I love my wet little baby! 

We are loving our time outside this summer in all of our various pool forms. It's been fun to stay cool! 

Abe and Cai are such great friends. Abe decided he wanted to take a dip in Cai's baby pool, too. 

Cai is very into spraying the hose. 

He gets mad if it doesn't spray when he wants it to. Crazy boy. 

And he likes taking "DINKS" from the hose! 

Then I spray him between sips! 

Lots of fun for sure!

HAT!

Abe is seriously the best dog ever. I spend half of the time thinking he's a pesty puppy and the other half praising God that Micaiah has a furry play mate, because Abe seriously entertains Micaiah all.the.time! It's like having a babysitting sibling that sometimes is a little too wild and steps on you the wrong way... oh wait... that's normal in sibling rivalry, too, isn't it!?

Abe doesn't cry over spilt milk...even when Cai decides he should wear the rest of it!

Abe doesn't mind when you put a "hat" on him, no matter what kind...

Micaiah found these buckets that plants come in when we were playing outside. He decided they must be hats and kept saying "Hat! Hat!" Then, he put it on his own head and Abe's head! I thought it was hilarious!

Especially this one... I tried not to think how dirty they probably were...mostly because I was laughing so hard.

Seriously, these boys play together all the time like this. I don't know what I would do if we didn't have Abe. I know Micaiah would be so lonely AND clingy!

And I got some work done in my little garden area in the mean time!

The funny thing about having a boy is that he wants to play outside... a lot. I obviously can't leave him to play outside, so I've decided to try to put a little bit of a green thumb to work when he is digging in the dirt himself! Nothing like a boy in the dirt, either! haha!

Abe

Abe is a good dog. He follows us around EVERYWHERE! I can't even pee on the toilet without Abe finding me! Thank goodness for doors! They shut the babies and dogs OUT!

 Micaiah and Abe are best friends. I'm so glad that Micaiah can grow up with this sweet puppy dog. Abe let's Micaiah pull on him and crawl over him and even step on him, despite his pet peeve of people stepping on him.

And I love this little snow bear hat that my mom got Cai from Old Navy! It's just too cute! Thanks, Mama!

Uncle Tyler

I love my two brothers so much!!! Tyler and I are only 21 months apart and he has moved back to Columbia and is now looking for a job! He's a reserve marine and officer, but is now looking for a full-time job back here. I've loved having him around the house more and enjoy that he can spend some quality time with us!

I made him do a photo shoot with Cai and it turned out so sweet!!!

He is also dating the most sweet, precious, kind, godly girl, Ann-Marie! We love her to pieces!

They are pretty hilarious together.

 Tyler also has another favorite in the Traylor household and every time he spends the night, Abe sleeps outside his door and picks up and drops a ball over and over until Tyler wakes up to play with him!

Abe would play with him for hours! Maybe it has to do with the fact that Tyler wrestles him to the ground and rough houses with him! I'm pretty sure Tyler would steal Abe from us if we let him!

Over the weekend, Tyler taught Micaiah how to say "Unc" and sent me picture of Micaiah laying on his shoulder! So sweet!

Happy 2 Year Birthday, Abe!

Abe is our Golden Retriever! Today he is two years old! Happy Birthday, Abey Baby!

Here is Abe chillin' in our hammock as a big ole TWO year old dog! (above)

And here is Abey Baby as the cutest puppy in the whole wide world!

We like to enjoy lazy days, and mostly, Abe loves to swim in his MiMi & Pop's pool! We can't wait for those hot summer days! Abe will miss his Uncle Sage this year, pool-side, for sure.

Abe in action... always with a toy in his mouth, swimming!

Abey Baby

Our puppy is definitely a year old.... we got him last summer and he grew from what you see here to about 86 lbs. One thing has remained the same: our retriever LOVES water! You can see on my facebook photo albums that he was so crazy about agua, that he would actually try to get into the shower with me. Thankfully, he no longer does that! Last summer at the pool, we were working on learning to swim. He had a little bit of trouble keeping his bottom up. Look at that cute puppy! But... we have moved on to bigger and better things. Abe doesn't think twice before leaping as high into the air that he can after a ball thrown into the water!

No problems swimming now!

And, of course... he loves his "Uncle Sage."

Abe Traylor

(Sorry, this was scheduled to post on July 1st, but for some reason the scheduler didn't work)

The other news that I referred to yesterday is that.....Vanessa and I are now parents!!!!
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......
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Well sorta.

About 2 weeks ago the Lord blessed us with a puppy. It's a cool story. We both really wanted a puppy. My only 2 requirements were that it had to be a golden retreiver, and it had to be either given to us for free, or sold really cheap.

But after talking it over and over, we finally decided next summer would be a better time to get one. Our reasoning is that some of the fencing in our back yard needs work. One fence in the back is practically falling down, (and actually for a time those neighbor's dogs were coming into our yard). And another fence has some holes along the bottom. So we decided that we would save our money and next summer solve the fencing problems, and then look for a dog.

Well, the funny thing is, we decided that over a weekend. The following Monday my mom calls me up and said she happened to be looking at something like a Craigslist, but it's for nurses in the state of SC. She hadn't looked at it in a long time, but just happened to go to it on this day, and, you know how it is, sometimes you aren't paying attention, and you click the mouse, and end up clicking on a link you weren't even looking at. Well she did that, and up popped an add from a nurse over at Ft Jackson who was selling a 10 week old puppy for $100, and included with the puppy was a bag of its food, a cage, some toys and a leash. So my mom calls this lady to get the details, and finds out her husband works at Ft Jackson, and they have 3 kids already, 2 of which are special needs, and they are getting ready to adopt another child that is special needs. They had just bought the puppy, but when they found out they could adopt the child, they decided to sell the puppy because they couldn't handle a puppy ontop of everything else.

So my mom calls me and tells me what's up, and I call Vanessa. Vanessa and I are both very interested, but we decided to take some time to pray. So we hung up and after about an hour we called each other again, and both agreed that we should get the puppy. My parents live close to Ft Jackson, so that evening my mom went and got the dog, and went to my parents house and met our new puppy that we decided to name Abe.

Oh yeah, another cool blessing is that a few years back my parents bought Hannah and Mike one of those dog pen things (like 9ft by 5ft) for their dog. But they left it here in Columbia when they moved out west. So we are getting to use that right now. So, we are able to leave him outside now when we need to, and not have to worry he'll get out!

We've had him for about 2 weeks now, and he has been a joy! There are moments where I can't stand him (but that's at 2 in the morning when he's barking and wants to play, or leaves us a surprise on the living room floor when we are about to leave the house), but we're really excited to have him. Below are a couple more pictures of him, and a link to an album with lots of pictures of our Abe!

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To see pictures of Abe, you can go here.

Abe likes the Bible!

Abe with Uncle Sage

Abe went swimming

To see more pictures of Abe, you can go here.