some fun pictures of the boys...

Well... spring is in full force around these parts! This means wedding season is in full force, so i'm busy busy with my makeup artistry business, my kids are chomping at the bit all the time to go outside, greg is busy working more and more and there just arent enough hours in the day to do everything we all want to do!

I have had some pretty fun jobs this month aside from the weddings (which I do truly love to do!) including a Charter Media/Ford/Nascar commerical and a Heros Among Us story for People Weekly. Fun times!

These pictures were taken this past sunday! We had a family fun day outside in the water. :D Ok, so the boys played in the water and I just took pictures!!!

Gabe discovers the puddle

Gabe discovers the FUN of the puddle

And now both the boys discover the puddle...

Who can get there first?! And can you tell them apart?

Jack gets his turn...

The boys play in the hose to get cleaned off before getting muddy again

Our silly dog that likes to eat the water

And that concludes our fun day in the sun!

2 years ago today little gabe-ster was born!

This is just a picture of him at 1 week old... man how time flies!

Recently Gabe joined Jack in the ranks of preschool! He absolutely LOVES it!!! He's the only one in his class who hasnt cried. And his teacher's have nicknamed him Mr. Happy.

In fact, today, when we dropped Jack off at school and gabe was NOT going... he cried. Because he wanted OUT of the car! He said no, i want schoooooool. So he is definitely enjoying himself!

Here are some pictures of his first day...

(he must have heard the rumor there was homework in preschool so he's practicing on his computer)

(very proud of his school bag like big brother Jack's)

Told ya he was proud of it, i was asking him to hold it... not hold it up, just hold it!

Here's Gabe and Jack getting ready to head to school!

More school updates to follow i'm sure!!!

Jack as a ring bearer!

Yep, i'm horrible at keeping this blog updated, i'm aware! This past week the boys and I traveled to Indiana and then to Nebraska for my cousin, Adam's wedding. Jack was the ringbearer and was just so cute! Here are some pictures... I will post some other pictures of our trip shortly!

(He looks buff! Thats because they didnt have a vest his size and we had to make the part around his waist cinched as tight as it would go to fit him, so the top made him look like "a super hero" (according to HIM!)

(notice he is not wearing any socks, it was the only way i could make a deal with him to wear his shoes!)

The pictures SHOULD be large enough that you can download them and print them if you'd like. The first picture was taken with my cell phone, so that one might not print well.

New cell phone shortly though with an 8 megapixel camera! Hello easy pictures and posting! :D

Spring is Here!

Spring is here, spring is here, it's the best time of the year!

Well it has been BEYOND gorgeous here! Yesterday, i promised the kiddos that we would have a day of fun! We we went out for ice cream and took the (very busy!) park downtown. I decided, beautiful days are not the days for me to take the boys downtown by myself. At least not if we plan to stop and play as both boys would see something they wanted to check out and it was always at the same time and in opposite directions!

Mama about had a heart attack a few times. But all was well and we had LOADS of fun!

I also am slowly trying to take over Greg's camera. :) My little point-n-shoot is fine and takes pictures just fine, but i want to take some WOW pictures. So very slowly i'm learning this thing. One day i'll just bling it out with rhinestones so that he will never want to touch it again! :) BWAHAHAHAHAA!

Ok, evil laughs aside, here are some photos I took...

Now i realize these aren't professional quality by any means, but I'm having a lot of fun learning the camera and hopefully some day, i'll get there! :D

Gabe turns 1!!!

I cant believe my little baby is 1 year old today!!!!  The time certainly goes by so fast!

Here are some pictures from his party yesterday...

New birthday present from Gramma and Bopi!

Gabe sittin' in the rocks... a favorite pastime!

One of the less messy cake pictures!

Gabe fell asleep right after his bath from the cake-tastrophe (by the way, i think i was listening to someone's story...not just vacantly looking out in the distance... hahaha)

He's still got those baby cheeks!

After Gabe woke up and discovered his balloon!

Happy 4th of July

I cant believe it's already July!  Where in the world is the summer going?!

Gramma and Bopi are in town for the 4th (katie's parents) and the boys couldnt be happier!  We did some fun things yesterday and i snapped these pictures of Gabe watching the dogs at petsmart!

We were lucky enough last month to have Gramma and Great Grammie (katie's mom and grandma) visit for a few days! Sorry i never got those pictures posted, but here they are!







During that visit, Gabe was baptized...



I'll try to get some good pics today while bopi is in town too and get them posted soon! :)

GABE IS WALKING!

