8 months

my adorable 8 month old is quite the little mover. no crawling yet, but lots of leaning and rocking and rolling...basically anything to move in the direction he wants to go but crawl...soon though, very soon! he has also added biter biscuits to his menu, soon to be followed by cheerios and other finger foods. he doesn't have any teeth yet but he can't seem to keep his hands, paci, toys, well basically everything out of his mouth so i am sure a tooth will break through soon. sometimes i truly can't believe what a blessing our son is....He truly is a great God!

ca or ma?

for a few weeks now, joey and i had been planning a trip to san fran to celebrate our 5 year anniversary....but when the flights were full we switched gears and headed to boston (my dad works for the airline so we flew standby and had to pick a city we could actually get too). we had a great time just being with each other, although we did miss max alot (he stayed with my mom and stepdad-thanks g and pop!). here are a few pics!

in boston common (like central park-but with more history)

the gate to the public gardens-made famous by the book "make way for ducklings"
joey with some modern art at the bmfa

enjoying the dessert of our lives at place near harvard called finale...a must eat for anyone desiring great food and even better desserts!

joey with his old pal at cheers....everyone knows his name (but i don't-is this cliff or norm?)

the famous duckling statues from "make way for ducklings"-we brought home the book for max as a souvenir

preach on! in a pew at the old north church (famous for lighting the signal that prompted paul revere's midnight ride)

we took a tour of the freedom trail....pretty interesting even for my hubby (who is not a history buff)

outside paul revere's house

unfortunately it rained all day our 2nd day so we didn't get to go to salem to check out the witch stuff, but i am sure we will go to boston again someday....with max this time :)

navarre beach

for one of our summer trips, we went to navarre beach (near destin, florida) with our wonderful friends, the stewarts. we were able to stay with some of matt's high school friends, which was awesome. they had a great house near the beach with a pool and hot tub and were the best hosts ever! thanks you guys!

on our last day of the trip, max slept through two of our meals...guess we wore the little guy out!

we love the beach!

joey enjoying his donuts from the donut hole in destin.

i LOVE this pic...it was taken on the beach in seaside

and this one too....as you can tell, he enjoys the beach (particularly the eating sand part :)

in seaside, after some delicious tacos and sangria!

this is max with our host's dog bea (french for beauty)...he adored her...he was so busy watching the dog and the kids run around that he wasn't even interested in eating!

max: chillin' by the beach

mom and dad: chillin' with some pina coladas and a hot tub :)

what a great trip...with lots of memories!

happy independence day!

1st 4th as a family of 3!
the 1st part of our 4th weekend was spent camping in mineral wells with joey's parents...but it got too hot so we packed up and had our cookout indoors at his brothers house!

"mom, i'm a little warm...and its only 9am!"

then on the 4th, we went to my mom's house and swam and had another cookout.

"what's more american then the boston red sox? right, uncle jd!"

thanks for my red, white, and blue outfit g!

that night, we watched the fireworks in our neighborhood. max seemed to like them, no tears!

check, check, and check!

swim lessons done for the summer....check!

windows fixed......check!

no more vacuuming while max is awake.....check!


that's right, we had a big day at the vanderveer house. i finished up my swim lessons, joey and my dad fixed our broken windows (thanks for working hard joey and for all your help dad!), and we discovered that max is terrified of the vacuum (and i mean screaming the loudest i have ever heard him terrified)....guess i'll have to get creative to clean this house!