Minnesota

Lucy Rae and I went to Minnesota for 4 days for 2 very special occasions. Big Grandpa's 80th birthday, and Keenan's baptism.

We flew in on Thursday and rented a car (lovely kia van) and drove the 3.5 hours to big grandpa's house in Northern Minnesota.

Lucy had a great time enjoying the BEAUTIFUL Minnesota fall weather.

and spending time with her only Great Grandparent

One not so fun part of the trip was having to do the "poopy dance" a LOT to try and get things moving for her. Poor baby.

Makenna, Bella and Cooper waiting for the baptism to start

My cousins Megan and Tom choose Myles and I to be their son Keenan's Godparents. We are so honored!

This was not so bad to wake up to 3 mornings in a row. :)

Myles telling me how not to hurt myself.

big grandpa with his oldest and youngest (for now:)) great-grandchildren. (Lucy is number 15! All but 4 of them were able to make it to his 80th birthday party)
Lucy is a HUGE fan of Big Grandpa... and Brayden too.. crazy hair and all. :)

Preschool Mothers Day Lunch

Brodey invited me to his school today for a Mother's Day lunch. He even picked out this special outfit for him to wear...

He reminded me a few time in the car to wear a dress when I came. I think he was nervous since I was dropping him off in my pajamas.
When I got there he pulled out my chair for me. Then he said, "mommy, would you like water or lemonade?" And then I almost cried because he is SUCH a nice little boy. So proud of him.

This is the gift he made for me... again, almost cried. I think I'm too emotional for him to be growing up so fast.

He was very proud of his work..

After we ate we played a little game, us mom's had to guess which piece of artwork was our child's. They said "My mom is special because...." and the kids answered. I knew right away which one was Brodey's. Some of them said their mom's were special because they were "cute" or "pretty" or "gave a lot of hugs"... Brodey's said: My mom is special because she plays Connect Four with me. :)

Then we came home and he made me a special mother's day chocolate cake! Love him.

I am such a proud momma!

No children in this post

This past weekend Jeff and I headed to Reynolds Plantation with some really good friends to celebrate our friend Andy's birthday. WITHOUT KIDS! It was fantastic. I am a huge fan of Andy's birthday!! We stayed at the Ritz and us girls were able to take FULL advantage of the Spa while the guys played golf.

This is a picture of the pool looking out over the lake... it was so beautiful.

4th of July!

Friday night, July 3rd, we went to the Kennesaw fireworks with several friends. The boys had a great time and they all.... even Lyla... loved the fireworks! As an extra special treat the boys got to have their first ever slumber party afterwards... their buddy Logan and his family came and spent the night with us. The boys all slept in sleeping bags on the floor and had such a blast. It was so cute to listen to them the next morning chatting about their favorite fireworks from the night before.

Lyla tried her first ever ice cream popsicle waiting for the fireworks to start. She loved it.. of course.
And I just like this picture.... :) haha

Logan and Brodey in their star shirts

Mama Gann brought sparklers... the boys didn't want to hold them but had fun watching everyone else with them.

When the fireworks started Brock was in awe. His face was SOOOO CUTE.. I wish I would have gotten a better picture. After I took this one he moved across the street with daddy to get a better view and Brodey sat in Mr. Clint's lap.

After staying up so late we got up early, had breakfast with our slumber party friends and then decided to skip nap and head to Gramma's to swim. From there we went to our friends Andy and Kristen's for a cookout. I took the following pictures to document how ridiculously tired they all were.

Don't they look excited??

Really we should have known better than to take three insanely tired children to a cookout after so much excitement already... but we went anyway! I have no pictures from that part of the night because with all the chaos pictures were the last thing on my mind. In short, Brodey jumped in the pool.. pulled the pool vacuum up to the surface and then SOAKED Lyla and I with the vacuum hose. (In true Lyla form, she was not fazed at all.. even though we were BOTH completely soaking wet.) When we finally gave up and called it a night we left VERY un-gracefully with three screaming children and armloads of bags/blankets/shoes/clothes and dropping things left and right. Not our finest moment. (but makes me smile to think about! ha!)

We got home and bathed the kids... put 2 out of three to bed and then Jeff and Brodey went back out to watch fireworks on the lake. I don't know anything about this part of the night (I was blissfully asleep within minutes of them leaving!)... but these are a few of the pictures Jeff came home with...

Happy 4th of July!!

