Mia's Much Belated Birthday Pictures

The first few are just random shots, but the rest are from Mia's birthday party. We planned it marvelously, but it ended up raining the whole time. It was super lame, but the kids all had a great time anyway.

Mia with her second grade teacher Mrs. Sokol at Field Day

A playdate in the back yard

Shelby made this flower wreath out of a vine he was trimming in the back yard. Mia wore it all day and loved it.

Everyone arriving. Mia wanted to dress like Princess Buttercup. Her size 4T flower girl dress was the best she came up with.

We threw darts at pictures of Count Rugen

Claire had this craft fair tent that came in super handy for us adults. The kids didn't really mind getting rained on, but we mostly hung out under the tent

Mateus dressed as Inigo Montoya in front of the party favors table

These meatballs were so yummy!

We had to buy special chocolates online to make sure they were not contaminated with nuts to make it safe for one of Mia's best friends who has a nut allergy

Trader Joe's blueberry juice

We came across the recipe for this coconut cake at the dentist and it just looked irrisistible. The icing was a bit of a challenge, but it turned out pretty well.

The wagon of gifts

One of the moms said this group looked like the Lost Kids from Peter Pan

Visit With Papa and Nana Part III

With the camping trip over, we decided to go back to Papa and Nana's house and spend lots of time swimming in the pool. One day we went to this awesome park in Plano. It was so fantastic. I wish we had a park like that here.

Mia's arm didn't slow her down for one second the whole time she had it on.

I can't tell you how nice it was to finally have Shelby with me to help out with the kids after being away from him for three weeks.

We were able to make it out to Greenville one more time. Shelby hadn't seen Gran Gran and Pepa in 18 months so we had to make sure he got to see them while he was in town.

The kids loved these giant slices of delicious watermelon

Lennon wanted to churn some butter

Uncle Jeremy offered to help Lennon with some sand art so that I could spend some time hanging out with the adults in the pool

Papa stopped by the craft station for a bit

Last November when Jaclyn and Emma came to visit we bought some gingerbread houses but we messed them up somehow, so as soon as Jaclyn got home to Texas she bought some and saved them until our summer visit.

Papa stuck a gingerbread man to his head using icing as glue

I love this silly picture of Mia with Papa

Jackson practically attacked Papa to lick to icing off his forehead

More sand art fun. We had to go to the craft store twice because these kids were going through sand art so fast. They couldn't get enough of it.

Visit With Papa and Nana Part II

The Camping Trip

Unfortunately, the camping trip was cut short. It was about a million degrees and there were flies all over everything all the time. The site was beautiful and we had tons of fun, but in the end it was just too hot.

Baron smiling as usual in the scorching heat of a late July heat wave in Oklahoma.

Mia has always loved dogs and spent a good deal of her time on the trip cuddling and playing the three dogs along for all the fun.

Jess was great with little Baron.

Lennon really warmed up to Papa on this visit. Papa took him down to the showers at the camp ground and he had a blast. He hardly even lets Shelby bathe him at home, so leaving me to go to the showers with Papa was a really really big deal.

Mia loved staying up late and having roasted toasted coconut marshmallows at night.

The morning routine. Just hanging out by the fire, even though it was a bazilion degrees.

One of the best parts of the trip was renting to boat. All the kids took turns helping to drive the boat. Papa was very patient with the boys who were a little crazy as usual.

We docked the boat at one p0int to try some fishing. I can't remember if we caught anything with the fishing poles, but Jay caught one of the fish with his right nipple climbing back into the boat at one point.

Sweet little Mia with her Papa

Visit With Papa and Nana Part I

We got to see even more of Baron when we were staying with Papa. Jay and Hillary had stopped car shopping for a bit, so they were around a lot more. He changed so much just in the few weeks we were in town. He got so much more social and smiley. I took tons of pictures of him, but I'll just post a few of the best ones.

A baby who is happy in a saucer is such a treat!

Lennon soothing himself in Nana's rocker.

These boys are going to be best friends

Aunt Sissy pile

The boys were showing us their face that they'd "give to the ladies"

Quite the lady killer

Mia getting some cuddles with Uncle Jay. It's pretty awesome that he didn't get a job until we left Texas so that we got to spend so much more time with him than if he'd had a job.

We got tons of play time in with Emma, as much as we could. She and Mia had so much fun together and were super silly all the time!

I got this photo just before the boys got into huge trouble throwing as much mulch into the pool and spa as they could. Awesome boys.

They figured out that if they wet the chalk they could use it as body paint. Most of the children were covered in chalky paint by the end of the afternoon.

Sweet boy. Always smiling

All the grandkids plus Emma in the hot tub at once. Impossible to get them all smiling

Another smiling pic of Baron with Nana

On Sunday Papa, Nana and Mia headed out to our camp site in Oklahoma, but Lennon and I weren't going up until the next day, so for dinner we went out to Greenville. Granmommy, LeNan, Peyton and Reagan were passing through on their way from San Antonio to Nashville so we met up with them for dinner at Gran Gran and Pepa's house.

Lennon was in an awesome mood that night.

The whole week we were at Disney, Lennon and Reagan hardly noticed each other, but this day when we walked through the door they were immediately drawn to each other. It was like they were old friends. They ran around and played and had a ball the whole time we were there. It was so fun watching them enjoy each other so much.

Taking a break from watching Dinosaur to give the camera a smile

This was the best shot I could get of all three kids.