a "family" reunion :)

The fourth of July was a great day and brought a "family"reunion of sorts. Two families of friends of mine from highschool were in town for the holiday and so we all met for lunch at Panera.

This is the "Burch Bunch"...or at least part of them. Terry, Mike, Sarah, and Matt. I have known them since my homeschool days, rode with them to youth group many times, hung out at their house, took a trip with Terry and her other son, Daniel, and babysat and changed Sarah's diaper! (Ha! She'll love knowing I put that on here!) They are an awesome family and I miss having them just down the street.

Sarah enjoys a cold drink on the hot day. :) I can't believe how old she is!

Rusty is another friend from highschool. I actually met him through Matt Burch (in the first picture) and then his wife, Rachel and I wrote letters to each other when she an Rusty were in college together so that when he brought her down to TN to meet his family for the first time, she would at least have one friend already down here! :) I even had the privilege of being in their beautiful wedding up in Maine, where Rachel is from. (The trip I took with Terry Burch and her son Daniel!) Being with these two families brings back so many fun memories!! :) The time we had was way too short and the time in between visits is always waaaay too long.

Anna and Corban

Baby Joel. He is 17 days older than my baby but a bit tinier and at least on that day, was a lot more quiet! :}

This is 3 year old RJ. I think all of Rusty and Rachel's kids are adorable and sweet, but RJ is just wonderful! He eyes have soo much sparkle in them and he has so much personality. He is defiitely all boy and his little impish grin makes it seem like he is dreaming up some fantastic way to get dirty or get in trouble! :}

ever feel...

...like you are losing your mind?? I have had lots of friends say that once you become pregnant for the first time, your brain and memory is never the same. :} Well, I've never been pregnant...but I think having three kiddos all day every day has had generally the same effect on me. And I enjoy knowing that I'm not the only one who does dumb things sometimes, or forgets things other times, etc. So because I figure I'm not the only one who appreciates hearing about those moments...I will share this one with you.

I leave this Saturday for two weeks and so this week is very busy with getting camp crafts planned and supplies bought, as well as packing, cleaning the house, still making time to spend with friends, and all this after being with my kids all day. So the other day as I was in a hurry to get out to the store, yet again, for more craft supplies, I quickly slipped on my favorite of all shoes - flipflops! - and went to find my shopping list, purse, cell phone, keys, etc. After about five minutes of searching for the assortment of items needed just to leave the house (and this with no kids to take with me!), I finally stepped out the door onto my deck, which is when I realized that something did not feel quite right. I looked down and, well, .... see for yourself...

I can't tell you how thankful I am that I didn't make it all the way to the store like this! Although, then I would have had an excuse to buy another pair of flipflops....! :)

water babies

Our favorite activity these days is swimming in the pool in our back yard. Every time we look out the window, the sparkling blue water is twinkling at us in the sun, tempting us to head outside for another swim session. Here are a bunch of pictures from one day last week. (I realize I tend to put more pictures on my blog than my other friends...hope you don't mind them all!) :)

My oldest had swimmer's ear last week and wasn't allowed in the pool. Finally, on this particular day, her ear seemed on the mend, although not completely better, so I allowed her to hang out on the steps and instructed her to be careful not to get water in her ears. She did just as she was told and was perfectly happy just to be back in the water again. :) She is my sweetie!

This is my middle child, trying out our new goggles and flippers.

Getting ready to jump...

jumping...

almost in the water....

SPLASH!!!

Ok, here come a bazillion pics of the baby! I know most of the time the baby of the family gets little or no pictures taken...but in this case, he is sort of my first baby...so he is definitely not lacking in the picture department! :)

The first couple times in the pool, he fussed the whole time and just wanted to be held out of the water. Now he's over that and LOVES going in the pool! He swims all around and loves to jump in and spin in circles.

In the middle of a spin.

He also loves going down the slide...

and doesn't even care when he goes all the way under!

"Ha ha! My hair didn't even get wet!"

"Kick, baby, kick!"


Swimming is great all around - the kids love it, I love it, and Mommy and Daddy love it because it makes for three very sleepy children come bedtime! :)

perfect sunday

I love days that leave you feeling like life is wonderful and appreciating the fun of living close to family and friends. Sunday was one of those days. After church in the morning, followed by a quick trip to Starbucks, Michael and I picked up a birthday cake and headed to Mom and Dad's house for lunch. Sunday was Mom's actual 60th birthday and Daniel and I had saved our presents for her to open then instead of at her surprise party a couple weeks ago.


The cake was a sweet cream ice cream cake with strawberries from the Marble Slab. Yum!! But since their ice cream cakes are mostly...ice cream...it was rather difficult to cut! Had to have the help of some strong guy...! :)

I sent Daniel into the pantry to find the candles. These are the ones he chose... :} and actually put on mom's piece of cake.

"100?! How about we just leave off one of the zeros!"

Ha! It is a well-known fact in our family that mom, um, likes to take her time making decisions. The card I found for her fit her perfectly! It had two pictures and one said "Reality TV: 'Well, it's the end of the weekend and we've completely finished redoing the house!'" The second picture said, "Reality: 'Well, it's the end of the weekend and we've narrowed it down to only 37 paint chips!" Yup! That's my mother!

Modeling the sarong I gave her for her upcoming trip to the beach in August.

