Keeping up with Cora

 

When we found out we were expecting a baby boy, I kept going back to the Vintage Baseball theme for his Nursey. Dustin thinks Baseball is the only sport to ever exist. He is shocked I have bought more baseball items than Football since that is the only sport that exists in my world!

 

 

Duff and Kaci primed and painted Mason's room one weekend for me while Mom and I did some major cleaning and hauling junk out to the curb! We redid Mackenzie's room about the same time we started his room so we just moved the furniture out of her room and in to his.

 

The picture above his dresser, the laundry hamper and the Mason Jar (See what I did there?) all came from Hobby Lobby. However, the cutie in that bouncer seat did not come from Hobby! Our sweet neighbors have a little boy born almost a year before Mason so they let us borrow their bouncer seat, swing and nap nanny.. Not to mention they filled our dresser and closet with everything Ethan has outgrown.

 

 

His bedding came from Blessed Baby courtesy of my mom and his rug came from Ikea. I took these pictures two weeks before we had Mason so his bags were packed in the corner. The white night stand came from TJ Maxx.. It is actually made for a bathroom but I turned the baskets around so you cant see the "Towels" wording on the front.

 

 

The "M" came from Hobby and the old glove belongs to Pop.

 

Mason's Changing Table..

(that picture is hanging on the wall now!) 

Even though it is dark, here is a panoramic picture of his room.

 

I am in love with his room! So light and not cluttered at all!

What I love most about his room is that he sleeps in his crib from 9pm to 6am! Woo Hoo!!

 

I actually knew we were expecting on August 2, 2012. And that is the only fact I can remember... I woke up one day that week after I had a horrible dream that Dustin was killed in Afghanistan and I spoke at his funeral with a big ole pregnant belly. It was awful, but I knew right then. No test, just knew. I took the test on 8/2 and the only reason I remember that is because that is the day Mrs. Rose Smee passed away. I remember thinking how crazy that one life left this world and I just found out a new life was coming to this world..

 

 

So the months went by pretty fast until the last 6 weeks or so. Dustin worked a few weeks in Virginia and a few weeks in Afghanistan while I was pregnant but he was home for the majority of it. I did the best I could to still get out and do our normal running around.. We took Mackenzie to a couple Razorback baseball games toward the end before I got too miserable.

 

Mason Crew Oaks was born on March 3, 2013.

Weighing in at 8 pounds 6 ounces and 21 inches long.

 

 

Big Sister has loved him since day 1

 

He was a healthy big boy! No NICU visit this go around for us!

 

My C-Section went great! I was worried because when we had Mackenzie it didn't go as smoothly. We came home two days later..

 

Wendy White took his newborn pictures for us and I am in love with them!

 

 

 

 

I am planning on catching up as best as I can.

Don't want to forget these sweet moments...

I don't want to even address how long it has been since I have updated this thing!

 

I am not a fan of Halloween at all, but this year might have grown on me a little bit. Our neighbors spruced up their trailer and 4-wheeler to pull the kids around the neighborhood, and they did such a great job! It reminded me of all the time Duff spent making our yard look the coolest ever and those are memories I know I will never forget, so I hope the girls had a blast last night!

 

Mackenzie was Dorothy this year.... we keep saying "No, not Memaw" since that is my Memaw's name! She would be perfectly happy dressing up as Memaw though! This was our first year to Trick or Treat, and this was the second Halloween Dustin has had to miss for work, no thanks to Hurricane Sandy for the cancelled flight this year!

 

 

Hope everyone had a safe and Happy Halloween!

-I didn't realize that I took such a long break from posting about our trip! We have been so busy at work and home, (and I'm sucked in to the Olympics) I completely lost track of time!-

On day two of our vacation, we went to Magen's Bay and Peterborg Point.. Oh and we also signed our lives away to each other at the Court House!

Of course, coffee on the balcony.

My view after the sun rose... This is Peterborg Point that you are looking at.. The way the island is, we were on Tropaco Point and directly across from us was Peterborg (where we went that evening) and Magens Bay connects the two.

 

Dustin, Mackenzie and I would sit out on the balcony and have coffee (Mackenzie would have milk) and then we would head straight down to the pool each day. Duff was usually already out there before we even got up!

Headed to the Court House!

If you look to the left of this boat, you will see an American Flag and a house. You have to take a boat to get to it, but.......it's the Real World St. Thomas house!

We didn't realize that when we took these pictures, but the season premiered the last night we were there, so we found out exactly where it was after seeing all the local places we had been to on the premiere.

The Court House

Headed to sign away.. I told Dustin this was his last chance to run!

The Court House is in the Charlotte Amalie area of St. Thomas which is the most "touristy" place on the island. All the cruise ships dock pretty close, so all the stores and eating places are there. I loved that they had so much to see and do, but I wasn't a fan of going on a day when there were ships docked. It gets very crowded those days!

After we ate lunch, we headed to Magen's Bay. It is ranked one of the top beaches in the world. It was gorgeous... I do wish I had more pictures of the beach area, but we were too busy soaking up all the views! We are already dying to go back!

I made this swim suit for Mackenzie before we went on our trip... I love the way it turned out, I just don't have a better picture of her in it. I monogrammed her name in red on the bodice.

After we all loaded up at Magen's, Kaci, Dustin and I took Mackenzie to see Peterborg Point while the others headed back to the house to start cooking.

Everything is measured in Kilometers in St. Thomas.. We wore our map out by the end of our 10 days! The trip to Peterborg was pretty interesting.. Thankfully locals walk everywhere so we were able to stop and ask for help. Once you are one the road, it's a straight shot, we just missed the road! :)

When we were first in talks with our wedding coordinator, she had suggested that Peterborg was close to us, if we wanted to do the ceremony there. We decided not to, just because I wanted to be a little closer to the water than what Peterborg was... I am so glad we took the time to go see it. This was one of my favorite nights.

I bought this dress for Mackenzie of Zulily months before our trip.. As soon as I saw it, I ordered it with visions on gorgeous pictures on Peterborg since we had looked in to it so much when the wedding planning started. Kaci was making faces behind me and you can see Mackenzie was mimicking her!

Peterborg was gorgeous! It was quite a hike to get to where we were in this picture bc we had to climb quite a bit but it was so worth it! (My Memaw almost flipped when she saw we took Mackenzie here!)

Kaci climbed a lot around there. It was pretty cool with the water splashing up on the sides of the rocks!

"Birds!"

More of Kaci climbing..

A view of the house we stayed at from Peterborg... We stayed in the bright yellow house directly in the middle of this picture.. The house itself was two stories, and the pool was down more outside stairs away from the house (This was great since we had a toddler running around!)

Kaci got to FaceTime with Erik while we were gone..I really wished he could have come, but he had to work :( But I do love that we got a picture of Kaci and Erik in St. Thomas.

Ok, Last one of Peterborg (for today!)

Duff and Nick cooking dinner for all of us!

Dustin highly annoyed excited about me being wound up while he was doing school work!

The guys went down by the pool to smoke a cigar and talk.. They went on an amazing deep sea fishing trip the next day while the girls did our own thing!

And then we watched the Razorbacks play another game in the World Series!

And I did have some pictures of Hannah from this day, but they were in the afternoon when I was "wound up" as I mentioned and they are totally not appropriate for the blog. And by not appropriate, I mean she would kill me because she looked like a dork in all of them! :)

Hopefully I will get the rest of our vacation on here before football season starts! Only one month from tomorrow, and I CAN'T WAIT!!!