Watermelon

Watermelon brings so much joy to our family!  Ha!  We seriously love it!  It is our favorite fruit in the summer!  Until next summer!

2nd and 4th!

Summer ended and the first day of school came.  We are always bummed and sad that summer is over.  Laurel is in 4th grade and Savannah is in 2nd.  We were so excited about the teachers they got.  Laurel's teacher is Mrs. Philpot and Savannah got Mrs. Smith.  This is the first year that I did not get pictures with their teachers.  I had all the kids with me when we went to meet their teachers.  Seth usually goes too, but was out of town this year.  Things were a little crazy and I didn't think about bringing the camera.  Seth got to take the girls to school on their first day!  He has never been able to do this, but with his new job he works from home some and this happened to be one of the days he was home.  He got to walk them to their classes.  They were so excited!  Here are some pictures we took before they left.

It was a tough day for Landon and Sawyer.  They missed their sisters so bad!  I captured some of the sweetest pictures when they got home that afternoon.

Sweet reunion!

American Girl Birthday!

On Friday afternoon, Dana came and picked us up!  We were surrounded by some happy, squealing girls!  They were so excited!  We reached the hotel and checked in.  Laurel and Ava got to walk the pink carpet, doing their best princess wave and they checked in by themselves. :)

Then we headed to the room where another surprise was waiting!

 Laurel is saying, "Ummm..... do we get to keep these beds?!"

We didn't tell them until the end of the trip that they did get to take the beds home!

We left and went to the American Girl Store.  You would have thought that we were taking them to Disney World.  They were so excited!  There was so much to see. They did not know where to start!

 The store is so beautiful!  It was like walking through an American Girl museum. 

 Laurel got "McKenna's" ears pierced!  I have to insert a sweet story here.  When we got home from this little trip, Savannah asked her daddy if he could pierce her doll's ears.  She has a Target doll, which she loves very much!  Her daddy got a drill and pierced her doll's ears also. 

After we left the store, we went upstairs in the mall and ate at the food court.

Then they were begging to ride the carousel!

Then we just walked around the mall and acted silly!

We got back to the hotel around 9:00 and changed into our swimsuits to go to the indoor pool.  But before we went there was a knock on the door with another surprise!

They delivered cookies for the girls and their dolls.

The girls swam until 11:00!

We had some worn out, happy girls.  These girls will forever remember this trip!  Happy 10th birthday, Ava and Laurel!

Laurel hit the double digits!

I can't believe that 10 years ago I became a mother.  I remember laying on the bed, breathing through contractions and giggling with Seth and the nurse.  The nurse said that I was the giddiest pregnant woman she had ever seen!  I could not wait to meet this little girl who had been growing and kicking in my belly.  My life has never been the same.  I could not imagine life without her.                  

My friend Dana and I thought it would be fun for Ava and Laurel to have a combined 10th birthday.  We had made plans to take them to the American Girl store in Atlanta and spend the night.  But that trip was going to be 2 weeks after her birthday.  So the night before she turned 10, I had another surprise for her.  The doorbell rang and she went to answer it and Ava and Lily were standing there with their overnight bags!  Her and Savannah were so excited! I thought it would be fun to have Laurel wake up with her best friend on her birthday! 

These sweet girls have known each other since they were three!  They have never gotten into an argument.  They are always so sweet and kind to each other.  I'm so glad that Laurel has a friend like this.


I had the table decorated when she woke up.  Laurel loves flowers and she loves it when we put a tablecloth on the table.  I knew this would make her happy and it did.  We had chocolate muffins!

Laurel blowing her candle out!  Oh my, I love this girl.  She helps me, she loves me unconditionally, she forgives me when I get crazy.  She makes me laugh, so hard!  She takes care of her sister and brothers. 

For the next two weeks, all I heard was, "how many more days before we go to Atlanta?"  The girls and I had never taken a trip by ourselves without the boys.  I was counting the days down too!

A Bridal Tea

My good friend Annie's youngest daughter, Madison got married in August.  At the end of July, Me along with two other friends hosted a bridal tea at my house.  We love this family so much.  Madison was one of my children's babysitters.  Laurel and Savannah had mixed emotions about her getting married! :)  They kept saying, "we are never going to see her again."  "Well, can she still babysit for us?"  So cute.

The bridal tea was at 10:00 on a Saturday morning.  I asked Seth if he would take the kids to Montgomery and spend the night at his dad's house.  I wanted to be able to get the house clean and not have to worry about little ones messing up behind me.  He thought that was a good idea.  Never, ever, have I been here by myself, with no children, over night.  And it was really weird.  I turned the radio up and cleaned and cleaned and no one messed it up!  It was great.  But I will have to admit, I realized I'm not ready to be an empty nester.  Good thing, huh?  Since I have about 20 more years of raising children!

Angela did the decorations.  She is so talented!

 Angela was leaving for the beach that day, so she let me keep all the vases with the flowers.  We got to enjoy these for the next week.

 Oh yeah, we made it a Bridal Tea with your fanciest hat.  Sariah made Madison a really cute hat. 

 Madison with her mom and two sisters.  It was really neat seeing them all interact together.  I've heard lots about each of them from Annie, but have never been around all three at the same time.  I have a lot of respect for Annie and Darryl.  They have done such a good job of raising great girls.  I'm so happy I have her to ask for advice with my own children.

We played a fun game of, how well do you know Spencer?  She had to put a piece of gum in her mouth every time she missed the answer.  She was really cute.

 

 

The Hostesses with Madison.

We are so happy for her!

A conversation with Siri

At the end of the summer, Seth started traveling every week with his job.  Now, I have heard some say that they would love it if their husband traveled. But not this mama! I love having him home every night.  I love seeing his car come down that driveway at the end of the day.  I start singing hallelujahs!  He brings a calmness to the house.  When he travels, I don't cook and the house doesn't seem to stay as neat.  I know that is just pathetic of me but I'm just keeping it real!  I just get out of my routine.

On this particular day, we had all been stuck in the house because of rain.  We were all on each other's nerves.  Sawyer is extra whiny these days and after listening to that all day long, anyone would lose their mind.  Seth had gotten me an ipad a few days earlier.  The kids were fighting over the ipad.  Bless them.  They have been deprived of electronic devices, so who could blame them.  So I snatch the ipad away and told them that none of them would play on it.  The boys were crying, Laurel and Savannah were trying to plead their case.  I was holding the ipad and the kids were all crowded around me.  I hit a button and Siri came on and asked, "what can I help you with?"  I did not know that I had Siri on the Ipad, so I was a little surprised.  The kids were fascinated that this woman was asking me what she could help me with.

I very calmly said, "how can I be a more patient mother?"  And Siri said, "I'm not sure I understand, how cannot be more patient mother."  "Would you like for me to search the web?"  All the kids are around me, looking on with amazement.  All of a sudden Laurel yells, "Yes!"  "Please search the web!"  I started laughing so hard, because I could just imagine Laurel thinking, please help my mommy, whoever you are!

So after Laurel says this, all of a sudden this screen pops up:

 
This was my first time conversing with Siri, so I was pretty amazed myself.  You see, I don't have one of those "smart Phones!"  An upgrade is coming soon! :)  So needless to say, Siri broke the tension in our house that evening. 
Then the kids wanted to take selfies, so that is what we did.

We will call this look: Just trying to survive, at the end of the day, with no daddy coming home!
And, one night when all the kids are in the bed, I should probably read some of the good information that Siri found for me!