Baby Jane

She has finally arrived!! Baby Jane Alexa Lourcey was born this morning at 9:33am (6/11/09) and was 8lbs and 20 inches long. From what I can see thus far she looks A LOT like Emily did as a baby! I can not wait to meet her in person!! More pics will follow soon.

SUMMER!!!

Summer is officially here!! Blazing hot days, breakfast at the beach, trips to the pool, VBS, sundresses, flip flops, and watermelon are the norm for the next 3 months! This summer also brings some awesome changes in our lives...

1) Luke is on a 12 week tour!! 12 weeks is A LONG time to be apart but thankfully, because my work schedule is lighter during the summer, I am going to be able to fly out and spend some time with him on the road. I am leaving on Thursday night to meet up with Luke for a few days and I could not be more excited! I miss him terribly, but we are so excited about what God is doing for Since October right now (that info in a very lengthy blog to follow shortly.)

2) I am not keeping any kids for the summer. Tyson's mom is home on maternity leave, so I am spending my summer focusing soley on church work. We are doing a MAJOR restructuring of our Children's Department right now, so this is allowing me to focus all of my time and energy on building leadership and relationships with my Team Members.

3) I am getting to do a little design work this summer, as I am designing the new office building (space planning and furniture wise) for our church. We are in the process of building a new building on 40 acres on SR 64, and we are putting a 6000 sq ft office building on the property as well. Our move in date for the office building is August 1st, so I have already begun working on this project. I am really excited to get to do a little design work this summer!!

4) Beach vacation with my fam is coming up in July and I am looking forward to spending a week on the beach, relaxing, reading, and working on my tan!!

5) Luke's cousin Jonathon is getting married on July 11th in Tennessee, and Luke is in the wedding. I will be flying up to Tennessee to spend a few days with Luke's sister Heidi before I meet up with Luke for the wedding. I am super excited about getting to meet baby Shepard for the first time!

I think that about wraps up what is going on with us right now. I apologize for not being a better blogger, but I can't seem to find time to sit down and blog these days!

I leave you with another super cute picture of Tyson with sweet watermelon juice dripping off of his chin!! I love this little boy!!

Babies, Babies, Everywhere!!!

We have had A LOT of new babies enter our family and our lives over the past few weeks and I wanted to share them with all of you!!

Our nephew Shepard Graham Cooley was born on May 2nd. Shepard is Luke's sister Heidi's 2nd baby and he is such a cutie!! Luke has seen Shepard twice since he was born and I am SUPER jealous!! Though I will get my Shepard fix in July when I fly up to Nashville to spend a week with him and his big sister Savannah!

On Friday May 8th my friend Stephanie, whom I worked with at Chancey Design, welcomed her twin girls into the world! Peyton Emma and Hannah Debra are super cute and super tiny! I spent this past Sunday afternoon with Stephanie, Drew, and the girls and I got to hold these precious babies for hours! It is so amazing to me how Stephanie already has them on such a great schedule and is taking care of the two of them by herself while her husband is at work. She is Amazing!!!

And Last Wednesday, my little Tyson became a big brother when his mom had our precious baby Chloe Sky Tullio! She is so amazing and looks SOOOO much like Tyson!! However, she surprised us all when she came out with a head full of black hair, just like her daddy!!! (T's hair is definitely a lighter blondish/brown like Meadows). Everyone a the Tullio house is adjusting well and I am loving getting to spend time with both Tyson and Chloe. I love helping Mike and Meadow take care of there precious babies!!!

And Baby Jane... she is coming soon!! Although she is not due until June I am confident that she is going to join this group of May babies!! We will have to wait and see :)

Rage and Brady

A few weeks ago I kept Brady for Ashley one day. He and Rage have not really cared much for each other up until this point. Rage barely recognized that Brady was around, and Brady cried when Rage would bark. After spending a day together they became pretty good friends. Brady would watch Rage walk around the house and would laugh and smile at him. Rage, of course, loved to lick Brady!! Here are a few pics from our day.

Children's Parade

Last week Ashley and I took Tyson and Brady to the Children's Parade in Palmetto. My boy was so precious in his sunglasses and black hi-top Converse!!

Brady enjoyed his time at the Parade, and did surprisingly well when the loud firetrucks came by.

Tyson's favorite part of the parade were the firetrucks, fireman dog, and the drum brigade!

He even scored some beads!! Tyson LOVES bead necklaces!! He has an entire tupperware filled with them at home :)

We had a great day hanging with Ashley and Brady!

