--- My Husband ---

I am officially obsessed with Pinterest.  I saw this on there and I really feel that it nails down my feelings for my husband.  I love you baby.  You are truly perfect for me!

--- Cars 2 ---

Monday afternoon Chad and I took Trace on an outing with just Mommy and Daddy so that he had some special time with just us.  We went to see Mrs. Liz and get our haircut and Trace acted like a big boy, for the most part.  He wasn't a fan of getting the hair by his ears cut.  Afterwards we went to Logan's Roadhouse for a little dinner before the main event, Cars 2!!!

I had been so excited to take Trace to see Cars 2 in the theatres because he loved the first one so much.  Trace is a huge fan of movies and we had never attempted to take him to a theatre before, but I just knew he would do great... Well I was WRONG.

The movie started out great, Trace was really interested and was even wanting to set in my lap (which is highly unusual!).  Then he had an urge to go #2, after three attempts to go to the potty we were unsuccessful.  Trace likes to hide when he goes to the bathroom and between no privacy and the automatic flushers that kept going off every time he or I moved him around going #2 was just not going to happen.  He had a pull-up on so I thought in this instance I would just let him use the pull-up and then he would watch the movie.  The problem was he kept wanting to hide in the theatre to go to the potty, so after several attempts to blockade him in between us Chad and I finally gave up and left the movie about an hour into it.

We did a little shopping, because it is rare that we get out with just one child and not two, so we decided to take advantage of the opportunity.  As soon as we went into Gap, Trace went straight for the dressing rooms and crawled under the door of one (luckily it was empty!) and used the bathroom...  Of course.  After that was finally out of our way we had fun chasing him around the mall and Dick's before finally grabbing some Starbucks and chokit milk for Trace and headed home.

All in all, even though the night didn't go as planned, it is a memory I will cherish forever.  I do think we will wait a little while before attempting the movie theatre again, or at least until we are fully potty trained! 

--- Father's Day ---

First of all, I want to wish a Happy Father's Day to all the wonderful fathers out there.  I hope that your kids and wife spoil you and remind you on this day, and everyday, just how extra special you are to them.

Chad unfortunately has to work on Father's Day, but really June 19 is just a date and I can celebrate him as a wonderful husband and an incredible dad on any day.  So I chose to do it last night!  He came home from work and we had a Mitchell family favorite for supper, Mexican Mountain.  After dinner, I had Trace come with me and take the Father's Day presents to him.  Trace couldn't get the words "Happy Father's Day" to come out right so we took the present in and said, "Happy Daddy's Day".

A little background before I share more on the present.  Chad and I have never really been present people, we had rather go and do something together instead of spending the money on something that only one of us gets enjoyment out of.  However, I have had something really special that I have been wanting to create for him for a while now and Father's Day seemed like the perfect time to do it.  I also, thanks to my new obsession with couponing, was able to custom make his Father's Day card (for free!) on http://www.tinyprints.com/.  Here is what his card looked like:

I also created one for my Dad.  Tiny Prints is a great website for this if you have never used it.  I created it about a week ago and they mailed it for me so that it arrives tomorrow.  So easy!  My Dad is a wonderful man and I am blessed to be able to call him mine.  I was excited to create this for him and I hope it will bring a smile to his face, because he is in fact my first true love.

On to Chad's present...  I have mentioned before that I am big on family traditions.  One of the traditions I was able to create for our family was that both of my boys wore the outfit that Chad and all of his brothers wore home from the hospital while they were in the hospital (my boys were born in the colder months so they couldn't actually wear it home).  Of course, I took lots of pictures of my boys in the outfit and I made especially sure that I took one of Chad holding each of the boys in it.  Lucky for me my mother-in-law was able to find a picture of Chad's dad holding Chad in the outfit.  Are you getting the idea yet?  So for Father's Day I created a picture collage of Chad holding his boys in the outfit and Chad being held by his Dad in the outfit.  I was so excited for how it turned out:

Chad said this is the best gift, other than our boys, that I have ever given him.  Win! for me.  I absolutely can't wait to get this framed and up on our wall.  It shows such a special moment in all of our lives and to me exemplifies what a great father he is.  I am so blessed to have Chad as the father of my children.  He is a wonderful man of God and I can only hope that one day my boys will become the man that their father is. 

Happy Father's Day Chad,

I love you with all my heart and thank God everyday that he has blessed me with you.

-Meg

--- Love This ---

On another note,

HAPPY 9 MONTH BIRTHDAY NOAL! 

Mommy can't believe how big you are getting.  I read this quote the other day while I was working on Chad's father's day present (more to come on that!) and it is soooo true:

"It kills you to see them grow up. But I guess it would kill you quicker if they didn't."

-Barbara Kingsolver

--- Lake Time ---

I am little behind in my blogging, okay behind may be a bit of an understatement.  Things have been a little crazy around the Mitchell household these past few weeks.  Mainly though we have just been spending a lot of time outside soaking up the summer sun.  I love the summer time and being able to get outside and get active.  It is so nice to be able to spend some quality family time together outdoors instead of inside in front of the tv or having to go to Clarksville to do anything.

We recently purchased a Moomba Mobius LSV boat so most of our summer sun time has involved going to the lake.  Trace is constantly telling us, "Wanna go to wake and swim wiff tha isshhh!"  Trace has turned into a little swimmer this year, even getting in the water without holding on to Mommy or Daddy (but wearing a life jacket of course).  I originally was not sure how Trace would feel about the lake because he used to hate water getting in his eyes.  We also had an accidental fall into the lake when the water was just 61 degrees!  We were out for a evening ride in April and Trace was splashing his feet on the platform and reached just a little too far.  He came up screaming, but after some mommy cuddle time and warm towels he was standing back on the platform by the end of the hour.  After our little accident I was anxious that he may not get back in the water at all for this season.  Much to our surprise our trouble is getting Trace out of the water, not in it!

Noal on the other hand doesn't care much for boating.  I can't say I blame him, he has to sit in a life jacket that keeps his little neck straight up and is really uncomfortable if he is trying to sleep.  However; we don't waiver the life jacket rule on the Mitchell Moomba!  Noal does enjoy the water and riding, but when we are just floating so Trace can swim and he just has to sit in the boat he is not a happy camper.  I am sure next year when he can wear a puddle jumper and get in the water to swim because his tubes have fallen out he will love the lake as much as Trace does.  For now we either take Yaya along to help or leave him at home with a sitter; which he enjoys much more!

As for Daddy and me, we are just spending time learning how to wakeboard.  I was pretty excited because I hadn't tried in three years to wakeboard because I was pregnant, nursing, and then pregnant again.  Needless to say when I got up on the first try I was extremely excited.  Chad is doing really well learning how to jump the wake and for now I am just still excited that I get up on the water.  Pictures of that to come later. 

All in all I am glad that it is summer time, now if I could just get a job where I get summers off things would be perfect...  Hello grad school!