Michael, being artistic with his camera....

After leaving Mom's house, Michael and I headed over to my place so he could do some fishing off my dock and I could do some planning for camp.

Poor worm.

Fishing off my dock. It was beautiful outside...although a bit on the toasty side!

The view from my dock. If you travel down the river in this direction, you would eventually come close to the airport, where you can sit and watch the airplanes take off over your head! I haven't ever done it, but I hear that it's fun. :)

After being thoroughly annoyed that the fish seemed to be eating the worms...and not the hook...we decided to take a break from the fishing/camp planning to go see the new movie Get Smart with Steve Carrol and Anne Hathaway. Hilarious. After the movie we came back to fish until 11ish. By that time it was dark and quiet on the river - the best time to sit on the dock. It had rained while we were gone, which had helped to cool off the air. Everything was peaceful. Michael never did actually catch a fish this time, but I did get some good camp planning accomplished!

Days like that don't happen all the time and when they do, it's easy to forget to slow down and enjoy them completely. This is where my little blog comes in handy...now it's down on "paper" and I won't forget my perfect Sunday. :)

happy days

Ok, so I found this ADORABLE little jacket at a favorite consignment store for just a couple dollars and could not pass it up! Since the girls were at preschool on Tuesday, when I originally started this post (internet wouldn't let me upload the pictures for some weird reason), I had the baby to myself...so we borrowed daddy's motorcycle and had some fun with the jacket. :) This is our tribute to Happy Days and "the Fonze", except he doesn't have enough hair do to it just like Fonzie. Oh well! :)

I suppose Fonzie didn't have a cool, black cellphone to carry around with him.... :)

If only I could hear what he was thinking....!

"Cool Dude!" This is how he gives a thumbs-up.

a boy and a harley...

He's watching out for cops as he speeds down the road. :}

Contemplating how sweet life would be - just him and his motorcycle and the wind in his plastered-down hair.

swim time!

We are all very excited now that it is warm enough to get in the "big pool" in our backyard! It is the girls' very favorite activity right now - and Kiki's too, for that matter! I even have the sunburn to prove it. :-p The baby isn't quite so sure about it yet, so we tend to go in when he is asleep. I would write more...but it's about time to get those bathing suits back on.....! :)

a surprise birthday luau

June 22 will be my mom's 60th birthday and I decided a long time ago that a surprise party would be in order for the occasion! I tried to find some theme that said "my mom" but called my best friend from the party store and complained that everything there said "kathryn!". :-p She suggested I just choose something fun and summery and since I was planning to have it out on my deck, overlooking the river, I decided a luau would be perfect.

These are the invitations I made for the party. I "stole" the idea off one of my favorite stamping/scrapbooking idea websites - http://www.splitcoaststampers.com/ .

To get my mom over to my house without raising suspicion, I asked her and Dad to come for an evening of dinner and games - something we do semi-often at her house. She said later that she never had a clue of the real reason I was having her over! :)


I HAD to get these when I found them at Party City! And I do NOT think my mom looks like she's about to be 60! (hope that runs in the family..... ;) )





Shishkabobs, baked potatoes, tossed salad, and fresh fruit seemed to fit the theme well. :)

Ok, so the decorations didn't turn out quite like I had envisioned....but we kind of ran out of time to decorate! Oh well, at least the effect is still sort of there. It of course decided to literally be 100 degrees outside last friday so we had all sweated a few buckets by the time everyone was here and ready to eat!! Thankfully, by the time we sat down, the sun had shifted and was not beating down on my deck.

I invited my mom's very oldest friends - mostly those we have known since we moved to TN when I was three years old. A few of them couldn't make it but we were excited to catch up with those that did. This is my mom's friend Carol. We met her and her daughter when I was four and taking gymnastics and we've been friends ever since. She and Emily are friends that we do not see nearly enough!

Daniel and Dad braving the hot weather outside. Yes, Daniel has a moehock and no, I do not know why.....

This is the beautiful cake that my friend, Leah made for me! Leah and I were in second grade together and ended up going to the same college. It was always fun to have someone else to talk to about home. :) She recently took a cake decorating class and learned that she has a real knack for making all kinds of icing/gumpaste/etc. flowers! Happily, she was very excited when I asked if she would make a cake for mom's party and I think it turned out amazingly well! The camera did not do justice to the colors of purple in the flowers. (And no, she did not make the butterfly or the little hummingbird, which I think are thoroughly adorable.) :)

A close-up of the bottom...

and of the top. It was a very yummy cake - white cake on the inside with an almond buttercream frosting underneath the fondant.

My family. :) I think it's funny that it looks like my brother and I have the same color hair in this picture! One of us has dyed our hair and I'll give you one guess as to which one of us it is! ;)

My best friend, Shannon, came over in the early afternoon to help me with all the food preparations. I definitely would not have been ready had she not come to help out!! (Thanks again, Shannon!) Shannon's baby hung out with us all day and was so good! :) He especially enjoyed the baby pool filled with ice and cokes!

This is the group that came - except for my brother who, like me, would much rather be on the other side of the camera taking the picture than be in it! :)

Overall I think the party was a success. Don't you just love this hat that one of mom's friends gave her?! Ha! She was very brave to let Dad take her picture in it! Happy Birthday Mom!