Summer Fun in Little Rock (July 20-24)

Warning: massive picture overload! I loaded up the kids and headed to Little Rock for a summer play date with my sis-in-law and her three boys. DeDe & Pops blessed us with several kiddo free days before the trip. Bliss! This was our first and only pool trip to LR for the summer. I'm sad it's over-- the kids were in heaven! And, the biggest blessing is that ABCDE are on the gluten free diet too so we were able to cook for the kids, share recipes and learn from each other. That was awesome! You will see from the pics that we spent the entire week in the pool. I just have to brag on my 2 fish, I mean kids. They are amazing in the water! Alex can swim all the way to the bottom of the deep end to find rings, she did cannonballs and was totally independent. Carson was a STUD in the pool. With just 2 floaties on, the boy figured out how to balance himself and also how to kick and swim to the things he wanted. He was such a pleasure in the pool which made it fun for everyone. Check out the pics!

Pops' princess. She melts his butter big time :)

CANNONBAAAALLLLL!
Alex chunking a Barbie in the pool

Sweet Carson (22 months)

Eat this kid up!!!!!

More photo experiments (kids had a tan which helped this time)

Carson, the explorer

Ahh! I love my baby boy!!

Sweet moments

Mommy & Carson get some fun time in the water

Big boy on his own

My fish

Swim date at the Finley Farm: NINE children!!! Insane, but awesome.

Our girl in action

Check out that action shot. My nephews are incredible in the water.

Alex conquers the slide.

Caden was beyond amazing with Alex. He was so sweet with her.

Aunt Onnie shares her hat with Alex :)

Chubber thighs!

My mermaid

DeDe & Alex get some princess bonding in

Mommy with her kids

Hysterical! Check out that body language

All 5 cousins in the pool

Pops with his 4th grandson

Zhu Zhu pet competitions

Kids playing on DeDe's iPad (a huge hit)

Pops and Alex's nightly ritual: strawberry ice cream

Aunt Onnie with all the kids

DeDe and Carson had a great time in the water together

Look at all these boys. Don't be fooled: Alex can hold her own!

Sweet Caden gave Alex many piggy back rides

Onnie with the kids

Aunt Onnie and Alex get some cuddles in

Sisters & Sistas! (This is actually at Deb's bday party but it qualifies for Summer LR pics)

Awesome, awesome times!

Dallas World Aquarium, July 5th

My precious "niece" Nikki came to stay with us for 6 days (July 3-8). Nikki is Scott's daughter (my cousin), but it's just easier for her to call me Aunt Missy. We loved having her company! She is such an amazing help with our kids! We had a very event-filled week, and one of the highlights was taking the whole fam to the Dallas World Aquarium. We all had a blast. Alex certainly enjoyed it the most. Carson was pretty much along for the ride, but he did love the huge fish tank and tracked some of the sharks. Of course, the highlights for Alex were the birds, not the fish. HA! Here are a few pics from our day:

We ran into Matt McClard with his two kids. Here is a pic of Alex and Hayden. They were so cute together!

Alex with the penguins
The whole family

Mommy and daughter share some special moments

I love this pic of all of us

You can see Carson loved the big tank and tracked several turtles, sharks, and grouper

Sweet girl poses with the Otters

Probably Alex's favorite moment-- feeding the tropical birds. She fed them blueberries by hand.

Posing with a bird. She made us take pics by every single bird.

We had an awesome time!

Ghetto Princess Strikes Again!

Alex is at it again...she cracks us up! She ran to her playroom and told us we were not allowed to enter. She was putting on her costume to give us a concert. Here's the result:

Such passion as she sings "You Raise Me Up" by Josh Groban. She sings "You Raise Me On!"- ha!

Ghetto princess

Seriously, the accessories weigh more than Alex

Ha! This reminds me of "Vogue"-- strike a pose girl!

I love her creativity and imagination!

