6 MONTHS ALREADY???

Dellin Parker Fillmore is 6 months old today and boy has it gone by fast! Dellin has been a dream baby in every way possible.

He is the HAPPIEST baby and literally smiles ALL THE TIME!

He is very curious of everything. Especially when it has to do with his older brother Sterling Henry. He is obsessed with his older brother, and will be playing along side him in no time.

He is very silly. He loves to put his binky in all different ways and then smile and sort of shake his head. I am sure he is thinking, "I'm pretty funny!".

He loves his 2 fingers. I am sure this has to do with teething (like everything else).

He LOVES to eat (he gets that from his mom). He may not be huge in size but he does have a big appetite. He loves all fruit and veggies. He hasn't met a solid he doesn't like.

He sleeps 10+ hours and still takes 3 naps.

He loves to sit up in the highchair.
I had to include a picture of Sterling Henry in the highchair at this age. They are starting to not look so much alike. Both are DANG cute!


We love you Dellin and LOVE having you in our family. You make us smile everyday. We are lucky to be your parents.

5 YEARS AGO TODAY...

I made the best decision...

I married this guy, and not just because he could carry me.

I love you babe!

Copy Cat

Sterling Henry loves to do whatever we are doing. He is such a little Copy Cat and it is adorable. His number one favorite thing to right now is brush his teeth. Every time we brush our teeth he yells, "TEETH" in the most desperate voice ever. We sure hope this continues...

Little Man in action.

He also loves to copy Dellin. Here he is in Dellin's bouncy seat with one of Dellin's teething toys.

He loves to sit in Dellin's car seat too.

He joins him for "tummy time".

Sterling Henry LOVES to talk on the phone as well. (He probably learned that from his mom.)

Yesterday he decided to try and teach Dellin how to talk on the phone. Dellin loves anything Sterling Henry does so you can imagine how happy this made him.

We LOVE our little Copy Cat!

AIRPLANES

Since the weather has been so ridiculously hot, we were happy to spend the morning at the Dulles Air and Space Museum with friends. It is a HUGE warehouse full of planes, helicopters, and the original space shuttle. The boys LOVED it!

The observation tower was really fun. We could see planes landing on both sides. Sterling Henry was in heaven.

Me with my two boys. They are getting so big, but not too big to hold!

I don't pull this stunt very often but Sterling Henry really wanted to ride on my shoulders so I decided to indulge him.
As much as I can't wait to have a house full of pink someday (no announcements here), I really love my boys and their love for planes, trains, cars, balls, and anything else that makes noise.

I love spending the day with my little cubs.

48 HOURS IN UTAH

I went to Utah over the weekend for just 48 hours. It was a long two days packed full of family time and I would do it again in a heartbeat!

The main reason I went was to attend the funeral of my grandfather. My grandfather was such a wonderful man. I feel truly lucky to not only know him but be related to him.

All my siblings were there and some of the spouses.

Some of my grandpas things.


The grave site.

21 Gun Salute.

My dad with his siblings. All 8 of them.

I finally got to meet my cousin Ashley's baby, Lincoln. Ashley and I are just a month apart and lived together before we got married. It is fun to have boys so close in age.

My BFF's showed up to the viewing. It was so nice of them to come. Thanks girls.

I finally got to meet my newest niece Cora. Isn't she the cutest??? I am so in love with this little girl. I wish she lived closer so I could snuggle her all the time.

Dellin liked her a lot. I love this picture of the two of them.

We stayed at the farm with my parents. It is always great to spend time with them. Dellin loves his grandparents and they love him too! My mom kept us well fed. Thank Mom and Dad.

I got lots of time with my sisters. I am always amazed at just how silly we are when we get together. I also had dinner at Brandi's house and saw Eclipse with Rindi. I love my sisters and SILs so much! Jake and Josh also stayed at the farm with us but no pictures of them. (They were to busy playing Super Mario Brothers!)

Dellin enjoying some more time with grandma.
He got lots of kissed while we were there. Sarah was really sweet with him!

Aunt Jen was happy to feed him his first taste of something contraband... frozen yogurt. He loved it and now really loves her. Jen and I flew out the same time so we hung out together!
The trip went by so fast but I am so happy that I got to go. Every minute I spend with my family is priceless. I will take it when I can get it!

Jaws Shmas!

