Me and my boy!

May 5th

Our good friends Dary and Anna dropped by for an over night visit on their way (out of their way) to Michigan. It was so great to see them!

We had the family over for dinner while they were here.

Sterling is jonny-on-the-spot when you need help waking up : )

Anna and Sterling

We met when a mutual friend, Stacy Elliott, from Washington state called me a year ago to ask favor. She said that they had friends at Walter Reed Hospital, the military hospital in D.C., who were getting married that weekend. Dary and Anna were had gotten engaged the previous November and had planned to get married last summer/fall but then Dary was injured in the war so was sent home. Long story short they decided to bump the wedding up to April. So you can imagine the hurtles of throwing together a wedding in short time and in a strange place!! Stacy called me to see if there was any chance that I could help out in any way! So, I called Anna, out of the blue, gave her a quick background to who I was and asked her how I could help! I was able to shop for decorations for her, and then help with their reception - right up my alley - I had so much fun!!!! I didn't even get to actually meet Dary and Anna until the end of the reception! It wasn't till after the wedding that we got to develop a friendship with them! Tim and I visited them in the hospital a few times until Dary was strong enough to make the 45 minute drive over to Annapolis. Then they came to stay with us 2-3 weekends a month! What a great time! They have since moved down to Fort Bragg and we miss them!!!

Welcome to the world Alexia Ryan Grossman!!!

For this joyous news I will break my rule of not skipping ahead to current events until I have caught up on the old ones!
Oh my goodness what a trip, I can't believe I'm a 'blood' aunt!!! And it's hard to believe that she's already here - 2 weeks early!!! We are ecstatic!! I got the call from Ryan, my brother, at about 7:44 yesterday morning, "We're at the hospital!!!" Shanny had gone into labor around 4 yesterday morning. Sterling and I were to the hospital by 9-ish and hung out all day till she was born around 1:30! How amazingly quick for their first baby!! Shanny only pushed for about 20 minutes! She was amazing!!!

Waiting...

The expectant dad!!

Chillin' with auntie Jenna!

'Oh', Sterling seems to say, "you say my cousin is on the way??!!"

She's here!!!! And Sterling can't believe it!!! : )

Beautiful little Alexia Ryan Grossman!!! Born 6 lbs 1 oz and just shy of 19 inches long!!! She is so tiny!!! About 25% smaller than Sterling was at 8 lbs and 21 and a quarter inches!!! The difference is just amazing when they're that small!! It was so crazy to go from holding Sterling whose around 15 lbs now to holding her...what a little feather!!!

Check out all her beautiful hair!!!


Sweet baby doll!! She makes the most adorable and tiniest little squeaks!!

May 4th - Jackson's B-day in West Virginia

Wow I'm so far behind!!! Jenna and Ty went with us to West Virginia for an afternoon of fun celebrating Jackson's (our sweet neighbor's son) 1st birthday!! It was the most beautiful day!

The guys had fun playing a couple rounds of croquet!

Jenna and Jackson look rather perplexed...or bored : )

Ty and Sterling!


Can't believe we're a little family! And I really can't believe how few pictures we have of the 3 of us!

Sterling Faces!

How ridiculously cute is this little bath-robe!!!!



This is one of the funniest faces that he makes!!! He tilts his little head down and looks up at you all at once...I swear he looks like a little alien baby : ) It makes me laugh every time!!
Oh so precious!!!

Pops comes home - April 29th

Pops finally came home after being gone for 2 months! We got to go pick him up at the airport! It's funny that he and Sterling were matching that day! He said that Sterling was a different person than the one that he had left! I'm pretty sure that it was a big deal that Pops got his first smile out of Sterling the day he left for the PI. By the time he got back smiling was second nature to Sterling!

I love this one of them!

Too bad Sterling doesn't look more happy in this one : )

FISH lips!!!

Many of you know that as Sterling swam around in my belly we called him our little Fish! As you can imagine - we flipped out when he made this face for the first time a couple weeks ago as we were all sitting around the table after Sunday lunch at my parents. I wish we could've had a video of the whole thing!!! It was hilarious!!! Every one was dying and Sterling just sat there with a quizzical look on his face - probably wondering what on earth had gotten into all of us : )!!! Too funny!

Good to be home!

It's nice to be back home and with family! And we're lovin' that it's finally nice enough to eat outside again!!! This meal was amazing!! Jenna made chicken and veg curry over rice!

2 weeks TOO long!!

Tim - checkin' out how much our boy had grown in the 2 weeks since he'd seen him!!

Other fun friends we saw along the way...

Dear sweet Robyn! It was so good to see her - such a great friend! The only bummer was that we didn't get enough time with her!!



It was great to run into Liz at church! We were in a Bible study together before I moved to MD.


More dear friends - Tom and Lorraine!! I shared a wonderful meal with them on Sunday! I'm bummed not to have gotten a picture of Tom too.

Final Stop!

Our last stop was to spend a few wonderful days with Michael, Amber, Kobe and Andrew!
It was such a blessing to have some time to catch up with Amber face to face! And to share the 'mommy' life together for a bit! We went to church together a couple times - it was sweet to be back at The Well! And I enjoyed getting to go to her moms group!
We took walks, went to the park, ate lots, stayed up late talking (a lot harder to recover from the lack of sleep now that we're older and have kids!) and sharing sweet fellowship, hung out with other friends, drank lots of coffee, etc... : ) Oh, and I remembered how to have the camera out and take pictures - so there are LOTS!!!

...just can't get enough...

Sterling was such a trooper!!! For the most part he was pretty patient as the boys loved on him!! They were so sweet with him and could never seem to get enough - especially little Andrew! He was so funny!!!

One of the highlights was to visit and taste their 'favorite little tutie (cookie) place'!!!


It didn't seem to bother Andrew that Sterling was busy eating : )


A yummy lunch out with Amber while her dear husband watched the boys!