1 week old...

In the short time Charlie has been with us I think my heart has grown 10 sizes.  It is amazing how much love a mother can bear.  I wake up every day feeling so incredibly blessed and thankful for all of the gifts God has brought into my life.  I cannot imagine a life more perfect...

Introducing...

Charles Anthony Jones....

Born July 6th, 2010 at 7:56am
8 lbs, 13 oz.
20 1/2 inches

Out with a bang...

Who were we kidding when we said that we weren't going to do much these last few days before baby arrived.  As much as my body was pleading with me to stay in bed and rest up I just couldn't resist the urge to get out of the house knowing that we would be housebound for quite some time.  Our doctor's rule is that baby should not leave the house for 6 weeks after delivery.  I followed this strictly with Emily and a little more loosely with Jack but for the most part we do a good job of staying home and avoiding germs that might make our little guy sick. 

So...with that in mind we lived it up this past week.

To start off Bryan found out Wednesday that he got the Principal job at Lucille Umbarger Elementary in Burlington.  He is so incredibly excited and I could not be more proud of him.  Even though he will no longer have any time off this summer I know that in the long run this is what going to be the most perfect fit for our family.  He is going to be an amazing K-8 principal.

Jack was feeling a little under the weather so he spent a lot of time making Emily and I some ice cream cones...

I did all of my shopping this week (can you say exhausting) and decided that Emily probably needed a scooter for the summer.  She told me a few weeks back that she definitely did not want a bike but a scooter and some roller skates instead.  I didn't need much convincing since the scooter was an eighth of the cost of the bike I wanted to get her...

She absolutely loved the scooter but I think she may have been more excited about the helmet, knee pads, elbow pads and riding gloves.  She thinks she is "Penny" from the movie Bolt.

With this being such a special present I was thoroughly impressed with her efforts to share with Jack...

On Friday night Bryan set up the little tent in the backyard for the kids to do a little camping in.  We are both struggling with the fact that we cannot do any big camping trips this summer so this was our best effort...

On Saturday we headed out to the Shrimp Shack for lunch and then to Deception Pass State Park to see my dad and Patti while they were camping.  Last year we joined them in our own tent but needless to say I just wasn't up to it this year.

Before we even got to their site Emily caught a glimpse of Grandpa Jim in the road and started shouting his name.  She jumped right out of the Expedition and ran up to him and wanted to know all about their new game...

Then we just did all the fun stuff you so when you are camping like walking through the woods on trails...

Eating delicious and nutritious food...

Lighting "snakes" in the fire pit and smelling the wonderful aroma of tar paper burning...

and snuggling with Grandpa...

By this morning I was exhausted.  It had been a hard night with the kids and I got very little sleep.  Usually we spend our afternoon eating crab on the beach at Cornet Bay and then head up to Birch Bay to watch the fireworks.  This year however we thought that would be too much in one day and had come up with several tentative plans for the fourth instead.  But at the last minute we decided to ditch them all and came up with a new plan.

We started off with our usual Fourth of July photo session.  I have to admit I almost forgot this year and Bryan was the one who reminded me that we needed to get some pictures before we left.  What a great guy!

Then we headed out to Samish Island to meet up with my mom and her friend for the parade...

Emily brought along her little purse to collect all of the candy.  She was so excited and kept telling us that it was just like Halloween...

Jack on the other hand wanted nothing to do with the candy but loved looking at all of the trucks drive by...

One of the last cars to pass by was this car.  This is the same car that Jenny and Zach had escort them away in for their wedding in...

After the parade we went out to pizza, bought some fireworks for our own house and then set them off in the comfort of our own home... 

Jack carried his firework truck around for a long time before he let Bryan set it off...

It didn't take long for Bryan to run out of fireworks so he had to make a run down to the store to grab some more.  When he returned he had twice as many as we had started with in the beginning!

The kids did a great job following Bryan out to the "fireworks area" and then running to the safety of the steps...

We left the "Pyro Wheel" for the grand finale and boy was it worth it...

It was such an amazing day and the perfect way to spend one of our last days together as a family of four.  It is hard to believe that in just 30 hours our precious little guy will be with us...