Ever since we went down to North Carolina two years ago and Sterling saw some dudes surf fishing for sharks, he has been dying to catch some himself. He came home and bought all the surf fishing gear and has been out a few times to fish from the beach, but not for sharks. But two weeks ago, he make "shark rigs" and went fishing all night to catch his first shark. And he caught a shark, actually he caught two sharks. One was 3 1/2 feet long and the other was 6 1/2 feet long and will be referred to as the BIG ONE. Pretty amazing huh?!?

Here's the smaller one they caught, a cute little "dusky" shark.


Here they are, measuring the little guy. Yep, 42 inches.


Here he is with Matt and the BIG ONE, a sand tiger shark! (Matt's his new shark fishing buddy and conveniently, the brother of his previous fishing buddy who moved away.)


You do not bring sharks home when you catch them. You let them go... and hope they don't bite you on their way out! Here is a sweet action shot of Sterling putting the BIG ONE back to the ocean.


Look at the size of that thing!


It took over 40 minutes to reel in the BIG ONE. Here is an action shot of the boys!


Look at the head on that thing... FREAKY!


I am super pumped that Sterling finally caught his shark(s). I get the feeling that this had only added serious fuel to the fire and you will be seeing lots more sharking pictures in the future.

I love my manly man.

THE MAN

My sweet grandpa, David Henry Hawkins passed away yesterday. He was 89 years old and lived his life to the very fullest. He was a Pearl Harbor survivor, a real cowboy, and the best storyteller ever. I remember going to his house a lot when I was little and he always had some little treat hidden away somewhere that he loved to share. He loved me, and I knew it!

For the last 2 years of his life, he lived with my parents so I got to spend a lot of time with him when I would go home. Every time I would say goodbye, he would tell me it would be the last. I never wanted to believe him. Although he will be greatly missed, we are all happy to think of him reunited with my grandma Vela, the love of his life!

Sterling Henry was named after him, as are MANY of his grandsons and great-grandsons. We all hope that our boys grow up to be just like him!

Sterling Henry meeting his namesake.

4 generations.

This is by far one of my favorite pictures with Grandpa. My dad and his father look a LOT alike and this picture just sums it all up with Sterling Henry.

Dellin never got to meet him. It's a good thing that I have so many incredible stories to share with my boys about their great-grandpa.

I will be going to Utah for his funeral on Saturday. All my siblings are going. It will be a quick trip but I wouldn't miss it for anything.

EAT MOR CHIKIN

Occasionally I do things that are completely shameless. Today was one of those days. It was Cow Appreciation Day at Chick-Fil-A, so if you dressed up as a cow, you got a free meal. Since Chick-Fil-A happens to be one of my favorite places, we were all over the free meal.

My friend Jessica and I made costumes for the boys and even dressed up ourselves. Matthew and Sterling were not super happy about wearing their costumes but managed to wear them for the 2 minutes it took to get us our free food. Good work boys!

Here they are not sure why they are wearing garbage sacks and ears.

They were enjoying themselves a little bit more here. (Sterling was showing off his jumping skills for Matthew.)

This could possibly be the worst picture of me EVER but Sterling Henry was trying to pull off his outfit by this point. I had on ears and plenty of black and white.

Thank you Chick-Fil-A for feeding us and giving us something fun to do INSIDE on this hot day!

The 4th

This past weekend might have been the hottest 4th of July EVER! We loved having a three-day weekend with dad. Sterling Henry spent every waking moment with his dad and is going to have a hard adjustment tomorrow. (Luckily, we only have four days till the next weekend.)

Sterling Henry spent A LOT of time in a kiddie pool this weekend and LOVED it. He loved to jump and dive on his belly.


Dad even joined him tonight which made it pretty much the best thing ever!This is our 4th of July family picture...

We ate LOTS of yummy food this weekend. My friend Jessica made these cookies. They were adorable and delicious. I might have had 3... or 8.
We watched the fireworks from the Iwo Jima Memorial. Watching fireworks with the Washington Memorial and the Capital in the background is pretty amazing. Each year it makes me feel so patriotic. I'm proud to be an American!

SOMEONE IS GROWING UP WAY TOO FAST!

I gave Sterling Henry a new summer haircut, and I am pretty sure it aged him 5 years (so I guess he is almost 7 now).



Sterling Henry loves his little friends. He has just recently learned to say Matthew's name and he says it all the time now. Pretty cute!

We met up with some friends at the zoo today. Luckily, there are a lot of boys close to his age. They have a lot of fun together.
We love our Little Man. We love watching him grow up but wish it wasn't going quite so fast!