Tae's new watch & Eli's first baby food!

This hair band was his 'timer' before we bought the watch. So cute he would look at it and say "it's time to go"

Wow, we have a lot of firsts today!  Well just two, one each kid.  We'll start with Tae.  It is so crazy watching your kids get older right in front of your eyes.  Tae watches people and notices things that 3 year olds just don't pick up.  Very observant.  Well Daddy wears a watch.  Poppy wears a watch.  Why shouldn't Tae have a watch?  He started asking Daddy for a watch a little while ago.  Well we don't really buy our kids things other than necessities outside of Christmas and birthdays, so naturally we said "at Christmas, Daddy will get you a watch."  Tae was kinda okay with that but still proceeded to ask about a watch every day.  Well then just the other day Lavar found got a contract and found out that he would be leaving for France within the next couple days.  We were at Target running errands and I saw Spiderman watches.  I mean we had to.  I showed Var and he just held up the basket.  I was little surprised, I thought it would take a little more coaxing than that, but Daddy is a sucker for his little man wanting to be just like him.  We bought it.  When Lavar got it out of the bag to give to him Tae said "Whoa.  That is so cool.  I don't need this anymore."  He proceeded to take off the hair tie that he was keeping around his wrist as his makeshift 'timer' until Christmas.  It was so cute.  I made him put it back on because I wanted to get a picture and he was not happy about that!  Here are some pics of our watch opening.

Daddy trying to figure the watch out

Tae climbed on the counter and couldn't wait

Daddy putting it on

Tae showing Poppy.  Notice the Spiderman swim trunks.

Tae showing Eli.  Eli is very excited about it.

Onto our next first of the night.  Eli had rice cereal for the first time!  Some might think it is a little early, and it is, but people don't normally have kids that are as big as mine.  Eli was 16 pounds at 2 months.  I mean this kid is solid.  Not even really fat and chunky, just solid.  I started Tae at 10 1/2 weeks.  Eli was doing fine and I am in no hurry so I didn't think about it.  Then recently within the last week he has been crankier and getting hungrier than usual.  He actually woke up once in the middle of the night and he hasn't done that since 8 weeks.  So I thought it was time.  I wanted to give it a try and see how he did with it.  Well as my kids usually do with food, he did great.

   

He was so happy!  At first he didn't really understand, but once he started getting the hang of it he loved it!  He was getting a little anxious in between bites.  He ate that whole bowl.  Yep, I have big kids.

enjoying his baby food!

WOW, I mean really!

Look at that boy! So handsome!

❤LOVE❤ this picture. What a face!

And then there is my crazy 3 year old... Crazy, but I love him!

Our next adventure...

Oh my gosh, I am so  nervous and anxious.  I have so many mixed emotions.  We just found out yesterday that our next location will be St. Ettienne, France!!  It is about 45 minutes south of Lyon, France which is the third biggest city in France... I think.  It's up there anyway.  Lavar might have to leave tomorrow.  This is the part that I hate about our lifestyle.  Even though I love the opportunities we have with living in other countries and experiencing different cultures, we have to leave home.  I feel like Lavar just got here and now he is leaving again.  I feel like we haven't really gotten to experience the summer.  Because of our lifestyle it is hard to maintain friendships throughout the cities that we live in.  I know that a big part of that is me and that I need to do a better job with being a good friend to people.  The other part is that people honestly don't understand our lifestyle, (I don't expect them to) and they have their own.  They don't need friends so why reach out?  It is hard.  But the last thing I want to happen is in 6 or so years when my husband is done playing and we come back to So Cal and live a 'normal' life for me to look back at our time spent traveling and regret how I lived.  I have an opportunity some people only dream of (and some people think I'm crazy).  I get to live in another country and experience another culture.  Europe is at my fingertips.  Everything is just a little train ride or flight away.  I am putting my 3 year old son in preschool this year to learn French.  I've always wanted to learn another language and to learn from such a young age.  He won't even have an accent in either language.  I wish someone could have done that for me.  Hopefully he can appreciate it later.  I get to experience the world.  And although this might not be appealing to some people, I have always loved travel, adventure, and different. (I mean look who I married!)

So here it is, our next adventure.  I am nervous and anxious and excited all at the same time.  I keep telling myself all the fun things, the benefits of our life right now because when I don't actually believe them, if I say them enough it will be true!  I know once I am there it will be great.  I just hate leaving my wonderful family and taking my son away from all his awesome cousins and friends.  This is our life, crazy or not, so I have to make the best of it!