"Summer Lovin', Had Me a Blast"

I would like to send out my deepest condolences to our friends in the Haynes Family. As a friend of mine (Krystle Ponder) put it, "they have a beautiful little angel watching over them." Their sweet grand-daughter who just celebrated her first birthday passed away. Please, please pray for their whole family. I can't begin to comprehend what they need or how to help, but I am praying for God to comfort their family in a way that only He can. We love you guys so much!

We took a little trip over to the "ocean side" of Stocking Island the other day with Ann Ligon and her boys. The water is always cooler and more refreshing this time of year on the ocean side of the island. Joss was having fun letting Scuffy float in the tide pools (which are really cool over here). 

(I LOVE this shot of him)

Here we are playing in one of the tide pools, and below Joss is exploring one of the little "caves" in the rocks. 

He was scared when he got through to the other side and couldn't see Daddy, but he was brave enough to walk through it again with Scuffy :) 

The sand on this beach is truly amazing. There are tiny shells all in the tide line, and the texture of it is so different than the sand everywhere else down here. You can see Joss and Daddy in the back exploring the rock shaped like an airplane. We couldn't keep Joss from going up there. 

Joss has really enjoyed having The Morton boys living next door. Hagen here is his little buddy :) Joss has learned to tell him, "Be nice, Hagen" if they get really excited and he gets that 'look' in his eye. Hagen likes to nibble, but he's already so much better with it. Joss has heard Hagen's mommy say that to him, so he thinks he can say it now too. They were having fun here dancing to "Mighty Machines". Joss' nickname has become 'Bossy Jossy' (thanks to Dallas) because he likes to tell all the boys to dance and sit here, play with this, don't do that... 

I'm glad that he isn't a little push-over though because he really hasn't spent too much time with other little ones. He's holding his ground though. 

Emit has fun with the boys too as long as it doesn't get too crazy. He gets overwhelmed (as does Mommy) if things get too chaotic with 5 running around and starts running to me with a pleading look in his eye like, "Help Me, Please!" They've all been adjusting really well though. Joss has also learned the word "MINE" since meeting Caleb, Mason & Hagen :) He uses it all the time now (even if they aren't around). Learning to share is a constant lesson these days. Joss always asks, "Is he finished yet?" if someone is playing with a toy that he wants to play with. It is amazing how you can have 5 boys of various ages from almost a year to almost seven and they can all want the same random toy at the exact same time!

I have a huge box of newspapers that Dallas' parents sent us a couple weeks ago so I could try to do some little crafts/projects with the boys. This is one that I wanted to try. It's a Geodesic Dome made out of newspaper. It works pretty well...it didn't last very long after Emit got a hold of it, but it was pretty fun for a bit at least. The stapler about got the better of me though and almost got thrown out the window.

Just for fun I thought you might get a kick out of "nap time" earlier today. Some days it is just not happening on mommy's time at all. Times like these I'm glad I have this video monitor and can see what's going on with all that noise. 

Joss ran straight out to "Help Dad" after his nap the other day. And Emit wasn't going to get left out... he had to lend a hand too. :) You can see his little purple lip on the one below where he fell the other day. Poor little guy.

Just a little background info for this next video. Bahamians have a phrase called "Muddasick" or "Muddo". Since I cannot come up with my own definition to explain this very well... I'll use the definition from our Talkin' Bahamian by Patricia Glinton-Meicholas. She says, it is "another very popular exclamation of surprise, especially popular with young boys. Just as you would not address the chairman of the board as 'M'boy', you would not exclaim 'Muddo!' in the boardroom when you learn that the company profits are down." Part of the initiation when I first started hanging out with The Knowles' boys in college was to learn how to say it, and if you're really good to learn how to pop your fingers like true Bahamians can. Just FYI-- I never got the finger pop down, and I never say this, but as Dallas' son, Joss was bound to learn it at some point. I love this little guy for doing all our weird little tricks with him :) 

Every time we go to the beach Joss wants to dig a hole. Emit really likes it too, but his way of enjoying the hole is to get right inside it, while you're still trying to dig it :) Joss likes to see how deep we can get it, but Emit just wants to get in... soon as he sees us digging. They both got in one the other day and I couldn't resist. 

Emit has gotten much better about eating sand. He still likes to chew on shells and rocks and stuff on the beach, but he doesn't just outright eat it anymore. 

Joss' thing lately is learning his independence. He is constantly telling us, "I do it myself." Whether it's brushing his teeth, putting his clothes on, fixing a toy, or whatever he thinks he can do or wants to try to do himself. We  were deciding what to watch the other day and Joss goes walking across the room and says, "I turn the X-Box on!" Dallas got this really shocked expression on his face since he hadn't heard him say x-box before, but it sounded so cute. 

He'll go in phases with a book-of-the-day kind of thing or something, and recently he's really enjoyed the first half (I don't know if he's made it all the way through or not) this old book called Vulcan. Joss would come up at random times throughout the day asking us for "Funkin'" and we had no idea for the longest what he was asking for and then it finally clicked. It's so funny how some things take a little longer to translate than others... and that particular one took us a while. 

Joss will also do this thing when he's trying to tell us something and we aren't quite getting it... let's say it was the "Funkin'" thing. Well, he'll say "Funkin'" and we'll say, "What are you saying sweetie?" and his response will be "Oh, that one!!" Because so many times when I finally figure out what he's asking me for I'll finally get it and say, "OH, that one" or "OH, VULCAN!" But he thinks if he just says, "Oh, that one!" then I'll figure it out quicker or something. 

Emit sending everyone a GOOD NIGHT :)