Easter Egg Hunt

On Friday Tyson and I went to an Egg Hunt with the Jerome girls. He had a great time playing at the park and searching for eggs. He had a practice run on the egg hunting thing at the Bayside Eggstravaganza, but was a little overwhelmed there by the 1000s of people and 46,000 eggs!!! This smaller Egg Hunt seemed to suit him better.

Darcy and Tyson driving!

Looking at the fish in the creek.

Signing "More"... he wanted more eggs... I know... Isn't he SOOO Precious!!

Tyson sat down in Amelia and Kelsey's stroller to keep Kelsey company.
Unfortunately, Kelsey was not thrilled to have Tyson in her stroller!!

(Meadow this is the Maclaren Twin Techno... just to give you an idea of what it looks like, and how "T" fits in it :)

Catch Up...

So much has happened since my last post. Life has been crazy (as always) and so this post is going to be a brief catch up of all the major things going on in our lives right now.

1) Since October recently signed an upstreaming deal with Capitol Records. Capitol has been working S.O.'s music in the mainstream market. In light of all of this, S.O. debuted this week on the Active Rock charts at #36!!! That's right, S.O. officially has a top forty rock song!! It is really cool to see Since October right next to bands like U2 and ACDC! More updates to come! I have included a link to the active rock charts below.

http://www.radioandrecords.com/RRWebSite20/Members/Charts.aspx?ChartId=2

2) Luke was offered a sponsorship with Dean Guitars. This means that if he decides to sign with them, Dean will be giving him 3 complementary guitars and incredible discounts on any guitars after that. In exchange, Luke will play Dean guitars at his shows, and will also do some promotional events for Dean. On 3/28 Dean will be coming out to Luke's show in Tampa with Flyleaf to record interviews and the live performance for a promotional piece that will be put on Dean's website.

On Tuesday, Luke and I were invited up to the Dean Guitar headquarters in Tampa to tour their factory. It was one of the coolest days of our lives!! While we were touring the factory we were able to see these extremely large machines making guitars! They would take a piece of wood, and within a few minutes the machine would cut out this perfectly precise guitar shape. The warehouse portion of Dean is incredible impressive as well. The warehouse was about the size of a Sam's club and it was packed full of guitars... floor to ceiling!!

I wish we had been able to take pictures to show everyone just how cool this place was, but Dean has patented machinery and methods that can't be exposed!!

Luke picked up his first Dean guitar on Wednesday, and it is "Stunning" to say the least. When the Dean employee opened the box to show us the guitar for the first time, I literally gasped!!

3) I (April) have been EXTREMELY busy writing the curriculum for Kindergarten and 1st Grade for the "Warrior"Series. This is a series that we are doing at Bayside right now in Main Service, as well as in the Children's Ministry. It is a 6 weeks series on the Armor of God and it is going wonderfully!! Even though it takes a lot of time and planning I really enjoy writing curriculum. The most rewarding part, by far, is that the kids are really getting it!! I see them wearing their Belts of Truth proudly around church and it just makes my heart soar!! I am loving the kids and my Team Members so much! I am so blessed to get to work with these people!

4) Pioneer Park Days has come and gone and I must say that is a HUGE relief for both Luke and I! Luke was such a fabulous husband during that crazy time!! He was so patient with me as I made hairbows for the past 2 months and he was a HUGE help last week in setting up our booth and making my Bow display.

Although Pioneer Park was not exactly what we expected it to be, we still had a great time hanging out with Mom, Ash, Em, and Cadence and we made a lot of wonderful memories.

For example, I don't think any of us will quickly forget this guy...

His booth was behind ours and he had a HUGE "Crack" problem :)

Or Em's "cankles"!! Poor Meme... Florida heat, pregnancy, and 5 days outside and on her feet did not agree with her.

Here are some shots of our booth and displays.

Rage also enjoyed his time at PPD... although he only got to come one day for a few hours, because we were afraid he would "scream" and scare away costumers.

5) One of the best things about Pioneer Park was a visit from Ashleigh and Cadence. Cadence is getting so big and she is such a fun little girl to have around. Not to mention, she is a perfect model for my hairbows!!

Friday night, after Em's shower, Kagan and Cadence decided to dress up!! Cadence makes a PERFECT Jasmine...

And Kagan was a pretty stinkin cute Barbie :)

6) And to finish it up... We also had Emily's Baby Shower last weekend.

Although Liz lives sooooo far away, she was still able to attend the shower via Skype. I love technology!!

So that is what we, The Grahams, have been up to lately. I hope that life will calm down a little and that I will be able to blog more frequently in the near future... but I am not counting on it :)