Deb does Dallas (June 4-6)

Andrea and I decided to blow it out for Deb's 60th birthday. We both know how amazingly blessed we are to have Deb as our "God-chosen" mother, and we wanted to show her how much she means to us by taking a whole weekend and spoiling her rotten. Andrea & I got to fully reap the benefits as well. I wish I had more pics but here is the recap:
Friday night:

Deb & Andrea arrive. We all get dressed and she thinks we are going to dinner and a movie. As soon as we got in my car, we blindfolded Deb! It was hilarious. We told her she was on a need to know basis. We rolled down the windows, honked and shouted for people to look at the birthday girl. She was so embarrassed. It was greatness! She had no idea we had a PARTY waiting for her. We rented out the entire "Painting with a Twist" studio. One of Deb's passions is to paint and she's told us how much she wants to own a Painting with a Twist franchise. So we called up her best friend from first grade, family members and some of my friends, and put together an amazing evening. We had her very favorite birthday cake from childhood, a strawberry cake with strawberry icing (from Magnolia Bakery), pizza and more wine than anyone could handle.
When we arrived at Painting with a Twist, we left Deb in car and shouted, "sit and behave" while we frantically decorated and got everyone situated. We walked Deb in and took her blindfold off and she looked around and realized where we were and freaked out! Then, we spun her around and the whole group yelled, "SURPRISE!!!" It was perfect.
We chose the painting "Three Poppies" for a very specific purpose. The three poppies represented Deb, Andrea, and I. While in Italy, we were called the "Three Goddesses of Italy" and posed for several pictures like the famous statues. We also bought leather books with the Goddesses, so it's been a recurring theme for us. "Three Poppies" is a beautiful painting!
We had a blast painting all night long. I don't think I've ever painted like that before. It was so fun and relaxing and cathartic. Here are a few pictures from our night:

Blindfolding the birthday girl

Our entire paint party

Andrea, Erin, Deb & Mel show off their works of art

Saturday:
We woke up early and headed out for the day. We had to blind Deb AGAIN and leave her in the car so we could get all of our suitcases packed. She thought we were staying at my house and that we were headed out for a shopping day. We had a "little"more action up our sleeves.
We arrived at Hotel ZaZa in downtown Dallas and immediately rushed Deb to the spa. We all three changed into robes and started an entire day of pampering. Deb had a facial, pedicure and a bathing ritual with an hour massage. ROUGH DAY, huh?
Andrea had reflexology and a massage with a pedicure.
I enjoyed a facial and a bathing ritual with an hour massage. I think it was the best massage I've ever had. Andrea had her anniversary and birthday in May and so did I, so we've been saving for months and used our holiday money to enjoy the spa experience as well. We were all so relaxed and chill. We kept the surprises coming by having the staff prepare a special lunch with roses and a chocolate cake. Words can't describe how cush, awesome, and crazy cool ZaZa was. The spa was insane. The food was killer and the company was perfection. Deb assumed we were headed back to the house after our spa services.
While Deb finished up her massage, Andrea and I ran and got the hotel room all ready to go. We blindfolded her, once again. and brought her up to our room. We had sparking apple cider, magazines, junk food and presents waiting. Oh and the room wasn't so bad either ;)
She was so surprised! It was awesome!
Later that night, we got all dressed up and had a fantastic dinner at Palomino at the Crescent.
We walked around, took pictures and had a blast just catching up. Later that night we went back to the room and talked until 2:00 in the morning. We had some tear-jerking discussions (all great!) and thanked God for our relationship. We know we have something truly special.

Sunday morning we woke up, checked out of the hotel (sadness) and went to Cafe Express for a patio lunch. We decided to cram one last event into our day, by going to the Inwood theatre and watching "Killers." I had never been to Inwood before-- we sat on couches instead of typical theatre seats. How fun! We walked around and shopped and grabbed a few prizes for the kids and then Nathan and the kids came to pick me up. I have to give Nathan huge props-- he kept the kids the whole weekend, was such a great host and took care of us girls too. Love you babe! Thanks as always for giving me breaks and time to enjoy the fam!

At the spa getting pampered

In the ZaZa lobby headed out for dinner

It was one of the best weekends of my life. Thanks to Deb and Andrea for making the drive to the big D. I love you both more than you'll ever know!

Introducing...

Sophia Noelle Worley was born June 22 at 10:12am. She weighed 7lbs, 4oz and measured 19 inches long. She is absolutely beautiful and has lots of dark hair just like her big sister. Labor and delivery went well, and Jaime did it all without drugs. What a stud! The best part for us is that the Worley family asked us to be Sophie's Godparents. We are so honored to be in her life in such a special way. I was overwhelmed with emotion when I held her for the first time. It was magical. Here are two pics from Sophie's birthday:


Sophie,
You are a little miracle. It would be impossible to try and count the prayers we said for you...well before you joined us. You are a part of a wonderful family and we are so excited to watch you grow up to be a beautiful young lady!