Bubbles and Pollen Feet

Twin time last week while Abby Jane was at school...

This was the week that the pollen count broke records. Not even worth hosing down the furniture. Thus the pollen feet.

 Grass is greener.

Playdate extravaganza!

On Monday, we had the second annual playdate extraordinaire at my sweet friend Beth's home in Jacksonville, AL. Last year, all these one year old boys were newborns! This year, sweet little Rinnah was our newborn- just two months old!  

Jackson- 13 months; Cooper- 13 months; Bella Grace- 2 years; Rinnah- 2 months; Abby Jane- 4 years; Blythe- 2 years; Joy- 2 years; Tucker- 13 months!

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Cooper is as photogenic as his beautiful mama!

 Sweet Jackson on the swing!

 Tucker content on his blanket. (Sidenote: this happy kid was hospitalized the next day, Tuesday, for pneumonia, and he just got sent home today. Thankful for his recovery, and a reminder of how tough and resilient kids are- he must not have been feeling well, but he was sure a delight on Monday!)

 Aunt Steph took Abby Jane aside to have some big girl time snuggling Rinnah. It meant the world to Abby Jane to get to hold that beautiful baby girl and help Aunt Steph dress her! Excuse the ragamuffin hair- sometimes we seem get a little impatient with our bows and just prefer the natural look.

GORGEOUS!!!! Steph was one of my roommates- it is such a delight to meet your precious friends' absolutely cherished little ones!

All the big girls having lunch outside.

Em and Bethie- OH I love these girls!! It was such a tease to spend a morning together, but not get to truly catch up. I realized when I got home that I didn't know the answers to most of the questions I wanted to ask of my sweet friends. It was fun just sharing real life (as in a particular pair of two-year-olds being extra dramatic)... and getting to lay eyes on all of these friends and their little people!

Em gave some special love to each twin at different times. I loved them getting to be around girls so dear to me.

We wanted to attempt a pic with the moms in it. This was an Abby Jane shot.  Maybe we'll revisit her as our photographer at a later point.

 Thank goodness for a timer!

My other thought that night was how in college, all we had to do to hang out with each other was walk into the next room, down the hall, or walk over to get coffee together. Now we drive 4 hours for a cumulative 20 minutes of adult conversation! Despite how it takes a little more to make things happen now, I am so grateful for these relationships with women I love so dearly!

Publix Half

Last Sunday was a warm, beautiful day for the Publix Half Marathon. Jake wins all the awards in the world for mobilizing our little family to be there to cheer for me just before the finish line and meet me afterwards! It's so fun to share this exact moment with the girls, and for them to talk about watching Mama and wanting to run, too. 

 The details of my race itself are probably not interesting to most of you, but just for laughs, you should know that the first four miles, my pace was to hit a time eight minutes faster than I actually finished in. The next four miles, my pace would have been for a finish time five minutes faster than I actually finished in. Then the last five miles, I totally fell apart and ended up with the exact same time I ran in the Thanksgiving race. But who's counting, right? :) Whatever. I ran and I finished. I just wish my mom would quit signing up for that hilly son of a gun. As long as my 60-something mom is running it, I have
no excuse.

My good buddy Jeff, who was in a corral behind me, caught up effortlessly on the last mile and tried hard to be my cheerleader and help me finish better, but I was pretty much beyond repair at that point. This photo was after we discovered how disgusting it is for runners to get too close after a  race.

Em is a friend of ours from Auburn. She and her husband were in Jake's masters program, and they started dating the night of our wedding! It was great catching up with her.

 We discovered the fun ponds and fountains at Centennial Olympic Park. Haven't been there in a while, but it was a great venue after the race.

 We kept seeing friends! Traci and I worked together in my favorite nursing job, and we got to see her, our other sweet friend Kelley, and Traci's sweet baby girl, Medley!

 Grammy was greeted by a few of the smaller members of her fan club. They were so excited to see her and tell her good job!

 As always, I'm so proud of my mom! Hope I'm still running when I'm a grandma!

"Brothel" author speaking

Hey y'all! I mentioned this extremely powerful book called "God in a Brothel" earlier in the year. For anyone who is interested, here is a link with more information about a live call tonight at 9 EST with the author of the book, Daniel Walker. He'll share about his experiences as an undercover investigator and will take questions from callers.  It should be a pretty amazing opportunity to hear from a guy who made huge personal sacrifices to help free trafficked women and children.

The rest of St. Pats

Family picnic dinner. Not pictured: all the neighbor kids camping out on the perimeter of our yard to whom we explained a few times that this was going to be a time for just our family.

Daddy decided that the perfect spring family day called for another round of treats, so he emerged from the house with three bowls of ice cream. Here is Blythe contemplating the depth of her love for treats.

We wrapped up the day with watercoloring with our new paint from Andy's goodie buckets. Precious times.

St. Pat's birthdays!

There were a couple a birthdays for boys we love last weekend. Our precious cousin Cade turned FIVE in New Zealand! Which means that he had his first week of kindergarten THIS week. Sounds like it went well- so proud of our grown-up Cade!

Our sweet Andy friend turned four on Saturday as well. He had a fun park birthday party, and we all had a big time! Somehow I managed to not get a pic of Andy and Abby Jane together, but if you follow our blog, you've seen this handsome face more than a few times...

 Nathaniel is Andy's two-year-old brother a.k.a. Joy in a boy body. The two are phenomenally similar.

Singing to the birthday boy...

 Always fun to have Daddy at the park with us!

 After the party festivities was some teeball. Blythe bellied right up...

 and she ran the bases after her monster hit (see the ball right next to the tee).

Janie got in some practice, too, but honestly Andy and his buddy Everett showed the girls how the men do it. We need to practice a little at home, I think.

 Miss Lindsey entertained the littles with bubbles.

 Then the Daddy helicopter started up.

 He had a few takers.

Blythe with her fabulous birthday bucket of delights! 

  We were so thrilled to celebrate one of our very favorite people! I am so, so thankful for friends for my girls with such sweet natures that are such blessings for my girls to be around. You know how there's some children that you wouldn't mind if your child never emulated in any way? Well, Andy is a kid I like my kids to be around. And his mom's pretty special herself. So it runs in the family.