Girls Lake day...

One of my best friend's parents have a beautiful lake house on C'da lake. Last year she did a girls lake day and I wasn't able to make it and was so bummed! I was, however able to make it this year for the girls lake day and it was so nice! I felt kind of guilty getting a babysitter all day to do my job, but it was worth every single penny! We had a blast!

We literally just hung out on the dock, ate, boated and swam all day. It was pure bliss. 

The ladies...Abbey, Meg, Angie, Nicole, Sarah, Whitney and Michelle:

Meg, Angie and Michelle on the tube:

getting a little crazy:

Angie caught this super awesome shot of me on the tube! I swear he had it in for me!!! :)

After a perfect kid free day of relaxing on the lake, we ended it with dinner at Tomato street. It was delightful! Next year we're thinking it should be an overnight extravaganza! Can't wait!

End of July...

We flew in so late from Alabama that we just went straight to bed. The next morning when I went in to get some laundry done, I was TOTALLY shocked to see these two new beauties in my laundry room. Can you say best husband ever???!!! :) Laundry just got a whole lot better around here.

We came home to our awesome raspberry bushes brimming over with berries! We had so many yummy berries! And...Carter and Chase were still in town from before we left, so we got a few more days with them before they left!!! Carter helped us pick raspberries...

Next year I need to do some serious trimming to those bushes, there were a ton of berries, but even more dead vines and bushes intertwined...

Of course, we had to get some cafe rio before they left! We love crushed ice from Cafe Rio! Also, we love to wear gymnastics leotards all day long!!! :)

Selfie with my little snuggle bug:

This guy's birthday is at the end of July. We love this guy so much! We are so lucky that he is so close and we get to see him all the time. What would we do without Papa around??? We got to celebrate with him at our favorite, Rancho Viejo...

Jackson was excited about it! :) ha ha

A few days after I got back, they asked me to take some pictures at our Stake Pioneer day celebration. It was a beautiful day. I love our stake. As much as I always talk about how I would love to go somewhere new and exciting, (which I would) There is always part of me that loves how much this feels like home to me.

Good thing Heather and Jevon were there to help me with the littles, as I had to take pictures and was running around everywhere, they totally took care of and fed my children for me!!! Taylor wasn't as excited as I was to be there! :)

This year they had their first annual 5k run. It was so much fun to get pictures of! Maybe next year I'll be ready to run it, but for this year, I was happy to be at the finish line behind the camera!

The Appletons in our branch crossing the finish line! woo-hoo!!! Nadia is one of my most favorite people ever!

Brett and Natalie Clark crossing the finish line. It's so fun to have so many friends in our stake.

After the Stake celebration, we had a baby shower for Carmen in our branch. I love our branch family so much! Hna. Cabrera made us some El Salvadorian food that was delicious!!! I want to say they were Pupusa's but I could totally be wrong! I have the worst memory!

The gang:

We played a game about the things in our purse, to see who had the most junk in their purse. Melissa won by a landslide! :) It was hilarious watching her pull out all of these random things. I really think she had almost every single item on the list!!! Here is her one article of clothing, a sock! :)

We got back into the swing of things with gymnastics, after being gone a few weeks, we had a few classes to make up. (they made me pay for the month of July but let her make up the classes she missed.)

And Jackson, the ever so devoted brother watching her from the sidelines, in his pose, of course!

Tucker went to play with Owen one day and came home with this. He said that one of their neighbors was having a yard sale so they went over to take a look and she got this for Tucker for a dollar!!! I was totally annoyed at first thinking I didn't want any more toys in this house, but after we put it together and saw that it really worked and is totally COOL, I was glad she got it at such a steal! It still is a favorite! I love finds like these! And it plays music which my music loving kids love!

We had to borrow Papa's truck so often this summer for random car problems, that this was one of the times we had it. Jackson is making himself at home! :)

Getting ready for church:

We mostly just relaxed and tried to recover from our trip the last few weeks of July. I love me some lazy summer days!

Home again home again jiggity jig...

It's a good thing my kids are such good travelers, because I travel A LOT with just them. I couldn't do it if they weren't so good! Tucker is always a huge help with Jackson and I appreciate that so much!!!

Of course, I always stock up on dollar store items to keep them entertainted and as busy as I can while we are traveling. Dollar store glo sticks are the BEST!

And even when I don't need him to be helping me, he is so good about keeping himself entertained! I can't believe he's so big already!!!

Or sometimes double duty, playing and helping me watch Jackson! :) ha ha I ran to the bathroom with Taylor and came back to this. Just holding his hand out, in case! :)

Woah! What's going on out there???!!! :)

All of them are pretty great travelers and pretty flexible, so that's nice! :) It's always good to be home!!! No matter how much we love to be with our cousins! And to see daddy, since he wasn't there for most of the trip with us this year!!! These guys love and need their daddy, that's for sure!

Cousin time fun...

Grandma's house isn't all about work, though! These guys know how to have fun!!!

These sweet cousins went right back to where they left off, and had so much fun together.

And, of course, Jackson was the favorite, and all the big boy cousins just loved him.