6 months of Brodey pictures

I finally got around to uploading the pictures from Brodey's camera.. there are almost 400!! (no less than 75 of the ceiling fan in his room) So fun to look through... I guess the last time I uploaded them was around Christmas! Some of these things I don't have any idea when they happened... but are fun to document anyway.

Here we have Lyndsay playing puzzles with Lyla.

Gramma Hat visited last month and Brodey got some fun shots of her playing with Cooper and Brock.

We love crazy Gramma Hat

Here's me and Lyla snuggling in Brock's bed before nap time one afternoon.

And me snuggling Brock on the floor after a fall...

Ninja turtles

Maddy came for playgroup... Brock took like 47 pictures of her. He loves her.

Lyla chewing a ninja turtle

Sadie

Brock riding in the car

Lyla riding in the car

close up of Brock's foot

Family Vacation (Relocation)

I have a friend that also has 3 small kids that refers to family vacations as relocations. I agree. Vacations aren't much for relaxing anymore.... more so just packing up everything you own, traveling a long way, and then do daily tasks somewhere else. You go into it knowing a lot of work is involved. But we still had a VERY FUN time! (and maybe some not so fun times.)















Friday night before we were to leave for the beach Brock came down with a high fever. After doctor's hours, of course. He was feeling so bad we debated not going at all, but after some Tylenol and a breathing treatment he seemed to be feeling much better. (He slept in our bed so I could listen to his breathing... after a scare last year, this is how we do things when Brock gets sick). As anyone who has ever given a 2 year old an Abuterol breathing treatment knows, he was VERY chatty for the rest of the night and kept us up all night laughing at the crazy things he was talking about. Anyhow... even though the fever was not gone in the morning and we were all very tired, he seemed to be okay for travel. I diagnosed him with "Roseola" (yes... google diagnosis... I stand by it). We packed up and hit the road.



















One mile down the road (seriously... one mile) Brodey asked for the first time "Are we there yet??" and followed with "this is taking a long time". Repeat that 4,589 times and that's how the rest of the trip went. (Lyla was a rock star... when she wasn't sleeping she looked happily out the window and babbled a bunch of gibberish.) We got to Gulf Shores around 5 ish, ordered a pizza and played in the pool... everyone was happy.















The next day was Mother's day! Spent the whole day on the beach.. it was fantastic. Lyla was awesome... playing and taking naps in her little pool under the umbrella, Brock played with a bucket of water next to me (so easily entertained!) and Brodey swam in the ocean with Jeff. We went out to eat that night at a fun family place. There is a huge sand pile in the middle for kids to play in while you wait... genius. Anyhow.. after we ate I was standing up talking to a woman at a table near us (who's daughter's name was Lyla!) when Brodey walked over and threw up on my feet. Then turned and threw up in Jeff's direction. Then looked at us and said, "I feel better... can we go back to the beach now?". Happy Mother's Day to me! As a friend pointed out, he must have been getting me back for leaving him at school last week. He's always been a random puker, so we knew he was fine.. but definitely got out of there as fast as possible!















Other fun things that happened... Brodey made a friend on the first day, a 4 year old girl named Taylor, and they played together all week. At the end of the week Jeff asked Brodey what his favorite part of vacation was and he said, "playing with Taylor". Jeff: "you mean playing with daddy, right?". Brodey: "no, playing with Taylor." So we are officially no longer the funnest people in his life... we thought we had longer!




One morning we went out for breakfast and Brodey insisted he sit next to Lyla. Jeff gave her a coffee creamer to play with and she stuck it in her mouth like a passy. A few seconds later she popped the creamer and it burst all over Brodey's face... I got a cute picture and even Lyla thought it was hilarious.



Lyla was a huge hit at the beach. Several people commented on how laid back she was and how well she behaved on the beach. She was so content when she was awake and took really long (2+ hour) naps right there next to me. I read a whole magazine one afternoon! It was amazing! The boys were both crawling the first time they went to the beach... not so much fun. Lots of sand. Lyla is not crawling yet so was very happy to just sit and look around. She's my kind of vacation-er, lots of sleeping, lots of eating, and lots of taking in pretty scenery!


The trip back went pretty well... everyone was so sleepy! Brock was all healed up, but Brodey and I both lost our voices and Lyla started running a fever the next day. I guess there is no avoiding it when you have so many kids. We had a great time and are so thankful for the opportunity to take a vacation.... and for the amazing weather! Low 80's and sunny everyday!