Joel is half a year old!

I can't believe it. He's 6 months old!!! Joel still is super sweet and smiley. He loves to jump in his Jumperoo and play with his big brother (pinch his big brother mostly). He had his first taste of cereal recently, and that didn't go well as you can see in the photo. But I'm 100% confident he'll eventually eat something besides milk. ;-) He now weighs 18 pounds, 8 ounces (75%), and he's 28.5 inches long (95%). He has light colored hair (almost blonde I guess) and hazel eyes (blue, grey, green, brown). I secretly hope he has hazel eyes just like the rest of us. I guess we'll have to wait and see.

I think Clark and Joel look different. Here's Clark at 6 months too (above).

I didn't need my fairy godtoad after all

I confess I like a clean house. Or at least I like it to look clean. And having kids has really challenged my character as far as letting go of my "rights" to have a clean house. Today has been a great day for God to grow my character. I'll explain the fairy toad thing in a minute.

This morning, I got up extra early to have some quiet time (which hasn't happened in a LONG time). I made a cup of coffee and sat down to enjoy some ME time. As I soon as I sat down, Michael brought me Joel. He was hungry. Then Clark woke up and was hungry. After making oatmeal (our everyday staple), I ran upstairs to deliver to my husband his breakfast and spilled his milk on the carpet. Then when I came back down, Clark has flung his oatmeal all over the kitchen and living room. Joel was screaming his head off. So I started taking deep breaths and trying to keep myself focused. (yes my hormones are raging today too).



So I calmly had Clark "clean up" his mess. Then I looked up and saw it. My house was in utter disarray. (I've got the pictures to prove it.) Okay, here's where the fairy god toad comes in. Usually when I find myself in this unhappy place, I take a few breaths and do something to make myself laugh. Lately, I have been telling fairy tales about a beautiful princess mommy and her fairy god toad out loud. The princess finds herself always in a messy house because of her two boys. She consults a fairy god toad about her problems, and he always fixes it by taking the boys away. She loves her clean house, but soon misses her boys. The princess mommy always learns a lesson that it's better to have a messy house with her precious boys than a clean quiet house without her darling children.

Well I was at the point that I needed to start telling my story out loud, when Clark did a number in his pants. NUMBER 2 that is. Okay, I'll clean up him and then tell my fairy tale later. So we go to the bathroom, and I do what most sane people WOULDN'T. I try to savage his underwear. On my knees before the toliet with my hands in the brown toliet water trying to scrub off the most disgusting, stinky poop I've ever seen, my sweet two year old, four month old son bends down to my ear and says.....

GOOD JOB, MOMMY! GOOD JOB!!!!

I started laughing and crying. It was the most beautiful, funniest thing I'd ever heard. I finished up the clean up and found myself not needing my fairy god toad after all.

My cup of coffee is over half full and cold, but I sit in awe at how AWESOME our GOD is and how precious every day is no matter the craziness.



Here's my sweet angel with the oatmeal juice still on his shirt.

Mother's Day Pictures

Make a Smilebox scrapbook

Zoo Fun

We recently discovered the local zoo and love it. We have gone twice. Once with friends and once just the four of us. Clark especially loved puting rocks on the petting zoo animals and running with his friend.

After our zoo trip my little monkey wanted to watch t.v. in his pull up and eat M&Ms with his duckies. I of course couldn't say no and snapped a shot.

So happy together!

My boys are now "playing" together. It's such a joy to watch the two of them interact. Above, Clark is lining the cups up in a perfect line while Joel sucks on a dinosaur.

Clark has been a very good big brother. He loves on Joel all the time and shares his toys for a few seconds ;-). Clark's favorite book right now is Little Brother, Big Brother. It's a book all about brothers.

This is Clark's version of a hug. We are still learning GENTLE.

Sweet Joel...

At the boys' check up, we learned that Joel weighs 16 pounds, 3 ounces (75%), and he's 26 1/2 inches long (50%). Clark is 28 pounds (45%) and 37 inches (90%). I couldn't ask for more perfect boys.

Note about the house, the tree is off and repairs are about to start. The insurace is going to paint the back side for us since the tree scraped it. That's such a blessing because we won't have to do it!!!

Home Improvement and Home Destruction

As promised I wanted to share our freshly painted house pictures. Michael and I worked very hard for a month to prep and paint our house. I spifted up the front with a few touches of paint. That was last weekend. A lot has happened since.

