got it cut, but I did okay. I'm pretty sure the barber thought I was a wacko, because of my hysterical giggling and taking pictures. It was an odd experience cutting his hair, it was part of him. I hated getting rid of something that was "Joey" but we did okay. He doesn't mind at all. When you ask where his hair is, he points to his head and says "all gone!" :-)

I love it. I think it really looks natural on him. Looks good. I was worried that he wouldn't look right with short hair, but he's soooo handsome!

Outside the barber shop after we cut it.

Last week or so, at the grand opening of ToysRus/BabiesRus

At the park a few days ago.
Deja found a frog and let Joey hold it.

Earl loves Joey's hair cut!

We still have visitors, and we're still loving it. Deja and Joey get along so good. She really makes him feel special. And Joey and Kiara have some great moments where they have so much fun, before Joey gets pushy or Kiara gets touchy. :-)