Random thoughts.

We had our first snow of the season on Friday! Yeah. I didn't realize just how much I miss the colder weather (changing seasons). In Atlanta it stays pretty warm throughout the year. I am excited to be in Boston for the fall. I started singing with Parker 'Once there was a snowman' when we saw the snow Friday. As I am typing this up it is slushing (lots of rain but fragments of wet snow). Oh how I miss the snow. One thing that I've been meaning to write about for awhile was common license plates in Massachusetts. I thought that we were pretty rare being from Georgia (the South). I mean you just can't too much further South than Georgia. I was wrong in my first impressions of being a rarity. I can't tell you how many Florida license plates I have seen up here. They are EVERYWHERE! I have to wonder what brings the Floridan's up this way or if there is some kind of market for Florida cars.
The other day I was making dinner and singing 'the wheels on the bus go up and down, up and down' when Parker stopped me and said 'no mommy the people on the bus go up and down.' Oh my, I didn't realize I had been singing it wrong. It's a good thing he was there to catch me. We made it a game later on to make sure Parker was still paying attention. Lincoln is increasing his vocabulary. He likes to say 'yeah', 'ba,' and I think he even got out a 'dada' today. He ate an animal cracker during church. He gets so excited to see any of us after we have been away for two minutes.
I am very grateful to have the temple so close to us at this time in our lives. I hope that we will always be able to attend, no matter how far away (6 hrs. in Portugal). The temple keeps me happy.

Quincy.

A visit to the home of John Adams and John Quincy Adams. We took an hour long drive down to 'Braintree.' The weather was spectacular. Willie has read a little bit about John Adams and I know that very distantly I am related to him. I guess we should have gone to the family reunion. One of the best parts about going down was that it was $5 to get a tour of the three homes John lived in. We only paid $5 because Willie is a student at Georgia Tech and he was free and the kids were free too! This was definitely a great trip. Our trolley tour time started at nap time.
Parker and Willie enjoying some snacks before we head to our first stop.
Lincoln and me smiling at Willie getting excited to learn some history.Willie was the man of the hour! He did amazing holding onto Parker. That's a lot of dead weight. I struggled with Lincoln and I had the carrier for him. I'm weak-sauce. Here is Willie cleaning his shoes after exiting the house. I love details like that when we visit old towns/buildings.
We weren't allowed to take pictures in here. There were only a few things in this home that were original; beams, fireplace, etc.
I must have been really intrigued during our visit to the second home of John Quincy because I don't have any pictures of it other than of Willie cleaning his shoes on the porch. A cool thing that they had in the second home was a long pole with a fan of sharp sticks at the end that was used to catch eel in the rivers. The first two homes were very open with only a little bit of furniture.
The third home was when John and Abigail returned from France. They wanted a bigger home, and they got it (over time). This home had many artifacts that came from many members of the family. Parker finally woke up during the tour of this house. That's a long time for Willie to hold onto Parker. Great job Will. Here's Lincoln and I getting ready to enter the house. Once you are in this house you are in, they shut and lock all the doors behind them. With the kids we were a little nervous about this part, but because they were in the middle of their naps we didn't mind. They did wake up in the middle but they were still tired so it worked out.
The building behind me is John's library. He never saw it, but John Quincy build it for him. There were tons of books inside. This was an awesome collection of books for one man.I thought this was a pretty picture. The gardens are so beautiful.This picture was fun because we set it up on a small shrub that went around the garden. It worked out alright.We had someone take our picture for us this time.Parker had fun taking his shoes off and putting rocks inside of them. He had a great time pushing Lincoln in the stroller. Parker was so dirty when we left, I guess that's alright as long as he had fun.

Accomplishments.

What's not to love about Lincoln? We have really enjoyed having him in our family. Since being here in Boston he has learned many new things. He has learned to get up on his hands and knees, belly laugh, crawl, eat, and now he is standing for 20 seconds at a time.

Lincoln has been a great brother to Parker and we love watching them interact. Lincoln gives us the most beautiful smiles. I love to watch his eyes light up. The best is when Willie comes home; Lincoln starts bouncing up and down and smiles and giggles. He loves his dad so much.

Lincoln has begun to talk as well. He used to say 'ba, ba, ba.' Now he likes to say 'yeah, yeah, yeah.'