It's not grandma's house without cousin bath times...(Poor Taylor and her burn...not winning any mom awards here)

And, of course, cousin slumber parties. We were upstairs where there's a few extra beds, but still, these boys love to be together! I hope they never grow out of being best cousin friends!

Lots of Kindle time. With so many kids and mama's needing a break, the kids tend to get plenty of Kindle time during the day when it's too hot to go outside. They take turns since there's only a few Kindles and lots of them...

These two cute cousins always together in this chair. I will be sad when they can't fit in this chair together anymore!!!

These two being their crazy self's dancing around in underwear (Elijah anyway) and having a good time!

In the chair again, always together, these two...

One Sunday afternoon, we even got to skype Kaiya, our English cousin! :) Meribeth and Riley are living in England for the next few years, and we SO miss Kiaya (and Meribeth and Riley, too!) during our trips down there!

Lovely ladies, we miss SO much!

It's just not the same at Grandma's house without Kaiya! I love that girl so much! :)

And here's the view out of their apartment (flat) window. The North Sea. They live on the Northeast coast of England. Looks pretty amazing to me! Now I just need to convince Ben we need to plan a trip over there while they are there!!! :) Great excuse, right!?

The best seat in the house for the Lego movie!

Matching jammie cousins:

Of course, there are always treats at grandma's. Homemade, decorated rice krispy treats, doesn't get much better than that!!! 

We sure love these cousins of ours!!!

Workin' hard...

Grandma's big project while we were there this summer, is that she wanted to get her house painted. We thought that between the 4 of us adults, me, grandma, Lynlee and Terra, we'd have enough man power to get it done, and keep track of the kids. We totally thought wrong. We went out a few days and attempted work, but it was SO hard with the kids, that we would mostly end up taking care of the kids while grandma worked on it by herself, which wasn't any help at all to her. Then we thought we'd do it after the kids were in bed, but usually by then we were so exhausted, we just collapse on the couches and watch a good 'snapped' episode. So, we go a little done for her, mostly just some chipping away at the old paint, and then we got the porch painted. That left three other sides of her house that needed to be done. Sorry we weren't much help this summer, grandma!

Grandma up on the ladder to paint the eves:

We did put the big boys to work, chipping off the old paint of grandma's rocking chairs and giving them a nice new coat of fresh paint.

Silly boys!

Of course, they were easily distracted and we would often time find them just out playing after just a few minutes of actual work!

A closer look at the above picture, they are floating their shoes!? Really, boys are so strange to me, sometimes! :) But I love 'em!

More of grandma's beautiful garden:

Outside fun...

We always spend lots of time outside when in Alabama. It's just the way life is down there. I love the fresh air and that I don't always have to have a jacket on of some sort! I am a warm weather girl, which always makes me wonder why we live in Spokane! :)

Loving' him some more tractor rides!

Angelynna and Elijah enjoying a tractor ride, too! Love those cute faces!

And I just love my mother in law's back garden area. It is so beautiful! I am constantly amazed at the beauty in Alabama. I never even knew or would have thought of, until I married an Alabama boy.

The shed:

There's a rickety old swingset down there that the kids love to play on. Grandma had to have a turn!

And, of course, we have to do the annual bonfire of the debris we clean up, and trash. It's tradition and we have to do it every year. The kids look forward to their s'mores every year!

I'm sure she would kill me if she knew I was posting this on the internet, but I just love the pose, grandma! :)

Elijah enjoying his marshmallow in privacy:

Auntie Terra loving her some Jackson:

These two, I love them! :) Best buds!

Relaxing by the fire:

Photos of the kids...

Like I said before, Wetumpka is such a charming little town, and the downtown is full of great places to take photos of the kids. I always want to head down there, and somehow it never happens so we end up doing them at my In-Law's property. (which is also beautiful)  This year we did go down to get some photos. And while the weather was warm, it totally started sprinkling. But for the most part, the kids were champs and humored us for the few minutes we were down there doing pictures. I did get ONE good one of my kids, that was good enough for me! :)

By this point Tucker was starting to be a pill and not wanting to do any more pictures. It had been like 2 minutes! But I still really liked this one, even though Tucker isn't smiling.

This happy boy was the perfect client! :) I love that fat little face and toothy smile so much! :)

This gorgeous lady was perfect! I love these shots of her so much. My little beauty!

This is the ONLY picture I got of Tucker. The one and only one! The little stinker pouted in EVERY SINGLE OTHER ONE!

Elijah, Jonah and Noah were great, and I just love the shots I got of them!

And here are just some of the outtakes of the rest of Tuckers session:

His life is so rough! He has to pose and smile for his mom to take some pictures!

I can't wait to show these to his girlfriends one day!

Meanwhile, these two cute little cousin friends were having a great time trying to 'make each other smile'

I love their sweet little friendship!

Since it had started to rain, we decided to head home, but grandma wanted one really fast with the grandkids who were there, even though it wasn't all of them. It worked out perfectly too, boys were in blue and girls were in coral.

What a handsome bunch!