Yes, you read that title correctly! My sweet little baby just turned 8 months 1 week ago (a week ago yesterday to be exact) and now the little bugger is walking!!!!! Although it's a little frankenstein-ish and he doesnt go very far before he gets too excited and waves his arms wildly in the air which of course causes him to lose balance and fall flat out on his tushy. But he does get up all on his own (he's been getting himself to a standing position without pulling up on anything for about a month).

I'm not sure i'm ready for this!

Here's some recent family pics you might enjoy...








As for the rest of the cotton clan... Greg is busier than ever with work (which is both good and bad!) My stamp company is doing very well and I'm entering wedding season as well as continuing to teach classes at a local scrapbook store (did someone forget to tell me how many hours there are in a day?) Jack finished his first year of preschool and will start a summer school/camp program on June 9th! He's growing up so fast! And he says the funniest things these days! I know i'm not good enough about posting on here, but i'll try to be better this summer. You know, it's not like i have much else going on. hehehe.

time flies

my oh my how time flies! Gabe turned 6 months last week (and had his 6 month check up, he's just under 21 pounds!). Jack has his first round of school pictures on thursday. Where does the time go?!

Things are busy as usual in the cotton house. In my attempts to multitask i sometimes let Jack entertain the baby so i can get something done. This is what happened the last time i did this. Mind you we were all in the same room. But i was working away while Jack was making gabe crack up. As long as i heard laughter and not crying, things were good. Until i turned and saw this... at least Gabe thinks it's funny for now!



This was actually a few weeks ago. Then last night I apparently had a lapse of judgement again. Jack asked if he could feed Gabe his dinner. I needed to start our own mac and cheese for dinner (greg was working) and throw a load of laundry in the wash and since this is all in the same room, again i think, this is an ok thing to do. I show Jack that gabe needs "small bites" which he did a good job of... when it actually went in his mouth!



Here's a cute picture of the boys together... i went to also take video but silly me forgot i cant turn the camera sideways when shooting video!





You'll just have to turn your head to the side to watch it. :)

Just a little update

Things are going well here in the Cotton household. Jack turns 3 on Tuesday! i can't believe it! It seems like just yesterday he was Gabe's age! Now he recognizes words even and can tell me which show he wants to watch in the DVR. He's just so smart and it amazes me everyday!

Gabe is growing up too fast too. The other day the little bugger started to try and crawl! He saw a toy he wanted across the room and by golly he was going to get it!

These pictures i also took the other day so i thought you'd all want to see!

I've recently been scolded a bit for not updating here more. I apologize! It's been a busy busy time in the Cotton household, so forgive how incredibly long this post might get!

Wow, so I havent had an update here since Christmas huh? Ok, every right to scold me! For the Holidays we traveled up to Indiana and it was a lot of fun. Mostly a lot of downtime (which I am currently craving since it's been SO busy!). The boys did very well in the car and for that i was very very thankful!

Once we got back to South Carolina, I decided (with a bit of a shove from Greg) to start my ow stamp company. It was something i had been wanting to do for sometime. However, Greg is kinda a do it now kinda guy so once he was on board, it was time to move! So the first weeks of January were ones busy with creating some designs, contacting some illustrators, and just getting the whole thing in motion. The second half of the month was a lot of website building and marketing. I guess i never realized what all goes into the start of a company! My January just FLEW by!

Also during Janurary... Jack went back to school and Gabe had his 4 month check up. Our little linebacker weighed in at 17 lbs 12 oz! Yes thats right, bigger than a butterball turkey, he was almost 18 pounds!

Here's some January Pics for ya...


I love this one. Doesnt it look like Gabe is telling Jack a secret?






Then February hits and Paper Makeup Stamps is open for business! I know only some family and friends read this blog and you arent paper crafters, but if you're interested in seeing the website, here it is. Paper Makeup Stamps.

My mom came in town February 4th and we drove up to Greensboro North Carolina to meet my dad at ACTF (American College Theatre Festival). I'm pretty sure most who read this know what i'm talking about, but for the 1 or 2 that dont, my dad travels around to all the regional festivals every year. Last year when the region i live in was at Clemson i taught a couple of makeup workshops and they asked if i would do it again this year in Greensboro). We got back this past Saturday and mom went home on Sunday.

So now life is leveling out a weeeeee bit. We're all still super busy but i guess thats the way we like it since we never seem to change anything about it! :)

I'll try to be better about updating more often! :)