One of my favorite things is his froggy smile. My sister Erika and her husband Brady did a great job in picking out his frog. Both Lincoln and his frog have the same smiles.We love you Lincoln!

Labor Day Activites.

I'm a whole month behind on my posting.
Willie and I took the kids to Cape Cod on Labor Day. As we were driving onto the hook of Massachusetts we noticed that the traffic going home was horrible. There were miles and miles of cars slowly moving. We hoped that by the time we were done with our day that the traffic would break up a bit. It did and we were grateful. We decided to go to the very tip of Cape Cod. We wanted to visit a few lighthouses along the way as well.
In this first picture we have our first lighthouse that we saw. Okay so it's extremely difficult, it's almost dead center on the horizontal line. We didn't get too close to it. The kids were asleep by the time we went looking for lighthouses.

Willie dislikes when I take feet pictures. He doesn't like his fungus foot and I don't like my bunions but hey feet pictures are fun. Sorry Will, I hope you still love me.
I like this foot picture because it's all of us. It was a bit difficult getting us all in.
I loved spending a relaxing day at the beach. The water was too cold to go into but it was a beautiful day. We had sandwiches on the beach. We stumbled upon a local store along the way and they made some tasty sandwiches for us. I had turkey and stuffing with a nice dressing on a fun roll. Yummy. I can't remember what Willie had on his, it was similar though.
We found some fun things for the boys to play with. Willie found this fun shell. We ended up leaving it there because we weren't sure what to do with it if we brought it home.

These are the tools Parker used to throw sand into Lincolns face while Willie and I were trying to take pictures of ourselves. Poor Lincoln had sand all over his face in his mouth, in his eyes, EVERYWHERE. I think we made Parker sit on the towel for a minute as a time out. We tried to tell him why it was bad to throw stuff at Lincoln.
Here are the boys with Willie showing their fun toys, rocks, and other fun finds.
We perched Lincoln up on a mound of sand and took some great pictures of him. This was one of my favorites.
Oh yeah. Our kids were horribly sick during this outing. Poor Parker was coughing up a storm and had his nose running the whole time. I hope we aren't bad parents for taking them out while their sick. I just hope that no one got sick from us that day.
Here is a dead crab that Willie found. Poor guy.
A close up of the crab.
Our family picture from the beach. My favorite part is that Parker saw what Willie and I were doing with our legs and decided to stick his up as well. What a cutie.
Parker was a sport sitting thought so many photos.
A video from one of the activities that kept Parker entertained for about 15 minutes.

We decided to end the trip by going to Plymouth Rock. It's not very big, but they use to leave a hammer and chisel so visitors could take a keepsake home with them. One guy that was there thought this was a fake and that nobody could know for sure which rock was the real rock. We didn't really care, we still thought it was cool to be in a place that was settled so long ago.This is what Parker looks like right before I go in for a tickle attack.
Here is Will and Parker taking the picture by themselves. Willie did good at getting the Mayflower replica in the shot.
We did have a great time on Labor day. We tried to work hard, but we just had way too much fun being parents. We love our kids and we love each other.

Last entry on family visit.

A view of the Charles River. This was such a beautiful sight. We had a good view of Beacon Hill from here. There were a group of people learning to sail boats. It was fun to get pictures with the boats and the Boston skyline.
My mom and dad looked cute sitting by eachother.
I really loved giving Lincoln time to be with his Grandma and Grandpa.
The walk up to Bunker Hill.This was a fun place to visit. The kids loved playing on the steps. The day was absolutely beautiful for a walk outside.I have to admit right now that I am horribly out of shape. My dad was awesome, he carried P-man on his shoulders pretty much the whole way (except the first three steps Parker took by himself). I carried Lincoln up until about step 150. I was exhausted. There were 294 steps. My mom was incredible, she took Lincoln the rest of the way. I really need to work on my endurance.One thing I have loved about Boston are all of the Firehouses. They are so beautiful. I try to take pictures whenever I can. I love to point out the Firehouses to Parker as we drive by.On the freedom trail we found this fun fountain. We took a little break to feed some little kids and wait for the rest of our party. The boys had fun putting things in the water such as their bottles or sippy cups. Here's my mom in front of the Paul Revere statue. Did you know that Paul Revere was caught and then released later in the night without his horse. I have learned a lot about our American history and I am very grateful for those who fought and do fight for America.