Teeee-riffic!!!!!

On Saturday, we celebrated Henderson and his cousin Stanton's 2nd birthday!!!!! It was a Barney party of course, because that is the one movie that can hold their attention for 30 minutes!!!! There's just something about that big purple dinosaur....

Stanton and Henderson are 1st cousins born 2 weeks apart (his mom, Ellen, and my husband, Will, are sister and brother) - we live about a mile from them and are together very often. Then there are Mills and Wilson who are 6 weeks apart in age and Patton and Emma Claire who are 5 weeks apart in age. Only Mills and Wilson were planned that way - isn't God great?

The 2 birthday boys playing in the cooler - making a mess as usual!!!!

Chandler (the oldest of the cousins), Mary Alice (friend), and Emma Claire

They LOVE to swing this way~

Birthday Song time!!!!

The birthday boys and Mommas!!!!

(how in the world do you spell "momma'? Mama, Mamma, Momma, Moma,
Spell check wasn't much help either!!!?????)

Henderson can swing for hours and hours and hours....

We had the party at a neighborhood church playground and added a jump castle borrowed from a friend. The day was absolutely beautiful ~ 75 degrees!!!!

Party favors were sand buckets and shovels and they were put to good use in the rock pile!!!!

Happy 2nd Birthday Henderson and Stanton - I love you both!!!!

After the party, Emma Claire and Mary Alice had a swim party to go to at the University Outdoor Rec Pool and they FROZE (where did all this cold weather come from?)- but they had a blast and swam anyway - tough girls!!!!!!!!

Then we celebrated a GREAT Mother's Day with all the mothers, including the newest one, my sister who is due in September!!!! I'm so excited for Katie and can't wait to get my newborn baby fix by loving on little Charlie ALL.THE.TIME!!!!! Katie and Matt live about a mile from us and we are thrilled!!!!

Mother's Day Portraits

We had some portraits of the children done for Mother's Day and I think they turned out GREAT! I had this one taken of Emma Claire because I know any day now those pretty baby teeth are coming out - and it's never the same after that!!!!

The next picture is a gold mine. There is NOTHING fun about taking small children in for pictures. NOTHING. To make matters worse, Henderson was TERRIFIED of the backdrop that came down from the ceiling - TERRIFIED!!!!!! We managed to trick him into smiling by acting the fool behind the camera and playing ball with him. But he wasn't to be tricked for long - he was HYSTERICAL - we didn't get any more pictures of him after this shot. He wouldn't even let me hold him and take a picture. But thank goodness for the ONE!!! I think it turned out darling!!!!


If you follow Abby's blog, you'll notice that Henderson (my youngest) and Mary Aplin (Abby's youngest) share a striking resemblance - they could be twins!!!!! If you don't follow Abby's blog, you should - it is an amazing portrayal of a woman of great faith, raising 2 beautiful daughters,
being the wife of a busy orthopaedic intern, being a wonderful sister, friend, daughter and
daughter-in-law and very soon moving all the way to Seattle!!!! Abby is a phenomenal writer!!! She will bring you to happy and sad tears all at once and she can paint a picture with words like I have never seen!!!! She and I grew up in Dothan together, along with her husband Jeremiah. They are both AMAZING people with indescribable gifts!!!!