Michael was out of town for work this Friday when a strong storm system was headed our way. So I got ready as I always do. I put the dogs and cat in the basement and lots of supplies. I was really nervous so I really prepared. I waited until a tornado warning was issued, and I woke the boys up from their nap to take them to the basement. Well little did I know I was putting us in danger while trying to keep us safe.

As I was putting them into the basement, I heard a loud crack and then felt the wall shake. Instincts kicked in and I threw Clark into the basement and shut the door.

Joel and Clark were both crying, and I was shaking. When everything settled, we discovered a tree had fallen on our house.

That little door is where I was standing trying to shut the door.
It's a really big tree. It's going to take a crane to lift it over our house!!!!!

As we walked out this stuff fell over our heads, but thank the Lord the trellis caught it.

Our view from the basement.

It was scary, but we were really blessed by all the neighborhood support received. People everywhere came out and helped me until Michael got home. We joke--at least we didn't around to painting the back yet. That is scheduled next month.

I declare today pajama day!

After a very exhausting weekend of painting the exterior of our home (thanks to some awesome friends for helping!!!), I have decided we all could use a little vacation. So today is official pajama day at our home. Mommy and the boys are enjoying a day at home in our comfy pjs. I refuse to go anywhere or do anything except change Joel's diapers of course. ;-) Potty training for Clark is going well!!!

Oh...to add to our special day it snowed for a few hours this morning!!! No accumulation, but it was beautiful.

We'll have to post pictures of our house later!!!

Potty Training Day Four and MORE

I felt it was time to try to potty train on Monday, so we are giving it a go. So far everything has gone as expected--a few wet pants and no luck on the number two. Clark seems to enjoy the treats and attention.

The other day I was walking around the house and noticed our siding was deteriorating. After inspection, we decided we need to paint our house. The good news is we just refinanced and have a extra money because we have no house payments for two months. We are going to have to buy a tall ladder, paint sprayer, and expensive outside paint. We give thanks to God for providing the money to do all this with.

The bad news is it is a big house and very tall. We have a basement, two stories, and an attic! I don't know how tall that is, but it's more than a 28 foot ladder can handle. So far we are just handling this side first. We have bleached it, pressure washed it, and now we are caulking it. It's tough trying to do this with two little kids, but we have made it work so far. Michael and I each have ladders, Clark plays in the yard with the dogs, and Joel hangs out in his bouncy seat.




Clark saw Joel wearing a hat today (it was a little windy and cold), so he wanted his hat too. I grabbed his fire fighter hat. The first thing he did was run to the ladder and climb it to get up to daddy. It was just too cute, so I had to snap a few shots of my Firefighter Clark with a bubble wand to the rescue!!!

Here's Joel in his hat. Today I didn't go up because it was too cold and windy. We mainly cheered Daddy on while he worked on the ladder. One thing is for sure, we Loftons are do-it- yourselfers!!!! And we stick together!

Joel's First Hike

Skipping rocks

The Boys

We took the opportunity to teach Clark who made

all of this beauty for us. Isn't it beautiful??

Joel's first time to the creek

Joel with his transportation aka Mommy

After work Tuesday, we decided to grab some 1/2 price burgers from Sonic and drove to a trail a few minutes from our house. It was a great day for Joel's first hike. We think he liked it, and we did for sure. It was a great reminder of why we love Tennessee. We ate in the car and hiked to the creek. Daddy and Clark skipped rocks while I played with Joel. The water was a little too cold to play in, but we'll be back. During the summer this place has awesome little pools to swim in.

What a great weekend!

We took full advantage of the beautiful weather this weekend by playing outside lots. On Friday, I got my hair cut for the first time in 10 months,and it only cost $10. Then, we meet up with three other families at a park and had a pizza picnic. We all have children 3 years or younger, so we were kept busy with the little ones running around. It was a lot of fun! Then we came home and took a tons of pictures of our silly boys.





Then Saturday, my neighbor and I loaded up all four of our boys (ages 3,2,1,0)and went to a park on top of Signal Mountain while Michael stayed home and did house projects. The older boys got to run around and slide down a HUGE slide together. They also played in the sandbox. They had so much fun together. Then we had a picnic.








We wrapped up the day with Daddy blowing bubbles on the porch, and Clark popping them with his face. We grilled burgers and ate outside. With our tummies full, our other neighbor brought over several meals worth of food just because she was "thinking about us". What a blessing to have such great neighbors.

Sunday, we got to go to church, and I walked 6.25 miles (half was at the river walk).
And what a terrific weekend!